I've put this one off for a long time. Years. I don't know why exactly, maybe I was afraid that it would be more challenging than I cared to deal with in the name of entertainment. I may have been right.
The book isn't difficult to read, but the ideas are another matter altogether. I'm forced to wonder what levels of symbolism Card was embedding in the plot, the characters, the names of the characters, and settings. Some of it is quite blatant, but then there are bits that left me wondering. It is quite possible that I am over-reading, but this is definitely more than a science fiction adventure story. On the other hand, it ends so conclusively that I am somewhat concerned about what he could have done to continue this as a series for seven more novels. It would really be a shame if he has simply kept the pot boiling. Now I can be apprehensive of continuing to read the series, although the title of the second book, Speaker for the Dead, is the what first attracted me to the books in the first place - although my daughter wouldn't let me read it until I had read Ender's Game.
Card has done something that most writers just dream of - he has created a fictional universe with fundamental assumptions that are different from our own.
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