Ender's Game review *SPOILERS*

Hello and welcome to another book critique and I will be doing the brainchild of masterful author and LDS member Orson Scott Card: Ender's Game. We step into the shoes of Ender Wiggin, a six year old struggling with his dysfunctional family, and a a bully which he beats to death, yeesh. However that doesn't stop from being drafted by the military, in which me makes new friends and enemies and survives the ordeals ahead. His god like intellect allows him to beat the games they have they have there and emerge with him and his teams on top. No matter what kind of new thing the commanders throw at him, he always finds a way to overcome. Back at home his older siblings talk about something called Locke and Demosthenes which is leading to tension among the I.F. and Second Warsaw Pact. When Ender and his sister do get to meet after a few long years, it seems to her that Ender has changed drastically, and maybe not for the better. Sometime later he is promoted to a Commander of the Fleet and sent to war against and intelligent arthropod race called in slang as 'buggers.' Once again he overcomes those trials and as the final challenge destroys a simulation of the bugger homeworld. But SPOILERS...

It wasn't a game.

Quality of Writing: Brilliant

Pacing: Top Notch

Plot: Kept me on the edge of my seat

Characters: memorable

Enjoyability: exceeded expectations 

Insightfulness: not to shabby

Ease of reading: Hard to understand at times 

Morals: Around PG-13 levels which is suprising even for a member of the church!

Verdict: a great read but I advise caution for younger viewers.

War of the Worlds review

I'm so SOOOO sorry on the delay, I just ran out of ideas. But anyway here I am. Now for those of you who don't know, I am a voracious reader, did you know my first book was Frankenstein. After that I was hooked, expanding my literate appetite even further, flipping through numerous books and iconic novels, and now this. It opens in late 19th century England with the martian landing and to no surprise things go downhill fast, things really get interesting when I get to see the martians use their heat ray, a toxin called black smoke, the iconic tripods.

Ahhhh, bliss

The British army is helpless to fight them off and it ends badly with thousands cut down like what in a field. The narrator wanders through the desolation, running into an artilleryman and curate. His brother thankfully manages to flee the country, others weren't so lucky. As if you thought extermination wasn't bad enough in book 2 (earth under the martians) the extraterrestrials begin rounding up those who weren't lucky enough to be dead, and terraforming the place with umm... red weed? Heck they even crafted their own city near London. However in the end the martians began leaving as soon as they came because they have zero immunity to the pathogens that we have endured for so long, when the narrator found that out, he shouted my favourite line that went something like this: "why bother with guns when all we had to do was just sneeze on them." This isn't just another typical sci-fi work, as it also explores the issues of Social Darwinism, colonial and imperialism, and natural selection.

Quality of writing: you know what to expect from H G Wells

Pacing: Pitch perfect

Plot: Very intriguing in a genre that can be very cliche

Characters: Enjoyed the Narrators adventures

Enjoyability: Very much so

Insightfulness: Very good

Ease of reading: Easy to understand for novel from 1898

Morals: It's from the 19th century, what would you expect?

Just so you know this was done on my 'The Book Lover's Journal: my personal reading record