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The Ender Quartet Box Set
This boxed set contains Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind.
Ender's Game
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.
Speaker for the Dead
In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.
Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.
Xenocide
The war for survival of the planet Lusitania will be fought in the hearts of a child named Gloriously Bright.
On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans and Pequeninos and the Hive Queen could all live together; where three very different intelligent species could find common ground at last. Or so he thought.
Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all humans it infects, but which the Pequeninos require in order to become adults. The Starways Congress so fears the effects of the descolada, should it escape from Lusitania, that they have ordered the destruction of the entire planet, and all who live there. The Fleet is on its way, a second xenocide seems inevitable.
Children of the Mind
The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: the Pequeninos; a large colony of humans; and the Hive Queen, brought there by Ender. But once against the human race has grown fearful; the Starways Congress has gathered a fleet to destroy Lusitania.
Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, can save the three sentient races of Lusitania. She has learned how to move ships outside the universe, and then instantly back to a different world, abolishing the light-speed limit. But it takes all the processing power available to her, and the Starways Congress is shutting down the Net, world by world.
Soon Jane will not be able to move the ships. Ender's children must save her if they are to save themselves.
Ender's Game
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.
Speaker for the Dead
In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.
Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.
Xenocide
The war for survival of the planet Lusitania will be fought in the hearts of a child named Gloriously Bright.
On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans and Pequeninos and the Hive Queen could all live together; where three very different intelligent species could find common ground at last. Or so he thought.
Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all humans it infects, but which the Pequeninos require in order to become adults. The Starways Congress so fears the effects of the descolada, should it escape from Lusitania, that they have ordered the destruction of the entire planet, and all who live there. The Fleet is on its way, a second xenocide seems inevitable.
Children of the Mind
The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: the Pequeninos; a large colony of humans; and the Hive Queen, brought there by Ender. But once against the human race has grown fearful; the Starways Congress has gathered a fleet to destroy Lusitania.
Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, can save the three sentient races of Lusitania. She has learned how to move ships outside the universe, and then instantly back to a different world, abolishing the light-speed limit. But it takes all the processing power available to her, and the Starways Congress is shutting down the Net, world by world.
Soon Jane will not be able to move the ships. Ender's children must save her if they are to save themselves.
1760 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
42 people are currently reading
1552 people want to read
About the author
Orson Scott Card
888 books20.6k followersOrson Scott Card is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is (as of 2023) the only person to have won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for his novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986). A feature film adaptation of Ender's Game, which Card co-produced, was released in 2013. Card also wrote the Locus Fantasy Award-winning series The Tales of Alvin Maker (1987–2003).
Card's fiction often features characters with exceptional gifts who make difficult choices with high stakes. Card has also written political, religious, and social commentary in his columns and other writing; his opposition to homosexuality has provoked public criticism.
Card, who is a great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, was born in Richland, Washington, and grew up in Utah and California. While he was a student at Brigham Young University (BYU), his plays were performed on stage. He served in Brazil as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and headed a community theater for two summers. Card had 27 short stories published between 1978 and 1979, and he won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1978. He earned a master's degree in English from the University of Utah in 1981 and wrote novels in science fiction, fantasy, non-fiction, and historical fiction genres starting in 1979. Card continued to write prolifically, and he has published over 50 novels and 45 short stories.
Card teaches English at Southern Virginia University; he has written two books on creative writing and serves as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest. He has taught many successful writers at his "literary boot camps". He remains a practicing member of the LDS Church and Mormon fiction writers Stephenie Meyer, Brandon Sanderson, and Dave Wolverton have cited his works as a major influence.
Card's fiction often features characters with exceptional gifts who make difficult choices with high stakes. Card has also written political, religious, and social commentary in his columns and other writing; his opposition to homosexuality has provoked public criticism.
Card, who is a great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, was born in Richland, Washington, and grew up in Utah and California. While he was a student at Brigham Young University (BYU), his plays were performed on stage. He served in Brazil as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and headed a community theater for two summers. Card had 27 short stories published between 1978 and 1979, and he won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1978. He earned a master's degree in English from the University of Utah in 1981 and wrote novels in science fiction, fantasy, non-fiction, and historical fiction genres starting in 1979. Card continued to write prolifically, and he has published over 50 novels and 45 short stories.
