Why people recommend it
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is a classic science fiction novel about gifted children trained at a battle school to fight an alien menace. On Stuff You Should Know, the host referenced a game reviewer named after the book. Jim Kwik appeared on On Purpose with Jay Shetty to reminisce about bonding with Elon Musk over science fiction books like Ender's Game. Neil deGrasse Tyson summarized the novel's core plot on StarTalk Radio for listeners unfamiliar with the battle school premise. On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Lex listed the novel among foundational sci-fi classics, and Rosalind Picard later referenced the book and its sequel Speaker for the Dead to describe deep emotional character connections. Timcast IRL featured a speaker using the novel's plot as an analogy for staging a virtual revolution, and Bridget Phetasy quoted her roommate on The Rubin Report comparing the online political climate to Ender's Game meeting the board game Risk.
Who recommended it
Mentioned on the show without a named speaker — 7
“I found that on a website there was a post about the evolution of the or the history of the evolution of playing cards written by a game reviewer uh named Ender's Game and I thought it was gonna be Snoop Dogg”
“We bonded over 'Ender's Game' and various great sci-fi books, and we discussed 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.'”
“um the for those people who aren't familiar with ender's game that was a novel written by orson scott card a number of decades ago where to fight an alien menace a number of children were put into a place called the battle school”
“uh the books on my list are the foundation series by isaac asimov dune snow crash by neil stephenson and ender's game like you mentioned”
“and then they get to live out the fantasy of staging a revolution like Ender's Game”
“My roommate Samantha said it perfectly. She said, it's "Ender's Game" meets "Risk" on Twitter.”
“If you've read Orson Scott Card Ender's Game speaker for the dead you know it could just be like a little voice in your earring”