Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

The book for October & November has been selected! As we moved the October discussion to November, I realized that the week we usually meet on is Thanksgiving weekend, so the meetup will be on December 1st, even though it's for Oct/Nov.

Also, to make things interesting, I added the second book in the series -Speaker for the Dead (1986) for our November meetup, so we can discuss both books at once.

Hope to see you all then!

1. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27s_Game)

http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/a/7/1/3/event_48762771.jpegSet in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperiled humankind who have barely survived two conflicts with the Formics (an insectoid alien species also known as the "Buggers"). In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, an international fleet maintains a school to find and train future fleet commanders. The world's most talented children, including the novel's protagonist, Ender Wiggin, are taken at a very young age to a training center known as the Battle School. There, teachers train them in the arts of war through increasingly difficult games including ones undertaken in zero gravity in the Battle Room where Ender's tactical genius is revealed.

The novel won the Nebula Award for best novel in 1985,and the Hugo Award for best novel in 1986, considered the two most prestigious awards in science fiction. Ender's Game was also nominated for a Locus Award in 1986. In 1999, it placed #59 on the reader's list of Modern Library 100 Best Novels.

2. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_for_the_Dead)

Speaker for the Dead (1986) is a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card and an indirect sequel to the novel Ender's Game. This book takes place around the year 5270, some 3,000 years after the events in Ender's Game. However, due to relativistic space travel Ender himself (who now goes by his real name Andrew Wiggin or by his title "Speaker for the Dead") is only about 35 years old.

This is the first book to talk about Starways Congress, a high standpoint Legislation for the human colonies. It is also the first to describe the Hundred Worlds, planets which humans colonized which are tightly intertwined by the Buggers' old Ansible technology.

Happy reading!