My reaction to Ender's Game

[thor0506]

As with the post made by palaz010, I have also just finished reading Ender's Game for a science fiction course. This has been my favorite novel we've had to read so far. Although the plot of this novel is very cliche sci-fi, it was a very good book to read. I call it cliche sci-fi because it has the age-old elements of human against alien. Card wrote this novel well and left the reader wanting to read more and not put the book down. His storytelling ability, as well as the story's details and characterization, were vivid enough to maintain my interest.

[powerfulcheese04]

I think you're misusing the word cliche, thor.

Yes, Ender's Game clearly fits into the SciFi genre by (1) being set in the future, (2) involving a conflict with aliens, (3) using technology that does not currently exist... but none of these things are really used in a cliche way. Nobody pulls out some kind of plasma gun and yells "LET'S KICK SOME ALIEN ASSSSSSS!"

But, just fitting into a genre does not make something cliche. It takes a very unique spin on a number of the conventions of the genre, especially given that it was written relatively early in the genesis of the SciFi genre.