This is relatively new to my attention, even though it appears to have been written back in 1985. Can anyone recommend it?

Absolutely.  It's a must read.

Thingol wrote: This is relatively new to my attention, even though it appears to have been written back in 1985. Can anyone recommend it?

Highly, highly recommended.

I'd suggest first reading Ender's game then follow it up with "Ender's Shadow" which is a parallel story told from a different and very intersting perspective.

I've read it about 8+ times over the years.

Game was good and the rest of the Ender series was decent.  The Ender's Shadow was good too, but I don't think I made it through all of the Shadow series, it just got too annoying.

Please expound Yertle...I want to know before going down that path. 

Read the first, Enders Game.  It's classic. 

The rest... meh.

Thanks for the input all...just downloaded it to the iPad. Doesn't seem like a very long book...

ratsy wrote:

Read the first, Enders Game.  It's classic. 

The rest... meh.

Thanks ratsy - I thought I was weird for not really liking the second book and not going any further. 

It's a nice easy read too, just like watching a movie.  I think blew through it in an afternoon, but I still think about parts sometimes, like the battle-room, or Ender (towards the end of the book)...

I think of Bean's mantra all the time: Know. Think. Choose. Do

+1

Thingol wrote:

Please expound Yertle...I want to know before going down that path. 

In my opinion, the Ender series was able to stay relatively "realistic" and still be pretty original (although I wasn't a big fan of the last book due to the too minute details of some things). While the Shadow series Card (author) seemed to play up scenarios that just happen in order to have more drama in the story (Soap Opera style), that started to bug me.

I'd say Game was the best and I liked the writing style better than the later books (especially the books near the end of the series).

Thanks guys. I will take your advice.

Game and Shadow are a total MUST!  I enjoyed Shadow more because I just liked Bean.  The Ender series afterwards has some good moments but went off the rails.  I LURVED Xenopobe because I studied Anthropology and it uses a lot of theories that are still hotly debated.  The rest was just Orson Scott Card cashing in.  The Bean series is really not that great.  There are some interesting parts but the annoyance factor of the whole makes me forget what I liked and just concentrate on what I didn't like.

Card blew his load on Game and Shadow and then just wrote to fulfill a contract.  I've learned to hate him a great deal, which sucks because he wrote 2 of my favorite books of all time.  Here is a really good thread from a while ago that has some really good book suggestions and some great discussion.  I'm bias since most of the discussion is from me, but this thread did introduce me to some good reads.
http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/758/Risky_Needs_A_BookBadly

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/758/Risky_Needs_A_BookBadly

Thanks for this thread Risky, I gotta list and am still enjoying my way through a bunch of those. =;0)

Just finished the book. Pretty good. I can relate to Ender on several levels (not the brilliance, of course). I too found Bean pretty cool. I was a bit suprised at how things turned out for Peter. I'm confused about the Speaker for the Dead book because of the chapter in Ender's Game - is the book just a more focused look at what I've already read in the chapter? It sounds like the next step is Ender's Shadow...

I thought that Speaker for the Dead was interesting, but it is a very different feel of book and is mostly unrelated to Ender's Game. If you liked Ender's Game you will probably like Ender's Shadow. It is a parallel novel to Ender's Game, which is a fun idea.

where do you guys get all this time to read! it takes me weeks to finish a book! lol!   :)

I just read it over the holiday vacation break in about a day (which drove my wife nuts!).   Agree with j-bomb - It just affirms that I can't afford to find the time to read a book.   An enjoyable easy read, with a nice well-hidden twist toward the end, one of my female colleagues at work declared it a Boy's Bible, I think based on the fact that a previous boy-friend held it in such high esteem.