The books of Ender Wiggin

Ender's Game

I read Ender’s Game during my holiday in Egypt and thought was a fantastic book. It left a long-lasting impression on me, even now I think now and then and think about Ender, think about the moral and ethical questions it brings about denying children their childhood. Most of all though I remember Ender and the various characters surrounding his life, and his life in itself. I remember the feelings he brought up the book and connect them to myself. Orson Scott Card is very good at writing character.

I can definitely say that the book is in the top 3 of the best books I’ve ever read. Yet there was this supernatural air to it. It was a little too farfetched in some places. The kind of far-fetched you would see in most Anime’s; the hero is so supernaturally superior that it’s almost ridiculous, but it’s fun to read! With Scott Cards character building and human connections it was made wonderful.

Last night I finished reading the second book in the series, originally thought of before Ender’s Game and originally planned to be a stand-alone book: Speaker for the Dead.

Speaker for the Dead

I was at first a bit put off from this book because it starts out with a large family tree over a couple of pages. If there’s anything I hate in book it is having to keep track of complex trees of relations and characters. I don’t know why, that just how it is.

But the book surprised me. It didn’t require the family tree and you could easily get emotionally involved in all the characters. This book however, while fantastical, was not supernatural. All the characters were firmly in the human domain of capacity and competence and it was overall a much more, adult book, for lack of better words.

The book focused more on relations, emotions and character than super-human abilities with a main hero. I thought I was bored at first but when reading it, hours did go by without me noticing.

The book was so good in fact that this Friday I spent 12 consecutive hours in school, from 8-20, came home to and ate and relaxed for an hour than started reading with the intention of just reading a while. I continued reading for 6 hours straight; without so much as eating or even drinking during those 6 hours it took me to finish the second half of the book.

I think you need to understand me to know what kind of achievement this is for a book. Usually I won’t be able to focus for more than 30 minutes unless I’m coding. But now i read constantly for 6 hours without hardly noticing.

This have also left a strong imprint in my mind. I dreamt of it all night (quite nice dreams actually, I was there on Lusitania with them) and I’ve thought of it most of today and am sure I will come to think of this book for years to come in various situations.

I know there are many more books in this series, but I also know that none of them were intended from the start so I’m reluctant to read them in fear of diluting the memories of the first books. It was a perfect ending with Speaker for the Dead so I’m not planning on reading the next, not for a while at least.