Ender’s Giant Shadow of the Dead Game

I was in high school when one of my friends gave me a copy of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, and I fell completely in love with the book. And then I found out that there were two more books in the series, with a fourth coming out the following year. Nerdgasm.

Ender’s Game marks the beginning of my sci-fi fanaticism. I’d already read a handful of Star Wars books, and had a dog-eared copy of A Scanner Darkly that I carried around in my backpack, but this was something new, something exciting that I’d never seen before: future children sent up to a space station for training to become soldiers to fight giant alien bugs.

Yep.

Ender’s Game, and its follow-ups (Ender’s Shadow, Speaker for the Dead, Shadow of the Giant) are truly brilliant and absolutely stunning books. There’s something mildly believable and a little scary about them, and they leave you with thoughts like, “This may actually happen some day”. And that’s what good science fiction does, right? It prepares you for the T-virus outbreaks and the zombies and the interstellar travel and the flying blue boxes and the aliens and the Sith by presenting a multitude of possible futures to you in an easily-digestible format that still lets you sleep at night. And we all know that science fiction is only fiction until it actually happens. And it will happen. Just like the internet. And video chat. And iPads.

These books are a must-read for any lover of sci-fi, or even just reading in general. They’re spectacularly written, thought-provoking, and always leave you wanting more. I often find myself re-reading them, half hoping there’ll be an extra chapter stuck in at the end, or that I’ll pick up on something I didn’t quite catch before. Go pick up the first book in the series, or borrow it from a friend, and thank me later for the favour I’ve done you by introducing you to these books. You’re welcome. 

EDIT: There is a film based on the first book that’s due to come out next November. I was apprehensive when I first found out, and then I discovered that Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, and Viola Davis are going to be in it. Now I’m just excited/thrilled. ‘Scuse me while I clean up this little puddle of pee…