Ender’s Game

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.

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.