Ender's Game (Ender Wiggins Saga) Read Free Page A

gifted and talented students at Purdue University this summer.   We attended the class, "Philosophy and Science Fiction," instructed by Peter Robinson, and we range in age from thirteen through fifteen.
    We are all in about the same position; we are very intellectually oriented and have found few people at home who share this trait.   Hence. most of us are lonely, and have been since kindergarten.   When teachers continually compliment you, your chances of "fitting in" are about nil.
    All our lives we've unconsciously been living by the philosophy "The only way to gain respect is doing so well you can't be ignored." And, for me and Mike, at least.   "beating the system" at school is how we've chosen to do this.   Both Mike and I plan to be in calculus our second year of high school, schedules permitting. ( Both of us are interested in science/math related careers.) Not to get me wrong; we're all bright and at the top of our class.   However, in choosing these paths, most of us have wound up satisfied in ourselves, but very lonely.
    This is why Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead really hit home for us.   These books were our "texts" for the class.   We would read one hundred to two hundred pages per night and then discuss them (and other short stories and essays) during the day.   At Purdue, it wasn't a "classroom" discussion, however. It was a group of friends talking about how their feelings and philosophies corresponded to .or differed from the books'.
    You couldn't imagine the impact your books had on us; we are the Enders of today.   Almost everything written in Ender's Game and Speaker applied to each one of us on a very, very personal level.   No, the situation isn't as drastic today, but all the feelings are there.   Both your books, along with the excellent work of Peter Robinson, unified us into a tight web of people.
     
    Ingrid's letter goes on, talking of the Phoenix Rising, the magazine that these students publish together in order to maintain their sense of community. (In response I have given them this introduction to publish in their magazine before its appearance in book form.)
    Of course, I'm always glad when people like a story of mine; but something much more important is gong on here.   These readers found that Ender's Game was not merely a 'mythic" story, dealing with general truths, but something much more personal.   To them, Ender's Game was an epic tale, a story that expressed who they are as a community, a story that distinguished them from the other people around them.   They didn't love Ender, or pity Ender (a frequent adult response); they were Ender, all of them.   Ender's experience was not foreign or strange to them; in their minds, Ender's life echoed their own lives. The truth of the story was not truth in general, but their truth.
    Stories can be read so differently--even clear stories, even stories that deliberately avoid surface ambiguities.   For instance, here's another letter, likewise one that I received in mid-March of 1991.   It was written on 16 February and postmarked the 18th.   Those dates are important.
     
    Mr. Card,
    I'm an army aviator waiting out a sandstorm in Saudi Arabia.   I've always wanted to write you and since my future is in doubt--I know when the ground war will begin--I decided today would be the day I'd write.
    I read Ender's Game during flight school four years ago.   I'm a warrant officer, and our school, at least the first six weeks, is very different from the commissioned officers'. I was eighteen years old when I arrived at Ft.   Rucker to start flight training, and the first six weeks almost beat me.   Ender gave me courage then and many times after that.   I've experienced the tiredness Ender felt, the kind that goes deep to your soul.   It would be interesting to know what caused you to feel the same way.   No one could describe it unless they experienced it, but I understand how personal that can be.   There is one other