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The Ender Quartet Boxed Set: Ender's Game / Speaker for the Dead / Xenocide / Children of the Mind

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Andrew "Ender" Wiggin kept his government-issued monitor on until the age of six. That was a year longer than most. Many of the other kids are jealous, especially his older brother, Peter. When the bad boys at school corner him, Ender does what he has to. Shortly thereafter, Colonel Graff arrives at the Wiggin home and offers Ender the chance to attend Battle School.

It has been about eighty years since the last war with the buggers. The buggers almost managed to wipe humanity out of existence. Since then, the government has been trying to make officers for the next war; a war that could happen at any time. Battle School is where children are trained to become commanders. All the children are organized into armies and they compete in zero gravity war games.

Unknown to Ender (but well known to readers), Graff intends to make six-year-old Ender into the best battle commander in history. The future of humanity could very well depend on Ender becoming a perfect killing machine. Ender is bright, in perfect health, highly intelligent, and imaginative. To Ender, winning is everything. (To quote part of the book: "Ender Wiggin isn't a killer. He just wins - thoroughly.") To some others in the military, Graff is often too cruel to the children, especially to Ender. But Graff is doing what he believes is necessary for the preservation of the human race. Ender realizes early on that Graff is isolating him from the kids by using every low-down trick in the book - and several NOT in the book. The mind games are nothing new to Ender. He was used to dealing with Peter, who is a master manipulator. As Ender thinks up more and more amazing strategies to win the war games, he is also shaping himself into the very weapon Graff wants so badly.

***** FIVE STARS! This is one of the most impressive novels of our time (imho). The author takes a nascent child (Ender) and places him in a military school to (basically) sink or swim. Due to the exigencies of an upcoming war, the person in charge of Battle School (Graff) is unstinting in his mistreatment of all the children.

This story has already become required reading in some high schools. Teachers enjoy having their students debate on whether Graff is guilty of mistreatment of children or if his actions are justifiable. Another point of debate is the emotional and psychological toll on young Ender.

Though the story mainly focuses on Ender, some time is given to his brother and sister who are still back at home. Those Wiggin siblings are as intelligent as Ender, but instead of strategy they have more manipulative and/or persuasive abilities.

All-in-all, this is an excellent story for Science Fiction fans of any age. (Fans of Robert A. Heinlein will especially enjoy this tale. The meticulous thoughts and beyond-his-time-ideas can be found in this story too.) Un-Freaking-Believable! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

I would recommend this set to anyone wishing to buy these books this edition (Tor) has all books with different covers, the boxed set creates a unified design for you to display the books in a bookcase. As for the books themselves, wonderful. You'll love the first two, and will want to push on with the others, it's a very enjoyable series, very well written and captivating. Even if the last books in the series don't quite live up to the first ones they are worth the read.

I won't say much about the stories, because others have done this enough. But I do want to say, that these books were just great. To me books are really worth reading, if I come upon the last one and feel sorry, that it will be over. I lived there, and that is, what good books do to the reader. They take one into the story and make one forget all around. I stumbled across these books by accident, but I am sure glad, I did. Sent them on to my son-in-law, but rebought them for my kindle, because I sure will read them again after a while. So, if you enjoy a good read, these books are for you!

the only thing that i do not like about this saga is that it was not finished. I read these books over the years over and over again, each one many times, and every time I discovered new meanings. And they never ceased to amaze me. This is more than just SF, these books are an artwork, a masterpiece! Orscon Scott Card poses deep questions about what humanity is, about how alien are we to one another as human beings, and how misconception about alien intelligence can lead to our destruction even. Influence of religion and genetic alterations, relationships between children and parents, metaphysics, what does it mean to be alive, hierarchy of foreignness, these books have everything!

"Raman or Varelse?" - ein tiefgreifender, höchst intelligenter Epos über das Wesen des Menschen und seine Beziehung zu anderen. Spannend, philosophisch, kluge Dialoge, ausgefeilte Charaktere und die Erkenntnis:

Was man versteht kann man nich hassen.