So, I've been bored, waiting for March when a wave of good games brings me relief from the 2011 video game drought, and so I've been reading some books. Most fantasy and sci-fi stories were just horrendous and cliche, and then I remembered I liked reading Ender's Game many years ago in school.

Although each of the books starts off slowly, I'm really liking the series. I'm half way through "Children of the Mind", and I have to say, I really think the concepts are interesting. Very few other alien species in any sort of setting ever feel as alien as some of the creatures in the series. Sometimes things seem to go "too well", but for the most part I find the stories compelling.

Anyone else read these books? How do you feel about them? And put spoiler tags on anything too specific please.

I've read Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide. They stumble in places, but I liked all three of them.

I just got done Ender's Game, and found it amazing. Taught me an important lesson about "cheating".

Edit
When I'm done Game of Thrones I intend to return to it.

i read them all but the last book, i knew where it was going though, i couldn't be bothered to try and finish since after ender's game they were incredibly slow and predictable. i had no reason to read the last book because i knew what was going to happen and did not want to waste 10 hours reading about it.

Which book to you mean by "last one?" The chronology is all over the place in that series.

... as in the conclusion of the series? idk how that is hard to understand. however, it was either the one after children of the mind or the one after that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ender%27s_Game_Chronology-2.PNG

spin off's don't count.

In that case Children of the Mind is the last, so I'm not sure what you mean by "the one after that." I don't think you're being as clear as you think you are. Anyway, never mind. I was just curious which book you were talking about.

I would still recommend Ender's Shadow as well as the shadow series with Julian Delphiki (bean) as the main character. Not too bad if rather there is some problems with some of the later characterization along with Orson Scott Card's personal morality being often anvilicious.

Personally however it is in my view that of the main series everything after Speaker of the Dead suffered a decline in quality from which I simply lost interest.

Read Speaker for the Dead first, then Ender's Game, then Children of the Mind.

Speaker for the Dead and Children of the Mind got weird as hell, but I liked them a lot, SftD the most probably. Ender's Game was alright, it didn't really have what made me like Speaker for the Dead and Children of the Mind so much.

You didn't read Xenocide? I personally liked Xenocide. Although I guess if you've already read Children of the Mind, you can already extrapolate what core plot stuff happened. The Chinese plot line was alright but I don't think you miss that much.

I just finished Children of the Mind tonight. I'll probably try Ender's Shadow, and if I don't like it, I probably won't touch that series.

Why on earth would you read Speaker before Game? Ignore this suggestion, please. Read them in the order they were designed to be read! I really enjoyed Ender's Game but Speaker For The Dead... wow! It's absolutely brilliant. I haven't read the rest. Was just browsing Amazon yesterday for Xenicide, which I believe is the third in that series? Then Children Of The Mind.Also on Orson Scott Card, has anyone had the fortune of reading the Homecoming series? I was lucky to pick up the first but the other 3 are now out of print and I'm gutted! Looks like a second-hand job, which is a shame. The series had a great start, though, and I'm looking forward to finishing.

Anyone read a Wrinkle in Time? It was a weird one and for some reason I keep thinking of Ender's Game whenever I think of it.

I've read all of the Ender books and really enjoyed them. If you like them, you'll also like the Shadow series (Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, & Shadow of the Giant). The Shadow series focuses on Bean. In fact, Ender's Shadow is a retelling of Ender's Game from Bean's perspective and it adds a lot of detail. There's also http://www.amazon.com/First-Meetings-Enders-Universe-Orson/dp/0765347989/ref=sr_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325916223&sr=1-15 (which is a prequel focusing mostly on Ender's parents), http://www.amazon.com/Ender-Exile-Orson-Scott-Card/dp/0765344157/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325917335&sr=1-1 (which provides more details on...the last couple of chapters from Ender's Game, but it should be read only after reading the Shadow series, since certain events won't make sense otherwise) and http://www.amazon.com/War-Gifts-Ender-Story/dp/0765358999/ref=sr_1_19?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325916223&sr=1-19 (which takes place during Ender's first years at Battle School). Oh, and on July 17 of this year, we'll get to read http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Unaware-First-Formic-War/dp/0765329042/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325916151&sr=1-4 (the account of the first Bugger War).
I haven't read them yet, but I want to. And there's actually five books in the Homecoming series: http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Earth-Orson-Scott-Card/dp/0812532597/ref=sr_1_37?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325916430&sr=1-37, http://www.amazon.com/Call-Earth-Orson-Scott-Card/dp/0812532619/ref=sr_1_42?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325916430&sr=1-42, http://www.amazon.com/Ships-Earth-Homecoming-3/dp/0812532635/ref=pd_sim_b_1, http://www.amazon.com/Earthfall-Homecoming-Orson-Scott-Card/dp/0812532961/ref=sr_1_43?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325916430&sr=1-43 & http://www.amazon.com/Earthborn-Homecoming-Orson-Scott-Card/dp/0812532988/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325916588&sr=1-1 (in that order).

wrong order - Ender's Game comes first
and btw it is the best thing that Card ever wrote - won all the major sci-fi awards

read all the books up to the last (waiting for price drop) and enjoyed them all a lot, but Ender's Game is number one by far!

Ender's Game was good... (and they recently added Harrison Ford to the cast of the upcoming film based on the book.)

Yes; anyone read Prentice Alvin or The Black Company? How about Iliad, or Worm Ouroboros? Mote in God's Eye, or When Gravity Fails?
(Rhetorical; they are good books, but unrelated to Ender's Game ~except for Prentice Alvin.)

One of my friends loaned me Ender's Game a couple years ago and I was hooked. I've read all the books in the enderverse (that includes the shadow series) and they're all pretty good except maybe Xenocide and Children of the Mind, they are kind of bleh and drag on a bit but still alright imo.

I'm undecided on whether I should be looking forward to the movie, on one hand its my favorite book but on the other hand I don't think it will really work that well as a movie.
Can't wait for Shadows in Flight later this month though I haven't had a good book to read in a while.

Sorry, I wasn't being clear, I meant that was the order I read them in. Wasn't suggesting he read them in that order.

I think they should have chosen older actors, I know the main premesis is how young they are. But I would rather they sacrafice that aspect to hire someone who can act. We'll see how it turns out, but I dont have high hopes.

How much older would you want them to go? They already have an almost 15 year old playing our 6 year old Ender. Anyways, I'm not exactly looking forward to the movie, hopefully they surprise me.

I read Ender's Game several years ago, and Ender's Shadow just a few months ago. It's easily one of my favorite science fiction book series.

EDIT: There is going to be a movie? I doubt it will be that great, but I'm very interested to see how they'll handle the battle room.

So I just read Ender's Shadow. It svcked me in, but at some points I just hated how this character Bean was in many respects so much better than Ender and yet he all of a sudden gets "scared" at points when it would break continuity if stole the show. It felt really cheap to me. Hopefully the next books are better, since the character won't have to be so restricted by the defined ends of any of the other books.

I've got two big box sets of the Ender's Game series, but I have only read Ender's Game (which was awesome). I've been too caught up in the Space Odyssey series, which I have recently finished.
Now I'm reading Rendezvous with Rama, and will continue that series, and probably many of Arthur C. Clarke's books.

I have no idea when I will get to another in the Ender's Game series.
But from the looks of it they're pretty good, I may read one after I finish Rama.
Also, if you liked Ender I strongly recommend the Odyssey series.

I really liked reading them, and I thought they were some of the best speculative fiction books I've ever read when it comes to actually having cool speculative aspects, but in retropspect I have to wonder how many jerkish kids those books turned into complete jerks. I mean, they're all about kids who are smarter than everyone else, use brutal violence to get ahead, refuse to play by the rules, and have openly hostile relationships with major authority figures (plus, OSC is preachy). They also have a character who mutilates animals, abuses his brother, and ends up as leader of the free world (on the good side). All of that is fine... except they're marketed as young advlt fiction. I honestly don't want to start an argument about how much media can influence people, because it's fruitless, but if you already subscribe to the theory that the minds of the youth can be shaped by the media they're exposed to, you might want to take issue with marketing these books towards ages 12+ If you disagree with me on this, that is perfectly fine, I respect your opinion, and hope this doesn't end up de-railing the thread.