Who Cares What the Author Thinks Anyway?

Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
Tor

Maybe it's the perpetual hangover I have from being a student of capital L "Literature," but I loathe introductions. Absolutely HATE them. You know the ones I mean ... the serious essays typically written by some high fallutin' professor type who, while well meaning, is essentially telling us that we're too dumb to interpret the text without his/her literary guidance. They infuriate me. "Why?" you ask. Because in my opinion, an introduction (good or bad) prejudices the entire reading experience. The text no longer stands on its own and inevitably gets interpreted through the context/filter of the words that precede it.

So, why the rant instead of the review? Well, the only thing I hate more than reading an introduction prior to the main text (curiously enough, I am okay with reading it after) is reading an introduction written by the author. Big sigh ... I did not get off to a good start with this book.

Having said all that, Ender's Game is an example of superb science fiction writing and it a lot of ways, it reminds me of Dune. Card tackles immense social, religious, economic and political ideas and asks his readers to recontextualize them against the background of an interstellar war led by genetically engineered children. Ender, the messianic figure at the centre of the story, is a six-year old boy, who is taken from his family, isolated at a military academy and whose every move is manipulated by those in charge. Like a lot of science fiction, ultimately, this is not a happy book -- but it does make for compelling reading. Four out of five battleships.