Ender's Game
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Ender's Game
| Author | Orson Scott Card |
|---|---|
| Published | 1985 |
| Pages | 330 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Earth, expecting a second war with an insect-like alien species, trains gifted children in an orbital Battle School, and the book is an unsentimental account of what the adults will do to a child to get a commander. It is also a book about simulation — training against a model of the enemy, and what happens when the trainee can no longer tell where the model stops. |
Ender’s Game
Where I heard about it
- The a16z infrastructure team — on the a16z Infra Reading List, S tier (“Must reads”), the first volume of the Ender’s Saga entry, with the note that it “really resonates for anyone who felt bullied as a kid, and/or spent most of their childhood playing video games.”
About this edition
The sequel, Speaker for the Dead, is also on my list — saved from a separate X thread in June 2026 about first contact as a religious problem.
Connections
- a16z Infra Reading List — where this is listed, in the top tier.
- Orson Scott Card — the author.
- Speaker for the Dead — volume two, already carded from another source.
- Xenocide — volume three.
- Children of the Mind — volume four.
- Ethics — the book’s actual subject: what is permissible to do to one child to save a species.
- Science Fiction — the genre.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.