Card teaches English at Southern Virginia University; he has written two books on creative writing and serves as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest. He has taught many successful writers at his "literary boot camps". He remains a practicing member of the LDS Church and Mormon fiction writers Stephenie Meyer, Brandon Sanderson, and Dave Wolverton have cited his works as a major influence.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
August 22, 2009
One of the best series I have EVER read. They don't have these listed on here separately so here is my individual reviews:
Ender's Game: Excellent plot, character development everything. As woman not into violence and not really into science fiction, I was amazed at how much I could relate to a little boy being trained as a soldier in space.
Speaker for the Dead: you can begin this book without having read Ender's Game. It is a brilliant commentary on enthnocentrism and colonialism.
Xenocide: if you liked the first two books, you have to keep reading. This books gets much more heavily into philosophy, so be prepared to take your time reading it.
Children of the Mind: much more introspective, I loved it. It concludes Ender's story perfectly.
Ender's Game: Excellent plot, character development everything. As woman not into violence and not really into science fiction, I was amazed at how much I could relate to a little boy being trained as a soldier in space.
Speaker for the Dead: you can begin this book without having read Ender's Game. It is a brilliant commentary on enthnocentrism and colonialism.
Xenocide: if you liked the first two books, you have to keep reading. This books gets much more heavily into philosophy, so be prepared to take your time reading it.
Children of the Mind: much more introspective, I loved it. It concludes Ender's story perfectly.
October 20, 2014
Ender's game is the best if the quartet. it is the least offensive. the writing is quite compelling, so reading is not difficult. just have to enjoy the writing and forget about how offensive Card is.
November 12, 2018
The Ender series is a classic that sucks me in even as I reread these books more than a decade after high school. The later books in this series fills me with a curiosity and sends my mind racing about the implications of the concepts and moral dilemmas posed. Before rereading this series I had almost completely been reading non-fiction/business/software engineering books this year. The Ender series gave me a much needed break from the monotony of non-fiction books.
May 14, 2020
Ender and Bean are both geniuses, Ender the leader, Bean the advisor. Bean is a street urchin on Ritterdam, and Ender a child warrior under constant government surveillance. They meet a Battle School a space station made into a school that turns super geniuses, like Ender and Bean, into super warrior/geniuses.
This is a classic story but I found it slow in spots. Still, no doubt about it, compelling.
This is a classic story but I found it slow in spots. Still, no doubt about it, compelling.
January 9, 2024
A re-read of the whole Ender Saga, it's been a long time since I've read this one, and I remembered why and how much I liked it before...
I don't know which one is my favorite book, all of them has characters and parts that both I really enjoyed and parts (or characters) that I really disliked.
Overall a good read :)
I don't know which one is my favorite book, all of them has characters and parts that both I really enjoyed and parts (or characters) that I really disliked.
Overall a good read :)
September 19, 2019
Love the series. Must have read it about 7 times. Ender's Game itself, I've read double that though.
October 25, 2020
Enders Game is a classic Sci-Fi of huge best kind.
August 2, 2021
Ender's Game is a classic and I was not expecting the plot twist. Read this via audio book first while I was training for a half marathon and the storytelling kept me engaged mile after mile.
July 20, 2015
It was honestly hard to give this series a 4 out of 5. First of all, in truth, Ender's Game is a prequel, a book only written so that the other three would not have to take as much time being set up. It's purely lore. That doesn't make it a bad book, just a bad first book as overall it's largest contribution is giving a basis for why certain characters act or feel certain ways in certain scenarios.
Continuing, the other three books are a different story all together, no pun intended. The cast of characters are extremely in depth and life like, not always acting in a way that seems rational or befitting of their current situations. They explore each other and themselves in truly beautiful ways, and even when they make mistake after mistake you can't help but want the very best for them. At least I feel this way about Speaker for the Dead, and I wish to God that Card had ended it there. But no. We have Xenocide.
