The Authorized Ender Companion (65 page)

Makenna Quigley, attending school
Carmel, Idaho

My first encounter with
Ender’s Game
came from my sophomore-year English teacher in high school. After getting inducted into the National Honor Society, he gave me the book as a present. On the inside it said:

Rich,

Be proud of this NHS induction. It is a testament as much to your warm and amiable personality as to your intelligence. Something about you always reminded me of the greatness within Ender Wiggin. Trust me!

Regards, Mr. D

When he handed me this, my first reaction was that it would probably end up sitting on my shelf because I was never big into reading books except those for school. So I looked up who Ender Wiggin was, and laughed a little bit because the first thing I read was that Ender Wiggin destroyed an entire alien race. I made a comment to my teacher about relating me to a guy who killed things, but he told me it had nothing to do with that part of the story. The book ended up sitting in my room for almost a year when I finally read it on a cross-country trip. I finally understood what Mr. D was saying about it. It made me feel very proud to know he looked at me as that kind of leader and someone who is always able to come up with new ways of thinking even if they do not always coincide with the rules.

After reading
Ender’s Game
, I went out and picked up the rest of the series that was out at the time as well as other books that looked like they might be interesting in the same genre. This book started me on a track to read anything and everything I could get my hands on, including going to book sales and buying books by the dozen even if I have not heard of some of the titles. It helped me start a new chapter of my life and learning as I entered college that I have come to truly appreciate. I have been opened up to a whole new world of thought that comes with science fiction books that I never would have seen if I did not take the advice of my teacher and sit down to enjoy a book for once.

Richard Scibetti, student
Freehold, New Jersey

I hate reading. That is, I used to hate reading. I first read
Ender’s Game
on a three-day weekend trip with my family in Colorado. My friend let me borrow it and I figured it might be a good way to pass the time. I couldn’t put it down. I read the entire book in three days, which is amazing considering that up to this point I hadn’t read more than eight or so novels all the way through in my entire life (I was eighteen at the time).

Now I know you’re thinking what comes next is I fell in love with books and I read all the time now. Sadly though I lost interest after that weekend and didn’t get around to reading any of the other books in the series. It wasn’t until the spring of 2007, when I purchased
Ender’s Game
along with
Ender’s Shadow
and
Shadow of the Hegemon
, that I was able to rekindle my fascination with the Ender universe. I read
Ender’s Game
again (and it was even better the second time). I continued reading on in the Shadow series until about thirty minutes ago when I finally finished
Shadow of the Giant
.

The point I’m trying to make here is in the past year I’ve read almost the same amount of novels that I did in my whole life prior. And I love the moments when I can find time to tackle a few more pages. I read a few pages in between classes, or if I’m really lucky, I get time to sit and read a whole chapter (I actually couldn’t stand it anymore and read the last seventy pages of
Shadow of the Giant
tonight). But my view toward reading has changed. It’s a tremendously fun experience reading what other people can imagine and I’m very honored to have had the privilege of reading
Ender’s Game
. . . twice! It makes me sad thinking about what I’ve been missing out on all this time. I can’t change that, but what I can change (or shape, I should say) is the future. I already have
Speaker for the Dead
sitting on my shelf waiting for me, but not before I read
Ender’s Game
a third time, of course!

David Collin Copeland, Waco, Texas

I was fifteen the first time I read
Ender’s Game
. It was my parents’ copy. I took up residence on the couch and followed Ender on his journey.

He was just like me—alone among his peers when all the adults gave him special treatment. Except that he was something great and I wasn’t. But the victory of the book turned out to be not his military success, but that he had come to understand his enemy and love them. In the end, he saved his enemy, too.

I could be at peace with others not understanding me, not even bothering to get to know me. I might be different, but I wasn’t messed up. I didn’t have to change myself to be like them. I didn’t have to regard them as less to be able to regard myself as okay. I could try to learn their language. See them for who they thought they were, make them feel comfortable. That was the real power that mattered in this world. I’m not sure how well I succeed, but that is a goal worth devoting a lifetime to. It might not be surprising that
Speaker for the Dead
turned out to be my favorite book of the series.

Fifteen years after I read
Ender’s Game
, I gave it to my daughter to read. The story has now touched three generations of readers.

Ami Chopine, writer
South Jordan, Utah

Growing up I was an avid reader but never much liked science fiction or fantasy literature. I was instead an avid reader of historical fiction. I did not start reading science fiction until after I graduated from college and it was all because of the Ender stories. In fact, I did not read
Ender’s Game
first. I was given a copy of
Speaker for the Dead
by my college anthropology professor with whom I was working on an archaeological excavation at the time.

The year after I graduated it was assigned as required reading for the comprehensive exams in anthropology because of its excellent treatment of interactions between cultures and the effects of that interaction. My professor thought I would enjoy it and brought a copy along on the dig for me. So, once I finished reading all I had brought with me, I tried it. I was hooked. It was not just anthropologically interesting, it was just a good read with characters I wanted to know more about. I couldn’t wait to get back to “civilization” and buy
Ender’s Game
and fill in the blanks. Though
Ender’s Game
was a bit different in style and nature I enjoyed it, too, and couldn’t wait for more.

Ender’s Game
and the books that followed it showed me that science fiction could be as compelling, “real,” and full of interesting cultures, characters, and dilemmas as historical fiction. As a result of my encounter with it, I have gone on to try reading other science fiction/fantasy and expand my reading horizons.

Sylvia S. Duggan, homeschooling mom and ex-archaeologist
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Two of my friends convinced me to read
Ender’s Game
when I was in seventh grade. I was against it at first because I really didn’t like science fiction—or so I thought. By the time I reached the climax of the story I was literally pacing around the house. My mother kept calling me for dinner, but my attention was locked in the story.

