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Ender's Game
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Ender's Game

Ender's Game (1985) is the best-known novel by Orson Scott Card. It originated as a science fiction short story in Analog Magazine (1977) and is set in a future where mankind is facing annihilation by an aggressive alien society, an insect-like race known colloquially as "Buggers" but more formally as "Formics." Genius children are seen as the ultimate leaders of the protection of Earth and are recruited into training for an upcoming battle against the alien race. Card later expanded the novel into the Ender's Game series.

Table of contents
1 Overview
2 Character List
3 The series
4 The Movie
5 ISBN numbers
6 External link

Overview

Warning: Plot details follow.

The protagonist, Andrew 'Ender' Wiggin, is one of these child soldiers. He is recruited at an unusually young age because of his extremely high aptitude for tactics and leadership. He is sent for training at Battle School, where he learns to fight and to lead armies. Meanwhile, his psychological development is revealed through a computer game embedded in the school's computer network, and manipulated to a large extent by the cynical Colonel Hyrum Graff, who runs the school.

The original short story is merely a snapshot of Ender's experiences in Battle School; the full-length novel is a deeper and more complex work dealing with Ender's life before, during and after Battle School, and the consequences of his final battle with the alien 'Buggers'.

Ender's Game was the winner of the Hugo Award for best novel in 1986 and the Nebula Award for best novel in 1985, the two most prestigious awards in science fiction. It was reprinted in a slightly revised edition in 1991.

Some military colleges have used Ender's Game as a textbook on leadership.

Character List

Wiggin Family

Battle School Characters

The series

Card went back and expanded the short story into a novel after realizing that he wanted to use Ender as a main character in another novel, Speaker for the Dead. That novel takes place several thousand years later. Card then added two sequels: Xenocide and Children of the Mind. Starting with Ender's Shadow, three (soon to be four) more novels have been released which tell the story of the people whom Ender left behind--this has been dubbed the Shadow series (also known as the "Bean Quartet") . Ender's Shadow is a parallel novel to Ender's Game, telling many of the same events from the perspective of Bean, a mostly peripheral character in Ender's Game. Card has also written three short stories set in the Ender universe: The Polish Boy, about Ender's father, John Paul Wiggin; The Investment Counselor, about Jane, a digital sentience; and Teacher's Pest, about the first meeting of Ender's parents. All three have been published along with the original Ender's Game short story in the book First Meetings.

The Movie

An Ender's Game movie is currently in production. It is being produced by Fresco Pictures in conjunction with Warner Brothers; the director is to be Wolfgang Petersen.

Currently there is no schedualed release date. The Fresco Pictures website estimated that the film will be released in two to four years as of November 2002, but this may be subject to change. The author-written screenplay was finished and submitted to Warner Brothers by Orson Scott Card in May 2003.

The final film's story line will be a fusion between Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, focusing on the important elements of both. There may also be new elements and/or plots added to the film.

ISBN numbers

External link


Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series
Ender Quartet
Ender's Game | Speaker for the Dead | Xenocide | Children of the Mind
Bean Quartet
Ender's Shadow | Shadow of the Hegemon | Shadow Puppets | Shadow of the Giant
Short stories
First Meetings: "The Polish Boy" | "Teacher's Pest" | "The Investment Counselor"
Ender's Game series characters
Bean | Achilles de Flandres | Hyrum Graff | Jane | Mazer Rackham | Ender Wiggin | John Paul Wiggin | Peter Wiggin | Theresa Wiggin | Valentine Wiggin
Connected to Ender's Game universe
Ansible | Battle School | Dragon Army | Molecular Disrupter Device | Stark