h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: 'Ender's Game' by Orson Scott Card - A937703
Author: Jessie, queen of the strange - Nirvana rocks my socks! - U203950

Hello everyone. This is an entry about my favorite book. Comments would be nice.

Yay! Someone's written an entry on Ender's Game! It's one of my favourite books as well. Unfortunately I haven't read it for a while now, so I don't think I can make much constructive criticism on the article really. The blurb sounds about right, and I like the way that you've not spoilt the plot, since the twist at the end is what make it worth reading! Nice description of OSC's writing.

However, from what I know about h2g2's standards (which isn't much - I've only been here 6 weeks), I think they'll want you to take the first person part ('And I should know. I spent most of my childhood wondering why people acted so stupid' and 'this researcher has heard rumors...') and replace it with something less personal (perhaps 'there are rumors that...' for example) and third person.

Nice concise article though. Perhaps a little more on why OSC's writing is so good at being 'accurate and non-condescending' would be nice.

Hope that helps.

GSYHIAP :@)

Good Entry!

The only comment I can make is that you shouldn't call the author "Orson" since you are not on first-name terms with him. If you don't want to call him by his full name, call him "Card".

Is anyone aware that Enders Game is being made into a movie?

no, I wasn't aware of that.

When, where, who? etc.etc...

No one really seems to know. I didn't want to put it into the entry because so far, I've only heard speculations.

And the Orson thing: on his website, Hatrack River, he is very involved and everyone tends to refer to him as Papa Orson. I guess I just picked up the first-name thing.

Yay! Good entry.
Well, enough praise, now for my opinion. It's been quite a few years since I read the book, and felt I'd had enough after four and have not considered reading the 'shadow' books, but I feel competent enough to have an opinion.

First: The start of the entry could do more to point out that 'young children' are one part of OSC's tool-box. He's written excellent stuff that doesn't involve children, although growing up with the weight of the world on your shoulders seems to be a favourite theme.

You should flip the next two paragraphs around, you should also add a sentence like "One of his most successfull books is Ender's Game, which is about...". Just to let the reader know that the brief intro to OSC is over and the description of the book is about to commence.

"But he doesn't care about his standings, because he has seen through the facade set up by his teachers and knows his true purpose: to defeat the Formics."
As I said, it's been a while since I read the book, and this bit confuses me. I don't know how it would work with someone who remembers the book or someone who hasn't read it, but to someone half-remembering the bits I half-remember it's confusing. I can't decide whether it's a spoiler for something I remember differently, or if I remember correctly and it's a reference to a more subtle plot element that I have forgotten. I'd be more clear but I don't want to write a spoiler for the book, or reveil how mistaken I am in my recollection of the book.

"'Ender's Game' was followed by..." should start a new paragraph, and you might want to mention the publishing dates for the books (1985, 1986, 1991, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2002 according to scifan)

Not remembering much of the book I can't really give good advice on the content, but I feel that perhaps you need more description of the book in an entry just on "Ender's Game" (although I think it's the right focus, writing on the whole series you would have to include spoilers). You could mention that Ender is a third, and possibly that he's really "Andrew". Although I can't remember if a point is made of this in the book and if it would constitute a spoiler. Altogether I think a little more work is necessary to make the information readable to someone not already familiar with the book, but it might just be that I'm dense.

I've read the book and remember it reasonably well.

That sentence "But he doesn't care about his standings, because he has seen through the facade set up by his teachers and knows his true purpose: to defeat the Formics". I don't think it is quite right, because I think all the children are aware they are being trained to fight against the Formics.

Ender may really be Andrew, but I don't think that is an important point.

I think the central paragraph which describes the content of the book needs more fleshing out. You should mention that most of the book is taken up with descriptions of the war games that Ender and his fellow trainees play against each other, first in the free-fall environment and later on the computer screens. This should be interesting reading for teenagers who spend all their time playing computer games and none of it reading.

I've read and loved the book, though it has been a few years so appologies if any of my thoughts are inacurate.

While Enders Game is very orientated around gifted children the majority of his works are not (to the best of my knowledge at least, I have read a number of his books and short stories, but by no means have I managed to aquire them all).

My impression was that Ender fails to see through the games, in fact getting so involved with winning every battle of the games he practically has a break down before he moves on from the free fall games to the computer simulations, though that may just be the must win aspect to Ender. You also make no mention of the game he becomes very involved in, and again the must win aspect to Enders personality is strongly shown there (I can't for the life of me recall if it has any name other than the game, and the oonly part I really remember is the giant...).

It is a wonderfuil book, and O.S. Card a darn fine writer who everyone should read at least something by

Math

Ender does realize that he's being trained to fight the Formics, when they speed up the schedule and start graduating people early. He watches all those vids of Mazer Rackham? To try and catch the Bugger's strategy? Correct me if I'm wrong.

