Ender's Game

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Harlan Ellison

Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

From New York Times bestselling author Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game—adapted to film starring Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford—is the classic Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction novel of a young boy's recruitment into the midst of an interstellar war.

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is the winner of the 1985 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

THE ENDER UNIVERSE

Ender series
Ender’s Game / Ender in Exile / Speaker for the Dead / Xenocide / Children of the Mind

Ender’s Shadow series
Ender’s Shadow / Shadow of the Hegemon / Shadow Puppets / Shadow of the Giant / Shadows in Flight

Children of the Fleet

The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
Earth Unaware / Earth Afire / Earth Awakens

The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
The Swarm /The Hive

Ender novellas
A War of Gifts /First Meetings

©1985 Orson Scott Card (P)2008 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“This audio version was created in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the novel and it's a gem…. Stefan Rudnicki is particularly good as Ender.” —School Library Journal, Starred Review

“[Rudnicki's] deep, dispassionate, and sometimes lacerating voice gives a mesmerizing performance, managing to make Ender believable both as a vulnerable boy and as a brilliant military strategist…. a riveting audio production of Card's classic 1977 novel, which in this ideal format remains as original, disturbing, and ultimately surprising as ever.” —Horn Book

“Rudnicki, the main narrator and voice of Ender, reads in a cool, almost emotionless manner, which seems just right for this dark life-or-death tale. Rudnicki excels when reading the students' Battle School dialogue, a rhythmic slang used by the cadets…. De Cuir portrays Ender's beloved sister, who remains on Earth.” —Booklist