Synopsis
As a child, Ender's father has a chance to end the persecution of couples who choose to have more than two children; Ender meets Jane, his personal digital assistant; and the child Ender is chosen to defend humanity.
Reviews
A quarter century after the world first learned that "the enemy's gate is down" in Card's groundbreaking "Ender's Game," comes a collection bringing together that novelette with two more recent stories that expand on the concepts and philosophies bound up in the story of Ender, the uncannily brilliant boy who is forced to sacrifice himself to save the world from alien "Buggers." "The Polish Boy" a previously unpublished tale of how Ender's father, John Paul, at the age of five manipulated Captain Graff of the International Fleet into saving his "noncompliant" family showcases Card's talent at developing the inner life of a character. John Paul possesses a mind that marries a child's lack of worldly experience with a preternatural sense of the people and goings on around him. "The Investment Counselor," a fun if relatively slight story, explains how the AI named Jane first formally introduced herself to Ender. As for "Ender's Game," even those who are intimately familiar with the concepts of the Game from later Ender books will be struck anew by Card's virtuosity. His powerful voice and startlingly clear vision will draw many new readers into a lifelong love of science fiction. This accessible collection will impress even non-sci-fi buffs, besides being a must-have for Ender saga devotees.Hugo in 1977 and in its better known book form the story collected both Hugo and Nebula awards in 1985.
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No continuing characters in sf are more fascinating than those Card introduced in the 1977 story "Ender's Game" and developed in the award-winning novel of the same name and its six sequels. Here that story reappears, accompanied by two recently written ones set, respectively, 30-odd years before and well after the events of their great progenitor. In "The Polish Boy," recruiters for the Battle School in which "Ender's Game" occurs come to screen a poor Catholic professor's precocious offspring and decide that the best prospect among them, though he will never attend Battle School, bears continued watching. In "Investment Counselor," Ender has attained age 20 and must pay taxes; almost unimaginably wealthy from investments begun for him when he was Earth's 12-year-old savior, he needs help and gets it from an uncannily knowledgeable software program. Like "Ender's Game," which concludes this book, these stories demonstrate the assured scene setting, apparently effortlessly sustained suspense, and moral preoccupation with the responsibilities of kinship and friendship that distinguish Ender's entire saga. Ray Olson
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