"Ender's Game" is a story by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...

. It first appeared in the August 1977 issue of Analog

Analog Science Fiction and Fact

Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...

magazine and was later expanded into the novel Ender's Game

Ender's Game

Ender's Game is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. The book originated as the short story "Ender's Game", published in the August 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Elaborating on characters and plot lines depicted in the novel, Card later wrote additional...

. Although the foundation of the Ender's Game series

Ender's Game series

The Ender's Game series is a series of science fiction books by Orson Scott Card. The series started with the novelette "Ender's Game", which was later expanded into the novel Ender's Game. It currently consists of eleven novels and ten short stories...

, the short story is not properly part of the Ender's Game universe, as there are many discrepancies in continuity

Continuity (fiction)

In fiction, continuity is consistency of the characteristics of persons, plot, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer over some period of time...

.

Plot summary

This story begins as Ender

Ender Wiggin

Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is a fictional character from Orson Scott Card's science fiction story Ender's Game and its sequels , as well as in the first part of the spin-off series, Ender's Shadow...

 is made the commander of Dragon Army at Battle School, an institution designed to make young children into military commanders to fight in the next interstellar war against an unspecified enemy. Armies are groups of students that fight mock battles in the Battle Room, a null gravity environment, and are subdivided into squads known as "toons"

Platoon

A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two to four sections or squads and containing 16 to 50 soldiers. Platoons are organized into a company, which typically consists of three, four or five platoons. A platoon is typically the smallest military unit led by a commissioned officer—the...

. Due to Ender's genius in leadership, Dragon Army goes on to dominate the competition, despite the teachers' attempts to put obstacles in their way. After his nineteenth consecutive victory, Ender is told that his Army is being broken up and his toon leaders promoted to be commanders in their turn, while he is being transferred to Command School for the next stage of his education. Here, a veteran named Mazer Rackham tutors him in the use of a space battle simulator. Eventually, many of his former toon leaders are brought along to serve under him once more. Once they are familiar with the simulator, they begin to fight a series of what Mazer tells them are mock battles against a computer-controlled enemy. Ender's team wins again and again, finally destroying a planet that the enemy fleet seems to be protecting. Once the battle is over, Mazer tells an exhausted Ender that all of the battles were in fact real, the children's commands having been relayed to the actual fleet, and that he just destroyed the enemy's home world and ended the war.

Children

• Ender Wiggins - commander of Dragon Army
• Bean - toon leader in Dragon Army and at Command School
• Ren - toon leader in Dragon Army
• Petra - commander of Phoenix Army and toon leader at Command School
• Brian - toon leader in Dragon Army
• Wins - toon leader in Dragon Army and at Command School
• Younger - toon leader in Dragon Army and at Command School
• Lee - toon leader at Command School
• Vlad - toon leader at Command School
• Carn Carby - commander of Rabbit Army
• Pol Slattery - commander of Leopard Army
• William Bee - commander of Griffin Army

Adults

• Colonel Graff
• Lieutenant Anderson
• Lieutenant Morris
• Mazer Rackham
• Teachers at Command School - unnamed
• Medic at Command School - unnamed
• Observers during the final battle - unnamed

Relationship to the novel

This short story was later expanded into the novel Ender's Game

Ender's Game

Ender's Game is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. The book originated as the short story "Ender's Game", published in the August 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Elaborating on characters and plot lines depicted in the novel, Card later wrote additional...

. Although the basic plot is the same, the novel introduces many original elements.

The novel supplies a detailed background for Ender and the interstellar conflict with the Formics

Formics

The Formics, also known as Buggers, are a fictional insectoid alien species from the Ender's Game series of science fiction novels by Orson Scott Card.The term "Formic" is derived from formica, the Latin word for ant...

. The short story, on the other hand, supplies virtually no background whatsoever. Ender has no memories from before Battle School and no connections to the outside world. Even his home planet and species are never named, the terms "Earth" and "human" do not occur at all. The enemy remains nameless and faceless.

In the novel, Battle School is a space station in Earth orbit, and Command School is located inside the asteroid Eros. In the short story, the former is a normal building and the latter an orbital space station. In the novel, fighting in the battle room is done with hand held light guns instead of lasers built into the palm of the battle room suits.

Ender's surname changes from "Wiggins" to "Wiggin."

The spelling of the name of Ender's "teacher" changes from "Maezr" to "Mazer."

Several characters are changed. The antagonist Bonzo Madrid replaces Pol Slattery as the commander who loses to Ender during the unfair battle, while Carn Carby is written as a much more supportive character. In the novel, after Carn Carby loses, Ender makes a note that Carn Carby is one of the few people who qualified as human beings. When Bean becomes the leader of Rabbit Army, in the short story Ender says, "How can they put you under an idiot like Carn Carby!" but in the novel he says, "Carn Carby's a good man. I hope he recognizes you for what you're worth."

The novel's final chapter serves as a bridge between it and the sequel Speaker for the Dead

Speaker for the Dead

Speaker for the Dead 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...

.

Publication

• Analog Science Fiction and Fact
  Analog Science Fiction and Fact
  Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
  
  , August 1977
• Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories
  Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories
  Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Orson Scott Card. Although not purely science fiction and definitely not hard science fiction, the book contains stories that have a futuristic angle or are purely works of fantasy set in current times...
  
  , Dial Press, 1980
• The Future at War vol. 2: The Spear of Mars, Ace Books, 1980
• Analog Readers' Choice, Dial Press, 1981
• Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories, Dell, 1981, with an introduction by Ben Bova discussing "Ender's Game" and the "discovery" of Card.
• Analog Anthology #2, Davis Publications, 1982
• There Will Be War, Tor Books, 1983
• Maps in a Mirror
  Maps in a Mirror
  Maps in a Mirror is a collection of short stories by Orson Scott Card. Like Card's novels, most of the stories have a science fiction or fantasy theme...
  
  , Tor Books, 1990
• First Meetings
  First Meetings
  First Meetings is a collection of Orson Scott Card's short stories from the Ender's Game series. The 2003 edition published by Tor Books also includes the story "Teacher's Pest", about the first meeting of Ender's parents.- Story list :The stories in this book are:*...
  
  , Subterranean Press, 2002
• The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Prentice-Hall 2003

External links

• Ender's Game e-text
• About the story "Ender's Game" - from Card’s website
• Publication history for "Ender's Game" - from Card's website
• Ender's Game at BestScienceFictionStories.com - A review of the short story.