Ender's Game

Recently I've started reading novels again, and I borrowed this book called Ender's Game from a friend. Actually, more like she recommended it to me when I asked if there is any interesting book I could read. Anyways, so I started reading it and oh wow it's an awesome book that draws your interest immediately and makes you want to continue reading on.

This sci-fi book definitely has some interesting interstellar fantasy content, and considering that it's written back in the 1980s, you definitely have to give the author for such interesting imagination. Besides the fantasy content, though, I found the themes and motif of the story to be very insightful. For example, the struggle for power and the concept of the "game," in my opinion, serve very well as criticism to the power struggle in our lives, how people crave for power and control, and that whoever is in control usually manipulates situation to his/her favor. And the idea of the Battle School sort of reminds me of the idea of dystopia because to Ender, the school seems like it's where he belongs, yet he is unhappy because everyone was blindly being manipulated by the authorities.

Towards the end of the story, when they were finally going to fight the buggers, there was one thing that stood out to me. When Ender said, "so the whole war is because we can't talk to each other," he pointed out how the consequence of miscommunication/lack of communication can cause conflict between people. As we look at our society today, isn't it true that a lot of the conflicts are results of bad communication? If we are willing to empathize and communicate, there wouldn't be so much unnecessary fighting happening. But human beings are selfish I suppose, just like how the novel depicted, we always want to be the winner, and to become one often means you crush your enemy first. Sad but seems true in a lot of cases..

Well, I'm glad to have read this book because it not only contains awesome sci-fi elements, it also has many deeper meanings behind the different literary devices to be analyzed.

Wow, I can't believe I can say so much seemingly analytical comments on a novel I just decided to read for fun.. I guess IB English in high school has done some serious impact on my way of thinking.. HAHA

Thank you Ms. Wiebusch for programming my brain through IB English now that I can see so much more behind a book I intend to read just for fun..

Thank you Cathie Chan for recommending this awesome book to me so now my interest in reading books has been reignited again LOL.