Xenocide continues where we left off in the last book, brings up similar topics, ideas, behaviors, and feelings, (all of which were explored in some way with the first book and the series prequel) and then drags them out.You get hints of this before in SFTD but you bear through it only to open up Xenocide and realize "My God. It's full of more of this nonsense." Don't get me wrong. I'm sure the super fans will say that I just don't get it but trust me, I do. The last three books are a lot more philosophical than EG, they're meant to make you think, and do so a hell of a lot more then what EG hoped for, but it does all of this by jumping straight into the deep end (in every sense of the word). Now, I may be at fault. In my haste and love of the world crafted by Card, the very thing which is the only reason I've scored this box set as high as I have, I brashly burned through the first two books and asked for more, expecting a generous mix of action, psychological thrills, and philosophical questions only to end up with a mouthful of the latter two. I crawled through the third but antagonizing slow, hoping that it would just end already. Where character inability to be reasonable during times of stress, shock, depression, or anger seemed, well, reasonable before, now it just seem stupid. These character that I had once loved now seemed like examples of some of the worse sins in literature: Plot Pushers, people or events that are beyond common sense or reason but are there instead only to push the plot. You know what I mean, lots of movies and books have them. The guy who is impossible prejudice or stupid, or scared, or clumsy and thus who cause everything that happens later on. Yes, real life has these same kind of people but my God, my God, when it feels like the important characters are treading on this same line?!
It took me over a year to come back to the final book. It did not win back any favor with me.
You see those two sentences up there? How emotionless they are? That how I can sum up how I felt reading the last book. it felt like...a chore, and THAT was truly heart breaking. This world that I loved, these characters that I had struggled with and cared about; they had all been reduced to a chore.
I feel like Card spent more time developing a children’s book in Ender’s Game and a philosophy lesson in the Xenocide Trilogy. Granted, Ender’s Games has great character development… but it moves along like any other Science Fiction book I’ve read. The Xenocide Trilogy will take your children’s book and crank it up several notches. I won't lie. For all of my complaing I was invested in the last two books. But instead of the deep sense of understanding and enjoyment I felt with the first two books I spent more time being angry with characters and bored by plot pushing. I thought about the questions Card brought in all the books equally but spent more time enraged by how he set these questions up rather than enjoying the questions themselves with the last two. Sure, my mind is as perceptive as others due to the four books as everyone else but that doesn't mean I'll thank Card for it. If anything I feel that me being able to ask those insanely hard questions now allows me to see the books not just as a fan but as an equal thinker, and I think that Card could have done better. He's a great writer but I won't excuse him for writing a bad book just because it's a great story. I'm sure that won't make sense to some of you but those who understand will, well, understand.
I think of the rest of the “Ender Quartet” the “Xenocide Trilogy” because that’s how I picture it. Ender’s Game is a standalone book. And now, after finishing Xenocide and Ender's Children, I wish Speaker for the Dead was too.
Continuing, the other three books are a different story all together, no pun intended. The cast of characters are extremely in depth and life like, not always acting in a way that seems rational or befitting of their current situations. They explore each other and themselves in truly beautiful ways, and even when they make mistake after mistake you can't help but want the very best for them. At least I feel this way about Speaker for the Dead, and I wish to God that Card had ended it there. But no. We have Xenocide.
Xenocide continues where we left off in the last book, brings up similar topics, ideas, behaviors, and feelings, (all of which were explored in some way with the first book and the series prequel) and then drags them out.You get hints of this before in SFTD but you bear through it only to open up Xenocide and realize "My God. It's full of more of this nonsense." Don't get me wrong. I'm sure the super fans will say that I just don't get it but trust me, I do. The last three books are a lot more philosophical than EG, they're meant to make you think, and do so a hell of a lot more then what EG hoped for, but it does all of this by jumping straight into the deep end (in every sense of the word). Now, I may be at fault. In my haste and love of the world crafted by Card, the very thing which is the only reason I've scored this box set as high as I have, I brashly burned through the first two books and asked for more, expecting a generous mix of action, psychological thrills, and philosophical questions only to end up with a mouthful of the latter two. I crawled through the third but antagonizing slow, hoping that it would just end already. Where character inability to be reasonable during times of stress, shock, depression, or anger seemed, well, reasonable before, now it just seem stupid. These character that I had once loved now seemed like examples of some of the worse sins in literature: Plot Pushers, people or events that are beyond common sense or reason but are there instead only to push the plot. You know what I mean, lots of movies and books have them. The guy who is impossible prejudice or stupid, or scared, or clumsy and thus who cause everything that happens later on. Yes, real life has these same kind of people but my God, my God, when it feels like the important characters are treading on this same line?!
