What happens in Ender's Game?
Ender Wiggin, a brilliant child prodigy, is Earth's best hope of defeating an insect-like alien race called the Buggers. Colonel Hyrum Graff of the International Fleet convinces Ender to enroll in Battle School after an incident in which Ender accidentally kills a bully named Stilson in self-defense. In Battle School, Ender is purposely isolated from his fellow students in order to make him a more effective military leader.
- Ender's training takes place at an accelerated rate. He is given command of his own army, the Dragon Army, which is populated by Launchies, or new students. With the help of his innovative strategies, the Dragon Army maintains a perfect record in combat simulations against other student armies.
- Upon graduating from Battle School, Ender is mentored by Mazer Rackham, the hero of the Second Invasion. Ender continues his training with a military strategy game, which turns out to be real. After he wins, Ender learns that he has led the Earth's fleet in a successful attack against the Bugger home planet.
- Years later, Ender visits another Bugger planet, where he finds a structure built to mimic a scene from a video game he played in Battle School. He realizes that the Buggers knew he was coming and built this place as a message to him. He finds a Bugger queen egg, which he promises to hatch when he finds someplace safe for the Buggers to live.
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Summary
(Novels for Students)
Earth
Each chapter of Ender's Game opens with a conversation between the government officials who are responsible for finding a military genius to lead Earth to victory against the alien "bugger" fleet. From these conversations, the reader learns that Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is considered humanity's best hope for such a leader. It is also made clear that these officials will isolate and test Ender as much as possible to mold him into the effective military leader they so desperately need.
Ender's story opens as he is finally losing the monitor implanted in the base of his neck, a device which allows government officials to see and hear whatever he experiences. He is later than most in having the device removed—six years old—thus separating him from his peers. He is also the third child of his family, in a futuristic society that seldom allows more than two children. Although Ender is a legal "Third," he is still an object of scorn and derision. After the monitor is removed, an older, bigger boy, Stilson, leads a group of bullies against Ender. Ender fights him viciously, attempting to discourage further attacks in the future. (The fact that Stilson dies in the process is not revealed until the book's later chapters.)
At home, Ender's older sister Valentine sympathizes with him, but his sadistic brother Peter brutalizes him and says that someday he will kill Ender and Valentine. The following day, Colonial Hyrum Graff of the International Fleet comes to the house and convinces Ender to accompany him to Battle School. There he will train to fight the Buggers, a race of...
(The entire section is 1,687 words.)