Ender's Game, War of Gifts (book review)

This is a graphic novel based on the Ender series of novels by Orson Scott Card. This is Book 2 in my 52-weeks, 52-books challenge.

I have already written a review of Ender in Exile and there was also a movie based on Ender's Game made in 2013 staring heavyweights Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley. I enjoyed the movie but it was received poorly by the public, yet it grossed over €110 million in the box office so there seems to be some discrepancy there!. The books are very enjoyable even though the author - IMHO - is an ass and a homophobe. Much has been written about him and there was an organised boycott of the movie by many LGBT groups (who happen to be fans of science-fiction) 

But, I'll blog more about that later. To concentrate on this novel, I'm sorry to say it is a very pale comparison to either the movie or any of the popular books written about Ender Wiggins. This publication includes 4 stories (previously published in separate comics) based on events in the books;

Recruiting Valentine - a short ditty about how Peter, Enders brother recruited their sister Valentine to manipulate people. This is a poor story that doesn't even come close to explaining the complex relationship between all three siblings and/or how dangerous the oldest brother Peter actually is.   

War of Gifts - This story is a lot more interesting, following how a recruit - Zeck - gets to battle school and his struggle with his faith (beaten into him by his zealous father). In Battle school nobody is allowed to practice their faith in a public manner. This story is a lot more interesting, I don't remember it in any of the books (but there has been quite a few) but dips it's toe into the World of today - celebrating Christmas without any secular references, a challenge in schools all the time. In this story there is an interesting social question being asked - a recurring theme in all of Orson Scott Card's work - and it sits well in the middle of this novel. It reminds us of the struggle that people with strong faith have in the World of today and also the evil side of the zealots. Even though Zeck isn't a perfect student, in fact he is dreadful as his vow to never hurt anyone goes against everything the school is drilling into the students, Graff the head of the school refuses to send him home to be beaten by his father. 

Mazer in Prison - this tells us of how Admiral Mazer Rackam was sent on a very long space journey - in real time it takes decades but due to space-time-travel is only five years for him. This allowed the International Fleet to keep him on-ice as an asset to fight against the Formics in the future. Hyrum Graff (a lieutenant with many masters) had been tasked with the responsibility of finding a fleet commander with the same traits as Mazer. Mazer was eventually coerced into helping but managed to convince the I.F. to allow Graff full autonomy at the school to find a proper replacement for him. This story is really good and helps summarise the relationship and work that Graff and Mazer are doing (and why). This part if the story is interspersed throughout so it's good to see it all together, one advantage of a comic is to extract a part of the story and make it more coherent and understandable.

League War - tells the story at the end of Ender's Game just after the genocide of the Formics by Ender (and his army). We get a further look into the psyche of Enders siblings and how manipulative his older brother Peter is. It explores how the graduates of command school will now return to an Earth that is on the brink of World-Civil-War. All the graduates including Ender will be in huge demand to lead the nations of Earth to final victory. With the use of the newsnets Peter (aka Locke) and Valentine (aka Demosthenes) publish several essays to first start war and then create a tentative peace. Peter manipulates Valentine into taking part, he enjoys the politiking, Valentine hates it but can't complain about the eventual outcome. But, it's a small window into Peter's World and the best story in this anthology. It could have gone a little further to bait the readers interest into reading the novels.  

   

Over all, this graphic novel is poor. Without prior knowledge and understanding of the Ender universe these 4 separate stories would mean nothing. These comics could have done a really good job of introducing new (and younger) readers to the Ender universe but fail. Whilst I've been a huge fan of Marvel for years these comics are a pale comparison to the novels, they bring nothing exciting and the art work is poor. The best page of artwork is the cover of Mazer in Prison, the rest is forgettable. In this case just stick with the books and avoid any of the comics. This graphic novel only earns a rating of 4 out of 10 planets, one of the worst reviews I've ever given.

John The Captain Ryan