It took me over a year to come back to the final book. It did not win back any favor with me.
You see those two sentences up there? How emotionless they are? That how I can sum up how I felt reading the last book. it felt like...a chore, and THAT was truly heart breaking. This world that I loved, these characters that I had struggled with and cared about; they had all been reduced to a chore.
I feel like Card spent more time developing a children’s book in Ender’s Game and a philosophy lesson in the Xenocide Trilogy. Granted, Ender’s Games has great character development… but it moves along like any other Science Fiction book I’ve read. The Xenocide Trilogy will take your children’s book and crank it up several notches. I won't lie. For all of my complaing I was invested in the last two books. But instead of the deep sense of understanding and enjoyment I felt with the first two books I spent more time being angry with characters and bored by plot pushing. I thought about the questions Card brought in all the books equally but spent more time enraged by how he set these questions up rather than enjoying the questions themselves with the last two. Sure, my mind is as perceptive as others due to the four books as everyone else but that doesn't mean I'll thank Card for it. If anything I feel that me being able to ask those insanely hard questions now allows me to see the books not just as a fan but as an equal thinker, and I think that Card could have done better. He's a great writer but I won't excuse him for writing a bad book just because it's a great story. I'm sure that won't make sense to some of you but those who understand will, well, understand.
I think of the rest of the “Ender Quartet” the “Xenocide Trilogy” because that’s how I picture it. Ender’s Game is a standalone book. And now, after finishing Xenocide and Ender's Children, I wish Speaker for the Dead was too.
September 22, 2015
Ender's Game was recommended to me, and so for Christmas, someone went overboard and got me the entire quartet. I have a hard time putting a book down (I will give a book 100 pages to keep my interest), so it was equally difficult to consider *not* reading the whole quartet.
Ender's Game everyone knows. Boy trained to be hope for mankind against alien invasion. Plot twist. Plot twist. Lesson on good and evil. Etc. It's a fun read.
What intrigued me about Speaker For The Dead was the preface, wherein Card said that SFTD was the book he wanted to write, and EG was written to provide sufficient backstory. (It's like when a composer/performer claims in the liner notes that they put their heart and soul into that record -- I will pretty much always check that out.) SFTD, in my opinion, is the best of the quartet. It's part murder mystery, part reconciling your past, part understanding your future, part morality lesson and philosophy on what defines Life and equal treatment (ok, so I guess it's one long story about empathy? Whatever).
Then there was Xenocide which expands the story even more. And, truth be told, X was also interesting, though overall not as strong as the previous two. Not that the plot is lacking, or even that the physics and metaphysics aren't great devices (much like the colonization of worlds by culture), but the issues I had with the quartet started to show.
The last book, Children Of The Mind is a good enough conclusion, but it focused on what I liked the least: character development. I get the notion of aiuas (or auias, or however you spell it) and questioning the ties of the body to the mind, but the characters felt thin. Quara and Miro felt thinner in this book than in the previous one, where even Grego and Olhado showed depth. The tragedy of Novinha carried on through her children is also a fine plot line, but Quara and Miro particularly (and even Val and Jane, eventually) felt like caricatures. It felt, after a few chapters, like I was reading an Ayn Rand story. I still enjoyed the book, and appreciate where it leaves off with the descoladadores and all that, but... it felt a bit like in wrapping things up, it settled for some tropes (destined love, the machine that learns humanity, everyone is damaged, everyone needs love, all life must move on, etc). The Wang-Mu/Peter plot line was the weakest, even though their encounter with Malu should have been (and maybe it was, in its way) the most transcendent.
Still worth reading, and I'd give the stars out in order: EG:4, SFTD:5, X:3.5, COTM:3.
Ender's Game everyone knows. Boy trained to be hope for mankind against alien invasion. Plot twist. Plot twist. Lesson on good and evil. Etc. It's a fun read.
