They Made a Movie

If you're a man of a certain age (born between 1970 and 1978) and you read books as a young person then it's likely that you read / were exposed to / were assigned the excellent Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. The book is famous in SciFi circles for several reasons, not least of which is that, like the hit-and-miss Harry Potter series, it pulled in a lot of young people (mostly boys) that weren't otherwise inclined to read. Even people that don't 'like to read' managed to finish the book; it was a gateway drug for future nerd addicts.

Full disclosure: I was already on board (captain of?) the Nerd Express by 1985, so this book was just something to obsess over while I matured into my impressive/debilitating peak-level social awkwardness. 

The book is also known in part because the author is a devout Moron Mormon, which is shorthand for closed-minded, religious fundamentalist asshat (yeah I said it - I'll stop saying it when it's no longer true). So: one of my least favorite types of people wrote what was, for a long time, my favorite book.*

The movie looks formulaic in 2013, but the book was all kinds of awesome in 1985. Not sure how they'll handle the brutal violence between the children. Battle Royale Hunger Games took that issue mainstream but Jennifer Hudson is 21 or 22 playing 17ish in that series; she will be in her real-life mid 20's by the time it's over. At the start of Ender's Game the protagonist is 6 years old. It appears he's quite a bit older in the movie, which probably has the die-hards foaming at the mouth but enabled them to actually get the movie made. Cast is A-list, so that's something.

In any case, I'm looking forward to it. If it's any good I'll see it more than once. And re-read the book. Speaking of which, my copy was lost - can I borrow yours?



* I learned later from an industry insider that Card was regularly rejected for awards within the SciFi community because of his religious views, which: lame.