#10 in Science fiction
Ender's Game
- 336
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 22 weeks on the list, peaked at #3
- Hugo Award for Best Novel
- Nebula Award for Best Novel
- NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
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Our view
War games in zero gravity and children shaped into commanders: the premise is cold, and the novel knows it. Some find Ender implausibly brilliant at first, yet the book wins them over by showing how hard everything except tactics is for him. For all their talent the children still behave like children, which is what unsettles. The ending is sudden, with a twist. Darker than its adventure trappings suggest, and the start of a saga.
Worth knowing It began as a 1977 short story in Analog; Card expanded it into a novel mainly to set up Speaker for the Dead, and the two books won both the Hugo and the Nebula in consecutive years, a first. Ender’s Shadow (1999) retells the same events from Bean’s side and can be read straight after. It has long been on the US Marine Corps reading list.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Ender's Game is a 1985 military science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. Set at an unspecified date in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperiled humankind after two conflicts with an insectoid alien species they dub "the buggers". In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, Earth's international military force recruits young children, including the novel's protagonist, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, to be trained as elite officers. The children learn military strategy and leadership by playing increasingly difficult war games, including some in zero gravity, where Ender's tactical genius is revealed.
Reading order · Ender's Saga
Full order & progress →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.6 across 4,910 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 97% of the weight and the score stays at 8.8 — the Science fiction average of 7.8 barely moves it. A further +0.20 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.7 | 415 | 9% |
| Hardcover | 8.6 | 4.5K | 92% |
Frequently asked
How long is Ender's Game?
It has 336 pages — shorter than 74% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 8.4 and 8.6, closest to this book.