What intrigued me about Speaker For The Dead was the preface, wherein Card said that SFTD was the book he wanted to write, and EG was written to provide sufficient backstory. (It's like when a composer/performer claims in the liner notes that they put their heart and soul into that record -- I will pretty much always check that out.) SFTD, in my opinion, is the best of the quartet. It's part murder mystery, part reconciling your past, part understanding your future, part morality lesson and philosophy on what defines Life and equal treatment (ok, so I guess it's one long story about empathy? Whatever).
Then there was Xenocide which expands the story even more. And, truth be told, X was also interesting, though overall not as strong as the previous two. Not that the plot is lacking, or even that the physics and metaphysics aren't great devices (much like the colonization of worlds by culture), but the issues I had with the quartet started to show.
The last book, Children Of The Mind is a good enough conclusion, but it focused on what I liked the least: character development. I get the notion of aiuas (or auias, or however you spell it) and questioning the ties of the body to the mind, but the characters felt thin. Quara and Miro felt thinner in this book than in the previous one, where even Grego and Olhado showed depth. The tragedy of Novinha carried on through her children is also a fine plot line, but Quara and Miro particularly (and even Val and Jane, eventually) felt like caricatures. It felt, after a few chapters, like I was reading an Ayn Rand story. I still enjoyed the book, and appreciate where it leaves off with the descoladadores and all that, but... it felt a bit like in wrapping things up, it settled for some tropes (destined love, the machine that learns humanity, everyone is damaged, everyone needs love, all life must move on, etc). The Wang-Mu/Peter plot line was the weakest, even though their encounter with Malu should have been (and maybe it was, in its way) the most transcendent.
Still worth reading, and I'd give the stars out in order: EG:4, SFTD:5, X:3.5, COTM:3.
Want to read
November 18, 2016Ender's Game:
I watched Ender's Game without reading the book first, which in hindsight, was a good thing. By itself, the movie was a more than decent popcorn flick. Even if it didn't really go into depth (since the movie was supposed to be PG-friendly), it still dared to examine the morality of child soldiers, remote warfare, violence birthing from xenophobia and intolerance and also schoolyard bullying. In a way, Ender's being a victim of schoolyard bullying and his reaction to put a stop to it drew a parallel to the real problem of bullying in school and sometimes the tragic ends. Is Ender's reaction excessive or effective?
Then I read the book and realized that as a movie adaptation, the movie was extremely stripped down and diluted. There were many ideas intensively examined in the book 'Ender's Game', especially through Peter's quest to become world leader and Valentine's personal growth, the morality of using child soldiers and remote warfare, the repercussions of winning the war and Ender's self-recriminations after he discovered what he had done. It would be too much to fit everything into a single movie - it would probably need to be a duology or a trilogy. But I also think the complex and very grown-up problems presented in the book also made studio producers nervous - they are very real. So while I'm fine with the movie, I prefer reading the book instead. On a last note, I really like the idea of a 'Speaker for the Dead'. As Card put it, it's different from eulogies given at funerals which can be a lot of whitewashing on a person's life. This idea should be a permanent fixture in all funerals, no matter the culture.
I watched Ender's Game without reading the book first, which in hindsight, was a good thing. By itself, the movie was a more than decent popcorn flick. Even if it didn't really go into depth (since the movie was supposed to be PG-friendly), it still dared to examine the morality of child soldiers, remote warfare, violence birthing from xenophobia and intolerance and also schoolyard bullying. In a way, Ender's being a victim of schoolyard bullying and his reaction to put a stop to it drew a parallel to the real problem of bullying in school and sometimes the tragic ends. Is Ender's reaction excessive or effective?
Then I read the book and realized that as a movie adaptation, the movie was extremely stripped down and diluted. There were many ideas intensively examined in the book 'Ender's Game', especially through Peter's quest to become world leader and Valentine's personal growth, the morality of using child soldiers and remote warfare, the repercussions of winning the war and Ender's self-recriminations after he discovered what he had done. It would be too much to fit everything into a single movie - it would probably need to be a duology or a trilogy. But I also think the complex and very grown-up problems presented in the book also made studio producers nervous - they are very real. So while I'm fine with the movie, I prefer reading the book instead. On a last note, I really like the idea of a 'Speaker for the Dead'. As Card put it, it's different from eulogies given at funerals which can be a lot of whitewashing on a person's life. This idea should be a permanent fixture in all funerals, no matter the culture.
