I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people around here who have either heard of this series, read it, and/or are fans of it. This thread is therefore devoted to the discussion of these books.

For those who don't know, this series, and particularly the first book, Ender's Game, is one of the most prominent science fiction set of novels in this day and age. The author is Orson Scott Card.



Andrew "Ender" Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life. The only way to find out is to throw Ender into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins. He will grow up fast.

But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender's two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military's purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine's abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.

Newsday said of this novel "Card has done strong work before, but this could be the book to break him out of the pack." It was. Ender's Game took the sf world by storm, sweeping the awards. It won both the Hugo and Nebula, and rose to the top of national bestseller lists.
After Ender's Game, the series continues to become a quartet. The rest of the books in the series, in order, are:

Speaker for the Dead.

Xenocide.

Children of the Mind.

OSC has also written a quartet series of books paralleling the Ender series, known as the Shadow series, which is set in the same universe, but has a different protagonist. This thread is only to discuss the Ender series. If you wish to discuss the Shadow series, please make a new thread about it.