A soldier in science fiction

Twenty-three years have passed since Orson Scott Card dazzled readers with Ender's Game, a seminal work that blurred the lines between young adult and adult fiction.

Now he is back with Ender in Exile, which picks up where the 1985 winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards, science fiction's top honours, left off.

Exile is not the first time Card has dipped back into Ender's universe — there were three sequels and a spin-off novel.

The revival of Ender, the boy hero who saves Earth from bug-like aliens, goes beyond the novel's pages with a new comic-book adaptation of the original saga and has spurred interest as a potential film franchise.

All of this quite surprises the 57-year-old North Carolina resident, although he suspects the story still resonates partly because of its sad martial tale: Card introduces the protagonist as a 6-year-old prodigy who is bred to be Earth's future hero but to achieve this, Ender must train to become the perfect soldier.

He is symptomatic of a war-obsessed society, a reclusive character grappling with the very grown-up issues of isolation and loneliness.

With such powerful themes, Card is at times amused by Ender's popularity among young readers. He never intended to be a “young adult'' author.

He is proud, however, that the books speak to adolescents who are reading them and engaging in philosophical conversations during their most malleable years.

“In our society, children are kept from adulthood until they graduate college,'' he said. “A lot of them find in Ender an imaginary outlet for an impulse to do something real. It is like they are sneaking into an adult conversation.''

Comeback with angst

When we revisit Ender in Exile, he is 17 and exalted as a hero for fending off the third wave of alien marauders that threatened to obliterate Earth.

But his brutal military techniques render him a monster to the very people who trained him to be a killer. He is mercilessly exiled from his home planet and forced into a colony that is light-years away.

Ender's biggest challenge is not those threatening to destroy Earth but rather himself.

He is ready for adulthood and could find happiness with an intended mate but he rejects living a conventional life and instead opts for the role of solitary leader.

“Ender hates what he has to become,'' Card said. “He is born to be a protector ... but he also happens to have the natural talent for war.''

With combat raging in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, it is hard not to compare Ender with modern soldiers and Card does not shy away from this point.

A student of all things military, Card is a proud conservative who writes a column for the Ornery American, a Right-leaning online magazine. But Card's beliefs do not fit neatly in a box.

He is a Democrat but also an avid supporter of George W. Bush's war on terrorism. He is a leading figure not only in science fiction but also in Mormon literature — he is a descendant of Brigham Young and has written theological plays, short stories and novels.

His fans and critics disagree on where the author's sympathies lie. Card maintains that his books are pro-soldier and an attempt to sympathise with them and understand the importance of what they do.

“The real question,'' he said, “is how do you make good people into killing machines and bring them back into full citizenship?''

Card draws a parallel between his character and the soldiers of today, who volunteer for the military despite the unpopularity of the Iraq war.

Their commitment to defend does not come without consequence, he said.

“Soldiers, in a sense, never come home. ... (Those) who have seen radical violence are never able to share that. We regard it as pathology if they do.''

Play of feelings

This complex weave of emotions has made Ender especially difficult to film and has resulted in two decades of fizzled studio meetings, dead-end scripts and a marathon director search.

Card imagines a “film where the human relationships are absolutely essential — an honest presentation of the story''.

The novels did step into the visual medium last October with Ender's Game: Battle School, a Marvel Comics five-issue adaptation.

The third issue of the series hits stores on January 28. A second miniseries, Ender's Shadow: Battle School, starring Card's boy soldiers, debuted last month in an adaptation of the 1999 novel Ender's Shadow.