Ender's Game.

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Ender's Game is one of those books that I've heard people say is amazing for just about as long as I can remember but I never picked it up until now. The main reason I never tried it out is because for a long time I had some type of prejudice toward science fiction. I had tried a couple of sci-fi novels and found that they really irritated me. I have come to realize that it wasn't the sci-fi that I found irritating but the overuse of detail in those particular novels. Some people love knowing every single detail, I don't. I don't need 700 meaningless characters with similar weird names I'll never remember. The only problem was that the author would make it so I needed to remember which character was which in order to know what was going on. So frustrating.

Synopsis, straight from the back of the book:

"Intense is the word for Ender's Game. Aliens have attacked the Earth twice and almost destroyed the human species. To make sure humans win the next encounter, the world government has taken to breeding military geniuses--and then training them in the arts of war... The early training, not surprisingly, takes the form of 'games.'...Ender Wiggin is a genius among geniuses; he wins all the games... He is smart enough to know that time is running out. But is he smart enough to save the planet?" -The New York Times

I'm just going to say it right out, I loved this book. I stayed up later than I should have to read it all in one sitting. Ender is a very young boy who was bred by the government when his siblings showed promise but didn't have the right personality characteristics to be the one to save Earth. At a very young age he is taken from his family and put into a school for geniuses where they play games in a zero gravity room, trying to outwit their opponents. The world created by the author is fascinating and I'm sad that I can't play the game in real life. It sounds really fun. I think one of my favorite things about the book is how everyone is manipulating each other. The government is manipulating Ender and Ender knows it. Ender's siblings are manipulating the masses and world leaders. I will tell you right now, the part that should be the climax ends up being a little anti-climactic but I sort of liked it that way and I especially loved the last couple of chapters. I can't wait to read some of the other Ender books.

Holy crap, they're coming out with a movie with an awesome cast. Hopefully it turns out well, it should be interesting to see how they translate this into a motion picture.