May 27, 2009
I first read the Ender's series as a kid, perhaps some of the most influential sci-fi books I read at the time, perhaps because it is about super intelligent children who themselves become alien/ other in their attempts at understanding what it means to be human. After taking a class on science fiction I thought it would be worthwhile to go back and reread them (ah, light summer reading, I read Ender's Game in its entirety last night!), particularly because these books present the concept of the Hierarchy of Otherness - other as self, other as enemy, other as wholly other, which I found useful over the semester as examples or characterizations of the human response to amounts of novelty applied to intergalactic situations.
July 8, 2009
Such great books. Orson Scott Card really outdid himself. I know a lot of people who really liked Ender's Game, but couldn't get into the rest of the series. I can understand that because the rest of the series is very very ... philosophical? Not really philosophical... but they get a lot deeper and are more of a "let me think about what just happened, what I can learn, and how I can apply it to my life" genre of book. I loved all of them, but in different ways. If someone was interested and they asked me about them... I would not hesitate to suggest them!
January 1, 2011
I picked up Ender's Game after having heard amazing things about it. It was a bit hard to get through at first, as I had found it to be a bit too technical at first (Card described in so much detail about the program and the game!), but once I got a hang of the game and the characters, I immediately got sucked in. In fact, I ended up blowing through the entire series one after the other because the characters and the dynamics between them were so incredible. I read through both the Ender and Shadow series and enjoyed both thoroughly!
May 5, 2019
The original Ender's Game novel is possibly my favorite Sci-Fi book of all time! Surprisingly, the book also is an excellent guide to leadership. The quotes attributed to Ender Wiggins are incredibly deep and thought-provoking.
That being said, the last three books in the quartet are SUPER Sci-Fi... SUPER Sci-Fi! Only read if you're into those types of books. Ender's Game is a good read for everyone.
That being said, the last three books in the quartet are SUPER Sci-Fi... SUPER Sci-Fi! Only read if you're into those types of books. Ender's Game is a good read for everyone.
November 1, 2009
The first book was the best. The the story line seemed to become too watered down with each additional book. It was, however, my first introduction to true Sci Fi literature..... and I am grateful for that.
October 11, 2011
Wish I wasn't too lazy to rate these books separately. I absolutely love Ender's Game but the rest of the series is a little too well explained and over-thought. The world building Card achieves is fantastic, but the characters' personalities become a little inconsistent for my tastes.
November 30, 2013
Bought this from a reseller so as not to further support Author Card. The first book reads well - fast paced, interesting, good space opera. The subsequent books dwell too much on the nature of souls. Read the whole set through to the end just to complete the set.
April 3, 2016
love this couldn't put it down love the twist love the mind and battle games just amazing, i've also read the one from beans perspective and was also a great book
September 4, 2008
The only reason I gave it four instead of five was that Xenocide got a little deep into the philosphy and short on story. But these books are just excellent! I can't get enough Ender!
March 6, 2009
actually read every single book in the series but too lazy to search them all out to add.... a really enjoyed these books, read at my dad's suggestion....
June 11, 2009
WOW, I loved this series when I read it (mid 80s to mid 90s) and would like to find the time to read again.
August 26, 2010
Good ending!
August 23, 2010
Probably not for everyone. A little on the strange side and sometimes a little disturbing, but an interesting series that I thought got better with every book...
August 21, 2010
This is great science fiction - very highly recommended. See reviews under the individual volumes.
September 3, 2011
learning about regret and redemtion and how the most hated person can be a miss perception when you finnally meet and understand someone and their motives
July 30, 2013
Book one is one of the best. Note that its on the Navy leadership recommended reads!
July 2, 2014
First book was a 5, maybe the second also. The last book was a 1!
July 29, 2015
book was awesome, movie ...not so much.
February 3, 2016
I don't usually read SF but I enjoyed this book and would like to read more.
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