World Famous Comics: A War of Gifts: An Ender Story
A War of Gifts: An Ender Story
By: Orson Scott Card Publisher: Tor Books Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Tor Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 128 Publication Date: October 30, 2007 Release Date: October 30, 2007
Orson Scott Card offers a Christmas gift to his millions of fans with this short novel set during Ender's first years at the Battle School where it is forbidden to celebrate religious holidays. The children come from many nations, many religions; while they are being trained for war, religious conflict between them is not on the curriculum. But Dink Meeker, one of the older students, doesn't see it that way. He thinks that giving gifts isn't exactly a religious observation, and on Sinterklaas Day he tucks a present into another student's shoe.
This small act of rebellion sets off a battle royal between the students and the staff, but some surprising alliances form when Ender comes up against a new student, Zeck Morgan. The War over Santa Claus will force everyone to make a choice.
Card's Gift A War of Gifts is a wonderful, if brief, tale about finding meaning in your life even when the extant circumstances seem to strip away that resolve at every fork in the road. Where do you turn in these situations? How do you sum up the courage to keep pressing on?
Time and again Orson Scott Card conceives stories that manage to pull the reader into a world that is all too believable given extraordinary circumstances. This story is no exception, and indeed, has many other of Card's hallmarks, including, but not limited to: exemplary character development, keen insight into the human condition, and the unceasing need to keep turning pages.
A War of Gifts is highly recommended to anyone who has read the previous stories in the Ender Universe, to anyone even remotely familiar with Card's works, or anyone who enjoys a well-written tale, period.
A War of Gifts Delivers This was a nicely done story. It is really hard to go back in and write a story that fits in with a story you wrote 23 years ealier and make it work. Card does it with this book. I really enjoyed it!
Not enough depth to call it a great book I got this book as a Christmas gift. At 126 pages it is the shortest book in the Ender series. Although the book is called an Ender Story there is very little of Ender in the book. Most of the book follows other boys in the battle school. One of the children is Zeck, a young boy that was selected for the battle school because of his photographic memory. Zeck was raised by a religious zealot that would punish him for not being pure enough.
Zeck is an outsider in the school because he has tried to hold strong to the principles that he was taught by his father. Zeck is unique at the battle school because he has a different record than any of the other kids. During the battle games he has zero kills, a record that he is personally very proud of.
When the kids start to give each other little gifts to help them remember the holidays that they were missing with there families Zeck gets in the way and tries to stop it. He hopes that his ploy will get him sent home to his family. Although it makes him very unpopular it does not get him sent home.
About this point Ender comes in with just the right words to smooth out the situation.
I read this book in one sitting as I flew on a two hour flight. I didn't even start the book at the start of the flight and was still able to finish it. It is not a long book but it is fun to read. The book does not add to the enders series, it is just a little side story. It was fun to read but I don't think that I will be telling everyone that it is a must read. If you have read the other books in the series and liked them you will most likely like this book also. I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. It is a good book and simple to read but does not have enough depth to be a great book.
Raw fore edge I bought hard cover version to be more resilient to get worn out and to look nicer on the shelf. Unfortunately fore edge is not cut off and it looks really horrible. This doest mean that is not possible to leaf through, it is only looks ugly.
Can't disassociate the author's politics Given Card's recent radical comments about government and personal rights, I don't think I could ever enjoy another of his books
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