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Showing posts with label Ender's Game. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ender's Game. Show all posts
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Sunday Snippets #58
Ender’s Game
Tor Science Fiction January 1985
The toons lined up in five columns. A and E were ready to grab the side handholds and flip themselves out toward the sides. B and D lined up to catch the two parallel ceiling holds and flip upward into null gravity. C toon were ready to slap the sill of the doorway and flip downward.
Up, down, left, right; Ender stood at the front, between columns so he’d be out of the way, and reoriented them. “Which way is the enemy’s gate?”
Down, they all said, laughing. And in that moment up became north, down became south, and left and right became east and west.
The grey wall in front of them disappeared, and the battleroom was visible. It wasn’t a dark game, but it wasn’t a bright one either – the lights were about half, like dusk. In the distance, in the dim light, he could see the enemy door, their lighted flash suits already pouring out. Ender knew a moment’s pleasure. Everyone had learned the wrong lesson from Bonzo’s misuse of Ender Wiggin. They all dumped through the door immediately, so that there was no chance to do anything other than name the formation they would use. Commanders didn’t have time to think. Well, Ender would take the time, and trust his soldiers’ ability to fight with flashed legs to keep them intact as the came late through the door.
Ender sized up the shape of the battleroom. The familiar open grid of most early games, like the monkey bars at the park, with seven or eight stars scattered through the grid. There were enough of them, and in forward enough positions, that they were worth going for. “Spread to the near stars,” Ender said. “C try to slide the wall. If it works, A and E will follow. If it doesn’t, I’ll decide from there. I’ll be with D. Move.”
All the soldiers knew what was happening, but tactical decisions were entirely up to the toon leaders. Even with Ender’s instructions, they were only ten seconds late getting through the gate. Rabbit Army was already doing some elaborate dance down at their end of the room. In all the other armies Ender had fought in, he would have been worrying right now about making sure he and his toon were in their proper place in their own formation. Instead, he and all his men were only thinking of ways to slip around past the formation, control the stars and the corners of the room, and then break the enemy formation into meaningless chunks that didn’t know what they were doing. Even with less than four weeks together, the way they fought already seemed like the only intelligent way, the only possible way. Ender was almost surprised that Rabbit Army didn’t know already that they were hopelessly out of date.
C toon slipped along the wall, coasting with their bent knees facing the enemy. Crazy Tom, the leader of C toon, had apparently ordered his men to flash their own legs already. It was a pretty good idea in this dim light, since the lighted flash suits went dark wherever they were frozen. It made them less easily visible. Ender would commend him for that.
Rabbit Army was able to drive back C toon’s attack, but not until Crazy Tom and his boys had carved them up, freezing a dozen Rabbits before they retreated to the safety of a star. But it was a star behind the Rabbit formation, which meant they were going to be easy pickings now.
Han Tzu, commonly called Hot Soup, was the leader of D toon. He slid quickly along the lip of the star to where Ender knelt. “How about flipping off the north wall and kneeling on their faces?”
“Do it,” Ender said. “I’ll take B south to get behind them.” Then he shouted, “A and E slow on the wall!” He slid footward along the star, hooked his feet on the lip, and flipped himself up to the top wall, then rebounded down to E toon’s star. In a moment he was leading them down against the south wall. They rebounded in near perfect unison and came up behind the two starts that Carn Carby’s soldiers were defending. It was like cutting butter with a hot knife. Rabbit Army was gone, just a little cleanup left to do. Ender broke his toons up into half-toons to scour the corners for any enemy soldiers who were whole or merely damaged. In three minutes his toon leaders reported the room clean. Only one of Ender’s boys was completely frozen – one of C toon, which had borne the brunt of the assault – and only five were disabled. Most were damaged, but those were leg shots and many of them were self-inflicted. All in all, it had gone even better than Ender expected.
Ender had his toon leaders do the honors at the gate – four helmets at the corners, and Crazy Tom to pass through the gate. Most commanders took whoever was left alive to pass the gate; Ender could have picked practically anyone. A good battle.
