Ender's Game

There are times when the cinema looks to successful books for adaptations. However, in the vast majority of cases, movies (or series) do not measure up to the 'shoe' of books. And that's what happens with Ender's Game.

If you like the movie, or if the book has come to you but you don't know whether to give it the opportunity to be read or if it should stay on your shelf, today we want to talk to you about what you will find in Ender's game, a novel that actually came out of a short story by the author. But why is it so special that it became the first in a series that currently has 11 novels and 10 short stories? Find out!

Orson Scott Card, the author of Ender's Game

Before talking to you about Ender's Game, it is important to know who the "father" of the work is, that is, the creator of that universe that is presented to us in the short story and in the novel of the same name. And in this case we must talk about Orson Scott Card. In fact, this title is one of the best known, although he has written many more books.

Orson Scott Card is a American science fiction writer. He was born in Washington and grew up in various places, such as California, Arizona, Utah, Brazil… He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1975 and 6 years later from the University of Utah (he also has a Ph.D. from the University of Notre-Dame) .

He is the father of five children, and it is striking that each of them has the name of an author that he and his wife admire. However, only three children remain, as the third died at age 17 due to cerebral palsy and the last, died the same day he was born.

Regarding his literary career, his first book was published in 1978, Capitol. He was followed in the same year by A Planet Called Betrayal, and shortly after he returned to publish more books. However, success came in 1985 with a short story called Ender's Game. It attracted so much attention that it became a novel. And from there in a saga made up of 6 books.

After this, the author continued to squeeze his success, taking out a new saga, from the shadow, which is parallel to Ender's, and where it once again features many of the characters, with five books. And, after that, he continued with the Formic War Saga, which is a prequel to the Ender saga, with 3 more books.

Currently, the author's last published book dates from 2016, The Swarm, corresponding to the last of Ender's sagas, the second bugger war.

What is Ender's Game about

Focusing on Ender's Game, the author created a futuristic story. In her, Earth is plunged into annihilation due to an alien society, the Buggers, who start attacking and killing humans. They try to defend themselves, but only the sacrifice of an officer manages to destroy the entire fleet. However, fearing that there will be a second wave, and to prepare, the humans decide that the children must learn to fight to defend the planet.

Thus, we find the main character, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, a boy trained as a soldier at the Battle School. There he participates in a program together with other students to be part of the High Command School and thus be one of the leaders to protect the Earth.

He is the third son of the Wiggin family to try to access, as his older brother was expelled for being too violent, and his sister for being too compassionate. On the other hand, in the case of Ender, he has both aggressiveness and compassion, in addition to being very analytical and knowing how to lead anyone who gets in his way. Although it does not stop having defects.

Throughout the first book, which is the one that concerns us, we are presented with Ender's life within the School, the challenges he must face and how he is developing in his career, but also the doubts that arise.

The Ender saga: how to start reading it?

When there are so many books, as in the Ender Saga, the truth is that you can think that it will be a mess to read all of them. The beginning is clear, since it must begin with the short story and novel of the same name, but what about the others?

Specifically, we have several related sagas:

Ender Saga

It begins with the short story «Ender's game» which later it stretched to a novel with the same name. In this you can find the following books:

Ender's Game

Ender in exile

the voice of the dead

Ender the xenocide

Children of the mind

Children of the Fleet

Shadow Saga (Parallel to Ender's Game)

According to the author, he was never going to write about Ender again after the last book in the series. However, things were not like that and released a saga related to Ender but parallel to it. Thus, we find these books:

Ender's shadow

The shadow of the Hegemon

Shadow Puppets

Shadow of the giant

Shadows in flight / Shadows in flight

Shadows live

Saga of the First Bug War

In both the first book of Ender's Game, as in all the others, reference is made to that first alien attack in which the Insectivores attacked and how one sacrificed for Humanity. So Orson Scott Card decided to take out some books where this story will be told. Thus, this saga composed of three books emerged:

The unsuspecting land

Burning earth

The earth awakens

Saga of the Second Bug War

Finally, and based on the second attack, you have these books:

The swarm

The Hive

The Queens

As for how to read them, the truth is that It can be done in two different ways, in chronological order, or in the order in which they were published. Our recommendation is that you start with the order in which we have presented the sagas since, this way, you will be able to know all the details.