Ender's world

Ender's Game was published in 1985 and it is unquestionably a science fiction classic. One of a relatively small list of genre defining works. It was followed fairly quickly by Speaker For The Dead and Xenocide which appeared to be a conclusion to Ender's story.

Orson Scott Card has written a lot of other stories, but about 15 years ago it seems he recognized a commercial reality and began a series of expansions of the Ender universe. It's certainly valid to wonder at whether there is any real literary value to that. This book is a little different however. Instead of additional fiction it presents a series of essays by various individuals about Ender's Game.

The result is an interesting mixture of topics. For me personally some of the most interesting were the writing related ones and the military ones. I was not previously aware that Ender's Game was recommended reading in some military circles.

Also interesting on a more abstract level were the essays by people who saw Ender's Game as presenting a world view they agreed with. Some of these didn't really match each others which does say something about the way that Ender's Game speaks to many people in different ways.

The other element of the book is a series of Question and Answer session with Scott Card himself. These questions range from wondering about the motivations of certain characters to asking about the reasons Card made certain decisions in the writing of the book.

I certainly wouldn't classify this as essential reading. And I'm not sure I could even say that it throws new light on the book, which has always stood perfectly well on it's own and certain didn't require anything more than the trilogy to flesh it out.

However, I did find the result very interesting and it does give you an understanding of why Ender's Game is as significant as it is.