Sunday, August 16, 2009

Ender's Game


At the SCBWI meeting yesterday I read a page or two from Noah Zarc. Afterward one of the members asked me if I ever read "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. He said it really wasn't anything like Noah Zarc, but my story reminded him of it. So since I was at a bookstore anyway, I picked up a copy. I could tell after about 20 pages it was going to be good, because I found myself looking at the back to see how many pages it was, and thinking that it wasn't going to be a long enough book. By the end of the day (ok 12:30 this morning) I had read the whole thing.

It was an utterly compelling story. It had all the hallmarks of an "epic" story at least how I define epic. A small child is given a choice between an easy life with his family, or the chance to save the planet. He chooses the latter and goes to "Battle School". There he quickly rises through the ranks of the other kids to become the leader that the world needed, just in the nick of time.

Ender's Game had elements of Dune, and Harry Potter (although ender's game was before HP) and it sucked me in and I couldn't put it down all day. Finally I reached about 20 pages from the end and could not figure out how the author could possibly wrap the story up in time, then wham, the he hit me with an amazing twist. I highly recommend it.

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