Sci-Fi Is Actually Real

"Father came home and kept saying it was such a wonderful surprise, they had such fantastic children that the government told them to have three, and now the government didn't want to take any of them after all, so here they were with three, they still had a Third...until Ender wanted to scream at him, I know I'm a Third, I know it, if you want I'll go away so you don’t have to be embarrassed in front of everybody, I'm sorry I lost  the monitor and now you have three kids and no obvious explanation, so inconvenient for you, I'm sorry sorry sorry."

-From page 15 of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game

First, I just want to say that I love this story.  I haven't read too many science fiction novels, but I do love Sci-Fi movies.  My father loves them so much, so I basically grew up watching shows like Sea Quest, Star Trek, and Stargate SG1, not to mention all of the popular Sci-Fi movies.  I've read books like Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and The Giver and Gathering Blue by Lowis Lowry, but I have never read a science fiction book like this one. 

Science Fiction writing, or fantasy writing, is the most flexible in my opinion.  The author can create different worlds, characters, races, religions, etc. in order to create a great story.  But more than this, the author can create completely fictional places and people, and yet still discuss important themes of reality.  Already, and I've only read to chapter five, Card has included so many ideas and themes that resonate with our current society: education, societal pressures, child psychology, videogames, and technology to name just a few.  This flexibility of science fiction allows the author to reflect on the world around him or her and to provide a commentary about it without actually saying, "Look at the problems with ---" or "--- is a terrible leader."    

For instance, in the above quote, Card could be referring to the previous rule that Chinese families (in China) could only have a limited number of children as a means of population control.  I don't know if Card was thinking of this as he wrote or not, but it is definitely a possibility.  Despite the obvious seriousness of this matter, I was reminded of when my mother told me she was going to have another baby, a "Third," and I cried saying that I didn't want another sibling.  Later I told her that she could have the baby as long as it was a boy.  She told me that she really couldn't decide.  Well, we got another girl, but she is a tomboy through and through.  Now, I couldn't imagine my family without her.

Anyway, I think that this book is going to provide us with a lot of discussion about important issues that are discussed in the world and in our personal lives today, even though it takes place in the future where aliens are called "buggers" and where children have more complexthoughts at age six than some adults have in their entire lifetimes.