Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Ender's Game
by Orson Scott Card

"'Tell me why you kept on kicking him. You had already won.' 'Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win all the next ones, too. So they'd leave me alone.'" (14).

With these words, Ender Wiggen explains a main fallacy of humans that binds the events of the whole book together. It's really quite understandable, the circumstances for this conversation. Ender has just beaten a bully, one that had him cornered with his gang to possibly beat up Ender. But the bully ends up in such a terrible condition after Ender is done that he has put him in the hospital. Ender couldn't reason with the other, and he felt endangered by the situation, so he resorted to viciously decimating his opponent's will to ever fight him again.

The plot of the story revolves around an Earth united under one government to support the International Fleet to combat the threat of aliens with whom the humans have had two wars with already. In one of these, the "Buggers," as the humans call the aliens, invaded Earth and inflicted much damage on the whole world. The humans decide that a third war is needed, where a fleet will be created to invade the Buggers' own home world to destroy the alien threat. Not once is it considered whether or not there should be greater efforts in attempting to communicate with these Buggers, and the humans have just decided that the best thing to do would be to completely destroy another form of life. Ender's reasoning for beating up the bully is clearly echoed in the adult's thinking, and this line of thought seems perfectly reasonable to us. However, this is exactly the downfall of the human race. This jump to brutality in the face of a perceived threat. True, Ender is a young child when this happens and he proves the purity of his character in the entirety of the book, but does this make the world any less responsible if it succeeds in fulfilling this line of thought and decimating the alien population? It's an interesting moral issue that is brought up in this novel.

Well, the book isn't all about the issue that I mentioned above. I absolutely loved it because it recounts Ender's experiences in Battle School which trains children in combat in ways that we probably have not thought of before. The students at the school are organized into armies upon promotion from being fresh "Launchies" just sent up to the school which is in orbit around the Earth. These armies have commanders and they fight each other in active combat to test the tactical skills of the commanders as well as train the students in how to fight in null gravity. Ender turns out to be a genius, the best tactical mind that the School, and world has ever seen before. His story as he rises up in the School and is trained further is extremely interesting. The world that Card creates and the characters introduced become very real to the reader.

This is clearly a science fiction novel, and I'm clearly a bit biased in judging this book in that science fiction and fantasy are my two favorite genres. However, I believe that many people would enjoy this book, whether or not they read science fiction normally or not. Ender is a character who is easy to relate to and the issues on human nature and moral accountability are very interesting. This was, I think, the best science fiction/fantasy book that I have read all year and the best that I have read in a long time.

My rating of the book: a definite 10/10

The Wind Singer by William Nicholson

The Wind Singer
by William Nicholson

341 pages

"The tussle was short but intense. During it, much of the mud on Kestrel's legs was wiped on to the Chief Examiner's clothing. When at last he got a grip on her and tore her off, she let go, and he threw her farther than he intended. At once she sprang to her feet and ran. he made no attempt to chase her. he was too shocked at the sight of his muddy clothes. 'My whites!'' he said. 'The little witch!'" (59).

I absolutely love this book. The characters are wonderfully colorful and have so much personality. The main characters, Bowman and Kestrel Hath and Mumpo all have very well developed characterizations. The book is very clearly fantasy, but the fantastical elements are woven in so naturally, and the world is introduced so well that the reader slips right in to the story comfortably from the very beginning.

The plot follows three children as they oppose the system in the city of Aramanth. In Aramanth, everybody's status is determined by a battery of tests, starting when a child is still in its diapers. Everything depends on the tests, and the color of one's clothing reflects the level of society one is at. White robes signify the highest level possible to be attained. The children run away to try to find the key to bringing back the life of the city, to free the people from the oppressive control of the tests. To do this, they go in search for the voice of the Wind Singer, a mysterious structure at the center of Aramanth which nobody really knows the purpose of.

Although it seems to be a simple book, a smooth read, it leaves much to be thought about. The different aspects of the world created in The Wind Singer prompt the reader to think about how our own world works and gently points out the fallacies of our current mindsets. In the quote above, the Chief Examiner demonstrates that his highest priority is his status, which is symbolically dirtied by Kestrel. She shows a complete disregard for the very thing that the Chief Examiner holds dear, which on further thought is more twisted than it seems. Knowledge and the journey of finding it (learning) has been twisted until it is a mere rat race, a perverse mockery of what it really should be. And we see this in our own lives, the constant preoccupation with grades, people sacrificing their whole lives to try to attain what really isn't that important on further examination.

I would definitely give The Wind Singer a 10/10!