Check it out. The ballots have been counted, and “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card is the 2005 One Read selection, a Daniel Boone Regional Library task force announced today.
Popular among young adults and teens, the selection is designated for readers age 10 and older, which might broaden the age range of the One Read readership.
Anticipating a rush, the Columbia Public Library has stockpiled 500 copies of the popular science fiction novel, said Doyne McKenzie, collection development manager.
McKenzie and Public Services Librarian Sally Abromovich are co-chairwomen of the One Read program, which is in its fourth year. Group discussion kits will be available at the library, and area bookstores also plan to keep a hefty supply of the books in stock.
The One Read task force includes 23 organizations such as representatives of local media, bookstores, colleges and an arts group. The program encourages adults to read the same book and then discuss it during a series of programs scheduled in September. A panel of area readers narrowed 10 nominations to three for a public vote. From March 28 through April 15, ballots were cast at libraries and bookstores.
“Ender’s Game,” a 324-page novel published by Starscape, captured 46 percent of the vote. Tied for runner-up with 27 percent each were “Kite Runner,” a novel by Khaled Hosseini, and “West of Kabul, East of New York,” a memoir by Tamim Ansary.
The plot of “Ender’s Game” follows 6-year-old Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, a military computer-game whiz who doesn’t know he has been selected by the government to help save the world from aliens.
The book is considered “classic science fiction,” Abromovich said.
“If you are a science fiction reader, you know that Orson Scott Card is one of the big names,” she said. Card, who lives in Greensboro, N.C., has written science fiction, fantasy, religious novels and plays.
The novel and its sequel, “Speaker for the Dead,” became the first science fiction books in history to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards back to back, she said.
Those who aren’t fans of the genre can take heart, McKenzie said. This is “science fiction for the non-science fiction reader.”
McKenzie and Abromovich believe the story is thought-provoking and accessible.
“It grabs you right away. It’s action-packed” and character-driven, McKenzie said.
Published in 1985, “Ender’s Game” was “written before the Web was available, and it deals with communication by computer. All the children in the story have laptops, so this science fiction isn’t that far-out,” McKenzie said.
The themes are not so far-out, either, just diverse.
In a related story from Fresco Pictures:
David Benioff, the writer of the screenplay for Wolfgang Petersen’s 2004 epic Troy, has been signed by Warner Bros. to pen the script for the movie “Ender’s Game.”
Benioff will work with his writing partner, DB Weiss, in close cooperation with Petersen, who is developing “Ender’s Game” with the intent of directing it himself.
The screenplay will be based on Orson Scott Card’s novels “Ender’s Game” and “Ender’s Shadow.”
Says Card, “Mr. Benioff proved with Troy that he could adapt a long work to fit the brevity of film, while preserving what is most powerful and effective in the original.”
Any film of ‘Ender’s Game’ will be heavily dependent on special effects, says Card, “but it’s the characters that the audience must care about for the film to succeed.”
“I have every expectation that he and Mr. Weiss will be able to create a screenplay that will distill the strong characters and moral dilemmas of the novel into an exciting film that will justify the huge expense involved in filming it,” said Card.
“Ender’s Game – The Movie,” is currently in-production and is scheduled for release sometime in 2006.
Orignal Story by: MARCIA VANDERLIP of the Columbia Tribune
