I am not quite sure why I had to read this book or what I expected of it but perhaps due to repeated subconscious exposure, somehow familiar cover art or just a cool name, I knew I had to buy it when I found it on the shelves of The Munich Readery - an English secondhand bookshop, which had almost every book that I had wanted to read for ages now. That being said, it exceeded all my expectations.

Ender’s Game is one of those books increasingly difficult to put down the further you get. It has a fascinating interstellar setting that offers great insight into humanity on all levels from the individual to group dynamics, societies and our entire species as a whole. Communication and its various forms lie at the very heart of the story, which, as insightfully pointed out by Card in the introduction to this author’s definitive edition, is different from the book, which is merely his best attempt at communicating the story. This observation combined with the tragic plot where (view spoiler) makes it truly one of the greats - those evergreen stories that occur over and over again in different places in different forms at different times but ultimately play out the same and therefore forever retain their relevancy. On top of thematic relevance, the technological relevance of Ender’s Game has also only increased in the age of remote controlled weapon systems and drones although some of its technology is still quite far beyond reach.

Ender’s Game touches on themes of necessity, individuality, independence, purpose, love, life, harshness, fear and power. It explores what happens to the trainees, their trainers and the collective society when the singular goal of a program is simply and only unfaltering excellence at all costs. It observes that one cannot become the very best on any level of comfort and that people can always be pushed a bit further, until they cannot. Finding that thin razor’s edge of peak performance can make for quite a miserable life for the individual and people close to them, risking burnout, depression, loss of purpose, humanity and/or will to live and even suicide, but benefits society greatly so far as to enable its very existence, that this sacrifice seems to be necessary of some. It is these inherent injustices that the book highlights and forces its reader to think about: The observable universe is limited and there is only so much space. Turning the other cheek to bullies does not usually work. Safety and freedom have an unresolvable tension between them. Excellence is lonely and takes its toll. Sometimes one must be sacrificed for the many. People always use one another regardless of the type of relationship. Power matters. Violence is power. Winning is not fair.

The book is mostly well written, although switching between first- and third-person narration without notice is a bit distracting at first. Sometimes this manages to bring the best of both worlds by giving the reader occasional peeks into Ender’s head interlaced with the more objective seeming description of his military genius, whereas other times it feels a bit janky. Other than that, the book gets progressively more gripping and is quite entertaining throughout. The world is also perfectly introduced through brief descriptions and natural dialogue of characters in a way that feels authentic and gives just the right amount of information - and sometimes doubt - for the reader to know approximately what seems to be going on and why, while the whole picture is revealed later. My only issues really were the main character’s age, which was 6 at the start of the book, which made it a bit less relatable and realistic, and replacing swearwords and insults with fart and its derivatives, sometimes even for adults. I do understand that the children are exceptionally gifted but I feel that everything would have felt a lot more natural if everyone’s ages were increased by 5 or 6 years. In Finland we are not even in school to be monitored at 6 years old. That’s my version of the story anyway.

I highly recommend Ender’s Game to all friends of Sci-Fi, military history or fiction and everyone else who has read The Art of War of their own initiative because this is basically that but in space and with a narrative and some moral philosophy. It is also a perfect entry point into science fiction for those who have wanted to try some as it is highly accessible in terms of both its writing and plot, in addition to which it works perfectly as a standalone book although it kicks off the Enderverse, which contains a total of 18 works according to Goodreads, for those who get immediately sucked into the world and/or the genre. Even though the main characters are so young, Ender’s Game is not a children’s book and therefore I would recommend it to middle schoolers and up. If The Art of War in space with an engaging, morally challenging narrative sounds interesting or you have been looking to get into Sci-Fi otherwise, I highly recommend reading Ender’s Game!