Daniel Bowers
Executive Director, French American Chamber of Commerce
Book: Ender’s Game
Author: Orson Scott Card
I have always been a big fan of science fiction and fiction in general, and I was quite pleased with the book “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card, which I loaded recently on my Kindle. Set in Earth’s future where the human race has gone to war against an alien species, the book tells the story of a genius boy who is recruited to lead the human fleet against the alien race. In order to win the war, Ender is forced to know his enemy intimately, and after their destruction he realizes that they were perhaps not the enemy they were perceived to be.
Dealing with complex issues like xenophobia, cross-cultural communication, war and sacrifice, the themes presented in “Ender’s Game” resonate as strongly today as they did in 1985 when the book was originally published. I think one of the advantages of writing in the science fiction genre is that authors are free to approach difficult and sometimes “touchy” subject matters in a
manner that is less likely to offend the masses. Although the book can sometimes read like a made-for-TV, B-movie novella, I found the themes and ideas presented in the book to be relevant to the work we do at the French American Chamber – coming to terms with complex social and economic issues and realities and finding ways to understand different and sometimes disparate
viewpoints.