K, I've made some of the suggested changes: listed some more of Orson's books, and added a bit about the two-child rule. I don't want to include stuff about his real name being Andrew, as it just seemed unnecissarily confusing. I sort of liked the way the sentence about finding someone brilliant enough segued into "Meet Ender Wiggin." but maybe it's just my baby and I don't want to change it . . .

My thoughts --

There are also some short stories out there set in this story universe, including (of course) the short story version of Ender's Game which started the whole thing. Wasn't that his first professional sale?

My main problem with this entry is that the first half of the entry focuses on the first handful of chapters in the book. Then there's a few quick sentences which skim over everything else in the book in a leaping bound, and the rest of the entry focuses on other info about Orson Scott Card.

My suggestion would be to leave out the vast bulk OSC info, and make that into a separate entry if you're so inclined. And then to flesh out the information about the book, so that it gives a more balanced view -- a person reading this entry might well think that the whole book was about what happens in the first 2 chapters.

It's also worth getting into that this book deals heavily with the development of Peter and Valentine as well, and the interrelationships between the three.

Just my

Mikey

There are some excellent suggestions in this thread so far, and I'd just like to add a few more:

What you have so far is very good, but I think that you could make your summary more detailed without giving away anything significant. It would be interesting to read more about Ender's experiences at Battleschool (specifically the school's methods of training, Ender's reaction to them, and how he copes with the various "games"). Mikey also mentioned including more about Peter and Valentine, which is a good idea. How do Ender, Peter, and Valentine interact? How do things change after Ender leaves? What about the political situation on Earth, and where do Locke and Demosthenes fit in?

You've got a great start to your article, and I'm really interested in reading what more you have to say about this book. Keep up the good work!

~Renee

Really glad that someone is tackling this as an entry for the Guide.

I loved the book but it is a long time since I read it...but...
I am with Gnomon when he says :
"That sentence "But he doesn't care about his standings, because he has seen through the facade set up by his teachers and knows his true purpose: to defeat the Formics". I don't think it is quite right, because I think all the children are aware they are being trained to fight against the Formics."

I too, thought that all the kids involved believed that they were being trained to fight the Buggers at some point in their future but they didn't realise until very very late on (after a particular huge victory, in fact) just how the real battles were actually being fought. This was a bit of a twist in the story but hardly entirely unexpected.

If Ender began to not care about his standings in the "games", I didn't think that it was because he saw through that particular facade of his teachers. Wasn't it more to do with sheer exhaustion?

The really breathtaking twist for me comes later on and is more to do with Ender's discovery of what certain elements of computer simulations throughout his training really represented and where they had originated from. (It is really hard to write this without including spoilers).

Om

Liked your synopsis
Agree with Mikey the Humming Mouse that it may be worthwhile to split into two (or more) articles - one for OSC and one for the book review of Enders Game (and others for his other books possibly).

You could also make it easier to read by using headers and subheaders

With OSC I'd like to see mention of one of his other excellent series - Tales of Alvin Maker, which of course his Hatrack River site is named for.

I'd warn potential readers that the following books in the Ender series are not as light and easy to read as Enders Game

Note Enders Game film info and updates is now on Hatrack River site.

Hey there, Jessie -- I see from your page that you're still around here at h2g2. Planning on responding to any more of the comments here in the Peer Review thread any time soon?


Mikey

I have recently reread the entire series .. including the Shadow books. For those of you who haven't read them, do. They are written from Bean's point of view. In retrospect, I find it one of the most depressing series of books I have ever read ... but lives of saints are always depressing. It is hard to remember we are talking about children (and we think our children have to grow up too quickly).

A couple of comments on what you wrote.

"But he doesn't care about his standings, because he has seen through the facade set up by his teachers and knows his true purpose: to defeat the Formics."

This doesn't happen until the last battle. Ender is so torn with the knowledge that he is almost unfunctionable.

"...knowing all the while that the decisions they make will affect many lives."

Again, the children have no idea the 'simulations' are real.

A very well thought out article.

Hmmm... the author seems to have unsubcribed from this thread, but is still actively around here at h2g2. I'm going to go pop over and leave a message on her space and ask if she still wants this entry to be in PR or not.

Hmmmm.... The author is still around (last posted yesterday), but not only has she unsubscribed from this thread, she also unsubscribed from the note I left on her space asking if she was planning on returning to the entry.

I hope she wasn't upset by the comments people made here (looking back, I don't see anything that looks offensive), but I think I'm going to assume that this means she's no longer wanting to pursue Peer Review with the entry, but isn't willing to remove the entry from PR herself. Or something.

Anyway, I don't know that it would be appropriate to move the entry to the FM, given that the author clearly isn't AWOL. But, I also don't know that it makes sense for the thread to stay in PR -- there seems to be a consensus here that the entry isn't ready for the EG, and the author isn't here and participating.

So, should we move this thread back to the entry?

It would be nice to take it to the FM if possible - do authors have to be AWOL or simply have to abandon the entry to make it FM eligible?

I'll second your proposal, but let's find out if Anna can put it in the Flea Market. I'm sure someone might want to take it in the future