Ender's Game

Short story collection

"Ender's Game" is a story by Orson Scott Card. It first appeared in the August 1977 issue of Analog magazine and was later expanded into the novel Ender's Game. Although the foundation of the Ender's Game series, the short story is not properly part of the Ender's Game universe, as there are many discrepancies in continuity.

Plot Summary

This story begins as Ender is made the commander of Dragon Army at Battle School. The school is an institution designed to make young boys into military commanders to fight in the next interstellar war against an unspecified enemy. Armies are groups of students which fight mock battles in the Battle Room, a null gravity environment, and are subdivided into squads known as "toons". Due to Ender's genius in leadership, Dragon Army goes on to dominate the competition, despite the teachers' attempts to put obstacles in their way. After his nineteenth consecutive victory, Ender is told that his Army is being broken up and his toon leaders promoted to be commanders in their turn, while he is being transferred to Command School for the next stage of his education. Here, a veteran called Mazer Rackham tutors him in the use of a space battle simulator. Eventually, many of his former toon leaders are brought along to serve under him once more. Once they are familiar with the simulator, they begin to fight a series of what Mazer tells them are mock battles against a computer-controlled enemy. Ender's team wins again and again, finally destroying a planet that the enemy fleet seems to be protecting. Once the battle is over, Mazer tells an exhausted Ender that all of the battles were in fact real, the children's commmands having been relayed to the actual fleet, and that he just destroyed the enemy's home world and ended the war.

Characters

Children

• Ender Wiggin - commander of Dragon Army
• Bean - special toon leader in Dragon Army and at Command School
• Crazy Tom - toon leader in Dragon Army
• Han Tzu - toon leader in Dragon Army and at Command School
• Brian - toon leader in Dragon Army
• Wins - toon leader in Dragon Army and at Command School
• Younger - toon leader in Dragon Army and at Command School
• Lee - toon leader at Command School
• Vlad - toon leader at Command School
• Carn Carby - commander of Rabbit Army
• Pol Slattery - commander of Leopard Army
• William Bee - commander of Griffin Army

Adults

• Captain Graff
• Lieutenant Anderson
• Lieutenant Morris
• Mazer Rackham
• Teachers at Command School - unnamed
• Medic at Command School - unnamed
• Observers during the final battle - unnamed

Relationship to the novel

This short story was later expanded into the novel Ender's Game. Although the basic plot is the same, the novel introduces many original elements.

The novel supplies a detailed background for Ender and the interstellar conflict with the Formics. The short story, on the other hand, supplies virtually no background whatsoever. Ender has no memories from before Battle School and no connections to the outside world. Even his home planet and species are never named, the terms "Earth" and "human" do not occur at all. The enemy remains nameless and faceless.

In the novel, Battle School is a space station in Earth orbit, and Command School is located inside the asteroid Eros. In the short story, the former is a normal building and the latter an orbital space station.

Ender's surname changes from "Wiggins" to "Wiggin".

In the novel, fighting in the battle room is done with hand held "guns" instead of lasers built into the palm of the battle room suits.

The novel's final chapter serves as a bridge between it and the sequel Speaker for the Dead.

Publication

• Analog Science Fiction and Fact, August 1977
• Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories, Dial Press, 1980
• The Future at War vol. 2: The Spear of Mars, Ace Books, 1980
• Analog Readers' Choice, Dial Press, 1981
• Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories, Dell, 1981, with an introduction by Ben Bova discussing "Ender's Game" and the "discovery" of Card.
• Analog Anthology #2, Davis Publications, 1982
• There Will Be War, Tor Books, 1983
• Maps in a Mirror, Tor Books, 1990
• First Meetings, Subterranean Press, 2002
• The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Prentice-Hall 2003

References

• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
• Hatrack River - the official web site of Orson Scott Card

External links

• Ender's Game e-text
• About the story "Ender's Game" - from Card’s website
• Publication history for "Ender's Game" - from Card's website
• Ender's Game at BestScienceFictionStories.com - A review of the short story.