I was always an avid reader, but
Ender’s Game
opened a whole new universe of stories for me. I became fascinated by science fiction and fantasy stories. It
opened my mind in a lot of ways, not only with regards to what books I like to read. The characters taught me a lot about what it means to be human. I learned about my own character as I related to the characters in the book.

To this day I consider
Ender’s Game
to be my favorite book, and I have recommended it to countless people. I’m not often successful in convincing people I know to read books that I love, so it means a lot that I have actually convinced so many people to read
Ender’s Game
. Every time a friend reads it, they thank me for telling them about it.

Jennifer Peterson, homemaker
Provo, Utah

I read
Ender’s Game
in sixth grade, and finally felt as though there was fiction about young people that had characters like myself.

Four years later, I joined one of the two authorized online role-playing games based on the book. Two years after that, I met the man I would one day marry, and six and a half years after that we were, indeed, married.

Anne Davis, student
San Antonio, Texas

Ender’s Game
played an important role in my adolescent life and continues to do so in my adult one. I was fourteen when I was given a copy of it by my math teacher who thought it would do me good. Boy, was he right. Before I read it, school was always a hassle to me. I honestly didn’t care about what I was learning and I never read a book unless I was forced to.
Ender’s Game
, in a way, woke up an intellectual side of me that I never knew existed. It taught me to try and be the best that I could in anything that I did. I learned to be patient, strong, and above all I learned how to be a student. My grades got better and I began to explore the wide-open and enchanting world of reading.

Ender’s loneliness and his inner struggle is something I identified with as a freshman in high school. It’s tough to enter a new place and meet new people but
Ender’s Game
gave me the strength to rise to the challenge. It also made me push myself beyond my limits in order to grow.

I am currently in college and I have to read
Ender’s Game
before every school year. It’s now become a ritual to me. It builds me up and gives me the strength to get through the grind of college life. Without
Ender’s Game
I honestly don’t know if I’d even be in college. I don’t know if I would enjoy literature as much as I do now.
Ender’s Game
has had a profound impact in my life and it’s the first book I recommend to people who are looking for a captivating and interesting novel. Without it, I would be a very different person from who I am today.

Daniel Dolocheck, student
Nutley, New Jersey

My childhood before
Ender’s Game
could be described as . . . brutal.

My father had a job with the government, which called for relocating occasionally, but no matter what school I went to I always ended up getting into fistfights with the other students. I came home with more bloody noses than runny ones.

It wasn’t until my freshman year of high school that I came across
Ender’s Game
. I had heard of it before. A kid was telling me how great it was, but all I can remember thinking was, “Little kids are sent to outer space to fight aliens called Buggers? Give me a break.”

I was a fool for fate though, so when I came across the book lying on the ground in an empty classroom I couldn’t help but read the first couple of pages—and by then I was hooked.

I learned more about life from that book than I had in any of my classes. Human behavior and the utilization of everyday variables were things I had never even thought about before, but all of a sudden I understood. I understood that I could manipulate the way people perceived things. I understood that people only knew what they thought they knew, and I could take advantage of that. Life became a mind game.

At the beginning of my sophomore year, a group of older kids were verbally harassing the incoming freshman girls with a megaphone from across the street. Bellowing such things as “Freshman girls! Please report to my pants!”

The vice principal, along with security, came out and started walking in their direction, but the kids scattered. They weren’t going to get in trouble; they were just going to come back and do it again, and it made me angry. No young girl should ever be subjected to that kind of crude hazing.

I remember thinking, exactly, “What would Ender do in this situation?”

I know, cheesy, but it’s true.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I hopped on my bike and rode into the neighborhood the kids had retreated to, from a different direction. I saw the kids walking along laughing, and I said, “Hey! They’re still coming, guys!” So they started running again to get deeper into the neighborhood. I went with them and once we were all “safe” we just walked around talking about how stupid the vice principal was.

I didn’t really have an opinion about the vice principal, but I knew I didn’t like these guys, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but now I had their trust. Eventually the group whittled down to just me and a few of the kids including the big shot with the megaphone. We talked about random things forever, until I finally saw an opportunity.

The big shot mentioned something about his glasses. So I asked him, casually, if he was nearsighted or farsighted. He said he wasn’t sure. I told him to give me his glasses because “I could figure it out by looking through them.” Once I had them in my hands, I held them up to my eyes and said, “It looks like you’re going to have to talk to the vice principal if you want these back.” And I pedaled off as fast as I could back in the direction of the school.

Sure, it was silly. But it worked. The big shot, along with some of the others, eventually came back to the school and got in trouble. Sure, I was harassed by them for the next couple of years, but it didn’t bother me at all. I won a fight against a bunch of big kids without throwing a single punch. I was proud.

Thanks to
Ender’s Game
, I’ve never been in a fistfight since, I studied psychology at Southern Oregon University, and I approach life with an open mind.

Jack Montague, freelance production assistant
Portland, Oregon

I found
Ender’s Game
on a shelf in my middle school’s library when I was in seventh grade. It was an old beat-up paperback copy and when I read the back I immediately identified with the story. You see, I had a lot of problems in school and to tell the truth I was continually thinking of suicide. I just wanted everything over with, but then I found this book with a character in a similar situation to me. But unlike me he was strong, he fought no matter what, he didn’t just accept his lot in life. He actively did everything he could to improve it, he fought back against his tormentors. I can honestly say that
Ender’s Game
saved my life and gave me the strength to go on no matter what. To this day I feel a debt of gratitude to this story and the author because without them I truly believe I would not be here to write this.