Monday 6 June 2022

Book review: Ender's game

1654286637826-c556e053-9f13-4aea-99f3-cfbeb7418f46_By Orson Scott Card. I regret re-reading this. Goodreads will tell you some of the bad points,as well as having lots of people enthuse over it.

The implausibly young children achieving implausible things is not especially plausible; one could perhaps try making them older, to little effect. Despite the violence, the book is somewhat bland and unsatisfying, though still quite page-turney.

Do we believe (warning: spoilers) that the adults would have failed to realise that the buggers were not fighting back once the queen died? I think not. Indeed, given the storyline, is an alien "fleet" even believeable?

The finale is based on video games, and makes a nice plot twist. But, why would within-a-solar-system orbital mechanics lead to a game taking about an hour? Days would seem more likely... although the drive systems are never mentioned. And if your aim is to get to the planet, why deccelerate at all?

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