Ender’s Game (the Book): What SciFan Members think…

Recently, SciFan members answered the following questions and the outcomes are recorded here:

• Average Age of SciFan Members first reading Ender’s Game: 12.2
• 75% have re-read the book since.
• Average rating of the book by SciFan Members: 9.0733333333
• Some of the reasons that we love the book:
  • Ender’s character development (especially his struggle with being like Peter).
  • All the tactics in the books and how smart Ender was tactically.
  • Ender’s strategies, the descriptions, the premise.
  • The ending with a twist, not the cookie cutter type.
  • Ender’s interactions with his fellow soldiers/commanders, (especially Bean.)
  • Ender’s ability as a leader, and how he wasn’t just a good commander, he was loved by the people who served under him
  • Ender’s interactions with the other commanders.
  • Reading about how his army was pushed to exhaustion was really engaging.
  • Any of the times Ender thought of something simply brilliant.
  • The parallel of Valentine and Peter, and how they reoccur in the later books.
  • How the author described world events in such an interesting way and how serious and smart everything is.
  • The descriptions of all the political and “power plays.”
  • Ender’s brilliance in unifying most of the great soldiers and how he usually outsmarts the grown-ups.
  • The MIND Game – one of the most horrifying side plots
  • How the author shows us the devastating effects of War, Manipulation, but also the healing power of humanities.
  • The psychological aspect was really interesting, especially with Valentine and Peter.
  • The characters are ALL brilliant and complex, and in a purposeful way.
  • Valentine and Peter.
  • The book did a great job of portraying Ender’s deliberate way of doing things while still showing us that he got more and more jaded by what he said and did.
  • How a great deal of the book was inside of Ender’s head and you really understood him as a character and as a person.
  • The battle school. 
  • Peter and Valentine being two immensely complex and interesting characters.
  • The Valentine-Peter subplot.