I just finished reading it for the first time since I was a teenager and I have a question. In the paperback version one of the review blurbs in the front called the book “a scathing indictment of the military mind.”
I don’t get it. Maybe it’s my military mind, or the fact that I don’t read into things much, but I didn’t find any “scathing indictment” at all.
Can someone more cynical than I explain what that reviewer meant?
I believe the scathing indictment is the entire:
“The military mind grabs some incredibly smart kids, and tricks them into committing genocide”
thing.
Come to think of it I don’t know. I don’t think Card intended it as an indictment of any military known to him. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure what the reviewer meant, since I have no knowledge of any military men abducting children (in essence) to serve as future fleet admirals. In any event, if the military was cold, it seems to be as a result of the state of the world in the books. Card seems to have had a good idea of the world in his mind and continues it in his newer “Bean” series (which is not very good, IMHO). Anyway, the whole world seems to be autocratic and capricious.
Regardless, the whole scenario in the books was more or less there solely for the last chapters. I’m told by some trusted friends that it worked much better as a short story. Having read it twice I’d agree it would. There are only three section I liked:
From the introduction of the reprinted version I read, Ender’s Game wasn’t supposed to be about the military mind so much as the mind of an unusually gifted child. Ender could have been hi-jacked to be a genius in the marketing industry or medicine, and the basic premise would have been the same - a prodigal may have some extreme talents at a young age, but the fact remains the prodigal is still a child and therefore easily manipulated, controlled, and damaged, like any other child.
As a slight hijack, am I the only one who had hoped the “Shadow” books would focus a whole lot more on Peter? In the original book he was to me by far the second most interesting character after Ender.
And I don’t much like how Peter’s been portrayed in the “Shadow” books so far. I realize he’s older in the “Shadow” books and in “Ender’s Game” we’re seeing how Ender perceives Peter, but still.
The version of Peter in “Xenocide” and “Children of the Mind” was much more interesting, IMHO, and shows some of the inner conflict with his desire to control and how easily that power, once gained, can be abused.
I think it has something to do with the fact that Ender would have refused to commit genocide if he’d known what he was doing (ie if it were real)… he only did it because it was a game.
This is a criticism of the military mind because the pure among us (children) would refuse to do what they do knowingly.