In Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, we meet Ender Wiggin, a six-year-old boy who has been identified as a high-potential child soldier in a future human society readying for war with an alien species known as “the Buggers.” To prepare him for life as a military leader, high-ranking officials send him to Battle School, where they put him through a series of war games and simulations while isolating him from his peers in an effort to hone his fighting skills. Ender excels, and in the book’s twist ending, we discover that he’s been given way more responsibility than he expected.

On Episode 59, we consider the book’s real antagonist, talk about what Ender’s Game has to say about good and evil and the moral implications of war, and discuss the lack of representation and social progress in a book meant to portray a more evolved future. We also spend quite a bit of time at the top of the show talking about the author’s problematic politics.

This week’s guest is Katy Rose Pool, author of the forthcoming YA novel, There Will Come A Darkness. Follow Katy on Instagram (@katyrosepool) and Twitter (@KatyPool).

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