Clif's Book World

The little boy in me loved this book. If I had read this book while in grade school, and maybe even in high school, I would have been a real fan. However, my older self now looks on the subject of team spirt and military discipline with a jaundiced eye. My current adult self now has to go past the first level of meaning of an enjoyable and trilling tale to look for the second and third levels of meaning. So I guess it could be called a parable about the human condition. I can understand why Orson Scott Card had the main characters be children. They make the best soldiers. They're malleable and trainable. And they're very enthusiastic about computer games and team sports. And so if war is ever lowered (or raised) to the level of a computer game, our best warriors will probably be preteens. So I have mixed feelings; It's a good story, but part of me is saying I shouldn't enjoy it so much.

The audio version of this book had a long commentary at the end by the author in which he told about how he conceived of the story. In his commentary he said that he believed that the audio format is the best way to consume this book. This made me feel good since I'm an audio listener.

One of my Goodreads.com friends recommended the book to me. I've known for a long time that my reading repertoire is deficient in science fiction. So I decided to listen to this book that was widely recommended and had won many awards.