John Kessel’s Creating The Innocent Killer: Ender’s Game, Intention and Morality
Posted on 13. May, 2010 by Simon in books
The first time I read Orson Scott Card’s seminal sci-fi novel Ender’s Game, it was an assignment for my first year media studies course. At the time, I found it to be one of the most entertaining science fiction stories I’d ever read, fully buying into the Ender-as-sympathetic-protagonist paradigm that Card so carefully weaves.
Still, after the novel I had to analyze the tale of moral relativity and found myself questioning whether Ender Wiggin was really the messianic individual Card would have us believe. Being a know-it-all freshman slacker more interested in sleeping than studying however, my essay on the subject was not exactly an in-depth examination of Card’s conscious (and perhaps less conscious) statements on the rationalization of violence and genocide.
Thankfully, today I have found what my 20-year old self was always searching for.
Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender’s Game, Intention, and Morality is a well composed, thoughtful and well sourced essay written by John Kessel. It’s always nice to get different insight into opinions you may have assumed for a long time, and this essay is a great talking source for moral and literary discourse. I’m only sad it took me six years to find this, but better late than never right?
