Ender's Game: Battle School (MG/YA)

Ender's Game: Battle School. (Graphic Novel) Orson Scott Card. Pasqual Ferry. Christopher Yost. 2009. Marvel. 128 pages. 

I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going to get.

Ender's Game: Battle School is the first volume in the graphic novel adaptation of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. (The second volume is Ender's Game: Command School. Unfortunately, my library doesn't have that one!)

I've already reviewed the novel Ender's Game. I've reviewed it twice actually! The novel is one of my favorite books. It's a story I know very well--I've probably read it five or six times as an adult. And so it was nice to revisit the story in a new way. Perhaps it is the closest I could come to seeing the story with fresh eyes.

So did I like the graphic novel? Mostly. It's a simpler story in a way. They don't include every aspect of the novel. There were places that it felt very abbreviated. Because it's a graphic novel, because it's been adapted, the focus is more on action and less on character development. (And OSC is so very, very good at character development. So I'm not sure the graphic novel works as well as the novel.) The focus is on Ender, on battle school. (So we don't spend time with Peter and Valentine. We don't follow politics on Earth. Which is fine. I mean, it would just be weird to interrupt the action of Ender's story with Peter and Valentine sitting around talking politics and writing essays and articles.)

I am curious, however, how well this one would work for new readers unfamiliar with the story. Have you read the graphic novel? What do you think? Does it work as a stand alone? Do you think you would need to know the original in order to appreciate it?

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews