"There is no dramatic tension or genuine excitement about any of these encounters" .. yet he also says
"The disturbing thing about Ender's Game is that Card is a good craftsman of prose; he makes the pages turn, he's an effective manipulator." How do you get readers rushing to turn pages when there's no dramatic tension or involvement with what the reviewer declares "blank" characters?
The reviewer neglects the structure of the academy breeding competition, instead assuming that everybody hated Ender just because he was better than them. The school is a crucible and it's not just Ender that's under pressure. I could go on here, but it seems like the reviewer's distaste for the author's viewpoints has heavily influenced how he read the book and interpreted the themes.
Yeah. I always thought that the best part about Ender's Game was how it worked as a critique on academics. Getting older, the "who's to blame for genocide" bit got old, but the part that remained strong was the sequence about how the different groups approach academics and the game, and how kids brought up in high-competitive schools become very obsessive, rarely for any good reason.
The reviewer neglects the structure of the academy breeding competition, instead assuming that everybody hated Ender just because he was better than them. The school is a crucible and it's not just Ender that's under pressure. I could go on here, but it seems like the reviewer's distaste for the author's viewpoints has heavily influenced how he read the book and interpreted the themes.