I’m one of them, read it when I was 25 or older. I liked the “chosen one” rhetoric being used to exploit Ender. I liked the bleakness of it all. While it was clear what the plot twist was going to be, he didn’t know, and this hit a tragic note for me. The book conveys all sides (Ender’s, the government’s, the alien’s) letting the reader getting stuck between opposing ethics, and not solving the contraposition at any point. The acceptance of the final, horrible result just adds to the bleakness created by all the violence leading up to that point.
I’m one of them, read it when I was 25 or older. I liked the “chosen one” rhetoric being used to exploit Ender. I liked the bleakness of it all. While it was clear what the plot twist was going to be, he didn’t know, and this hit a tragic note for me. The book conveys all sides (Ender’s, the government’s, the alien’s) letting the reader getting stuck between opposing ethics, and not solving the contraposition at any point. The acceptance of the final, horrible result just adds to the bleakness created by all the violence leading up to that point.
I think I had just read to much SF before reading it. Everything it did I had read it done better before in other works.
Can you point to them? I’d be interested. Even if I read a lot of sci-fi, Enders Game is in my mind still unique in its themes.
Not sure if this will help.
I read enders game in 1987…It has been a long time so I can’t give exact titles but here is some of the things I had read by then.
Everything written by Clarke and Heinlein, up to that point and all works of Olaf Stapleton, Verne and Wells.
Most of Asimov’s SF works.
Some Ray Bradbury.
Other works and authors that stood out to me:
1984
The Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe
Neuromancer - Gibson had only done one by this time.
Consider Phlebas Iain M Banks
Solaris and a few others by Lem.
The Master and Margarita
All 6 Dune books.
Saga of the Exiles.
Plus a lot more that I can’t remember