Ender's Game The Way It Might Be

            The Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is the futuristic science fiction book I am now reading.   I didn’t care for the beginning of the book.  It seemed like it started in the middle of a series.  It is confusing because it starts with someone reflecting on the past, but the reader doesn’t know what has happened in the past.  It took some reading to figure that the book is going to be about Andrew “Third” going off to battle school to prepare to save the human race. 

            I think it is interesting that the characters of a futuristic science book have some of the same issues that people face today.  In the future society families are suppose to have only two children.  The Wiggins family was granted special permission because they thought that Ender would end the war that they expected in the future.  The taxes on a family increased greatly when they had the third child and only two kids got a free education.  In our society people have only one or two kids because of the expense.  Bullying is still present in the future.  Third gets bullied by Stilson and gang and even his own brother, Peter; because he is the third.  Competition will still exist between siblings in the future.  Peter the other brother is jealous of the fact that Ender is being selected for the training school.  In the future kids will still play some of the same games.  Nowadays kids play, cops and robbers, in the future they will play buggers and astronauts.  The battle stills exists between the good guys and the bad guys.

            Orson Scott Card doesn’t keep the future exactly like the present.  In the Ender’s Game, children are taken away from their families at six, to go to school to learn to battle.  They have monitor placed on their necks so that can be evaluated constantly.  The first two child of this family, Peter and Valentine, were tested for battle school and came close to being accepted.  They were not accepted for opposite reason; Peter was too aggressive and Valentine was too mild.  The Wiggins family was given permission to have a third child; the officials hoped that their third would have the best qualities of both siblings. Nowadays parents don’t need permission to have a third child.  I am looking forward to seeing what other similarities and differences Card has planned for the societies and if Ender is the leader they hope his is.