Earth has been attacked twice by a bunch of star spanning bugs, and all the old admirals and generals can’t take them on, so we are looking for the brightest and best among our children. We start monitoring them at 2 or 3 and by 6 they are attending battle school in space to learn to fight. The perfect general will be one with a ruthless streak but also a sense of empathy. Ender Wiggins is destined to be a great general, but only if isolated from his peers and constantly challenged by others. Ender is trained first to be a soldier and then a commander, confronting his own demons as he goes. Finally he has a trusted group of subordinates and is tasked with destroying the enemy. All along he thinks he is being subjected to simulations of what the enemy might do, when in reality he is commanding the fleet and completing the destruction of the enemies home-world and preserving other for other wars between countries. And he does all this by the time he is 15. There are so many themes here that should be discussed, war, kids growing up too fast, relationships, population control and much more. A fascinating look at military strategy and the use of troops, probably the reason it is on the Marine Corps professional reading list. RRR
There are no responses yet