The lights went full, and Major Anderson himself came through the teachergate at the south end of the battleroom. He looked very solemn as he offered Ender the teacher hook that was ritually given to the victor in the game. Ender used it to thaw his own army’s flash suits, of course, and he assembled them in toons before thawing the enemy. Crisp, military appearance, that’s what he wanted when Carby and Rabbit Army got their bodies under control again. They may curse us and lie about us, but they’ll remember that we destroyed them, and no matter what they say other soldiers and other commanders will see that in their eyes; in those Rabbit eyes, they’ll see us in neat formation, victorious and almost undamaged in our first battle. Dragon Army isn’t going to be an obscure name for long.
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Friday, May 13, 2011
Review: Ender's Game
Ender’s GameAuthor: Orson Scott Card
Release Date: January 1985
Publisher: Tor Science Fiction
Book #1 Ender series
ISBN: #978-0812550702
Genre: Science Fiction
Format(s): Paperback, e-book, audiobook
Gikany found it on her parents’ shelf when she was a teenager. She bought the ebook a few months ago…because it is nice to have handy on her iPhone.
From the author’s website:
Andrew "Ender" Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life. The only way to find out is to throw Ender into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins. He will grow up fast.
But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender's two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military's purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler.
Valentine's abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.
Newsday said of this novel "Card has done strong work before, but this could be the book to break him out of the pack." It was. Ender's Game took the sf world by storm, sweeping the awards. It won both the Hugo and Nebula, and rose to the top of national bestseller lists.
What Gikany & Una are talking about:
Una has not read much science fiction (but has enjoyed many television shows and movies) while Gikany holds it close to her heart (she almost has the whole book memorized *Gikany mumbles, not entirely*). Through Gikany, Una finally read Ender’s Game (*Una mumbles, she held a gun at me*) and realized the absolute brilliance of it. Una reluctantly admits…Gikany was right…(*do NOT frame this, Gikany*) Ender’s Game is truly the epitome of well-crafted science fiction. It is the first book in a series, but so far, I, Una, have only read this book. Gikany, of course, has read the entire main series. It seems that the author branched off and told other stories from the world and the similar story from another perspective.
Una is going to go on and try to write this review since her perspective and opinion is less, shall we say, biased. Gikany…well, let’s just say that the book she loaned me to read, well, it is the book she found on her parents’ shelves and truly shows it’s wear and tear from who KNOWS how many rereads. *Gikany mumbles….”maybe ten…or twenty…I like the book* I, Una, found myself completely engrossed in this novel. I don’t know whether it is because I had recently had a son and this story is about a young boy thrust into a world in crisis and a war that has more than one battlefield. It is also a coming of age story set in a not too distant future that is recovering from a two devastating alien invasions. These aliens, referred to as Buggers, were highly advanced and only found defeat by a human who found their weakness. Decades later the humans are trying to find a new commander that will be able to eliminate the threat once and for all. In order to find this leader, children are groomed and measured, selected for the elite Battle School. Population pressures are such that families are limited to a maximum of two children. However, for Ender, he is a third child, sanctioned by the government because his elder siblings showed such promise only to be found wanting and not selected for Battle School. This sets up the juxtaposition of rivalry and familial bonds between Ender and his older siblings; Peter and Valentine. The first a war game that Ender plays is between himself and Peter.
Ender is finally selected for Battle School at the ripe old age of six. In many ways this war training of a child I found horribly disturbing. However, as the book progresses, the world is not as cold and unfeeling as it can appear to the reader. Ender is challenged more than any student ever before him simply because he possesses the intelligence a leader requires tempered by compassion that will invest him in the salvation of the world. This compassion is what will allow him to find the enemy’s weakness and capitalize on it. I find myself, Una, completely engrossed in Ender’s story. There were moments when his circumstances brought not only tears, but full on crying for his struggles.
This is one of those books, where the end truly clarifies the journey. It is not one of those books that leave you with any mystery or misunderstanding; you know what has transpired and why, how it ended and yet leaves you with hope for the future. Without that hope, I would have felt completely cheated. *Gikany laughs* Ender endures so much that without the hope; I would have been angry and would have been forced to burn Gikany’s book. *Gikany laughs…a lot* The storytelling, as you can tell from my lingering emotions, even after months from finishing it, was powerful. I can completely understand the accolades that this book has received and will say, if you have any enjoyment of science fiction stories whether in film, television or book, you must read this book. If not, hopefully this review will tempt you to try it.
*Una turns to Gikany* Anything to add?
*Gikany pauses, thinks for a moment* Nope, that pretty much says it all.
Their Rating:
5 stars: Personal favorite - a must read (A+)
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