【寒假最强书单】《安德的游戏》：这不只是与外星人的斗智斗勇
经常有人问：怎样才能成为一枚有追求、有文化、有知识、有B格的四有骚年？世纪君答：诸君，去读书吧！是的，假日属于书，那些跃动着的文字，让你如沐春风。这个假日，世纪君就奉上一份“寒假最强书单”。为何“最强”？因为世纪君：综合了英国教育部考试委员会、作家JK Rowling、Philip Pullman以及英国《卫报》、美国《纽约时报》等多家国际媒体开出的青少年书单；参考了香港教育图书公司、《澳门日报》、台湾国立图书馆所列的青少年必读书目；邀请了曾在北外任教、与世纪君共事多年的英国文学博士Paul Brennan先生，一起精选出这十本书。每日一读，如抱暖阳。
今天，让我们翻开《安德的游戏》，感受一段惊险刺激的保卫地球之战。
电影《安德的游戏》剧照
别看《安德的游戏》主角是青少年，这本小说一直被美国海军陆战队用来训练士兵。这是因为在这个科幻故事的外衣下，这本小说深入探究了培训方法、领导力以及伦理道德等方面的现实问题。作为一部可读性和思想性完美结合的小说，《安德的游戏》已被翻译为30多种语言，风靡全球。
Ender’s Game, a 1985 novel by US author Orson Scott Card, is a teenage adventure story that is popular with the training programs of the US Marine Corps. The Corps gives the novel to those who could become leaders because of its “lessons in training methodology, leadership, and ethics”.
However, you don’t have to be planning a career in the US military to enjoy the story, which has been translated into Chinese and 30 other languages.
小说的故事发生在未来，地球上的人类正时时面对来自外星“虫族”的威胁。为此，地球挑选出一批出色的孩子来接受训练，以抵抗虫族。安德•维京是这群孩子中的佼佼者。他冷漠而果敢，在为受训者设计的游戏中表现出众，很快被任命为这群人的领导者。在一次艰苦的游戏中，他终于领导这群年轻的战士赢得了胜利，但他并不知道，这其实并不是游戏，而是真实的战争，他代表人类打败了虫族。
The novel is set in a future in which travel to other galaxies is ordinary. But humans in Card’s novel are still obsessed with war. On Earth, there is a three-way fight between different human groups, and there is also a war with another planet, between humans and insects known as the Buggers.
As the novel opens, new forces are in training to fight the Buggers, who are a constant threat. These forces are made up of children. One child, Ender Wiggin, is the hero of the story. His sister Valentine, who he is close to, and his violent but brilliant brother Peter are also key characters.
Ender and the other cadets are trained using games that become more and more challenging. Ender, still under 10 years of age, is quickly promoted when he shows how heartless he can be. When asked about why he “killed” a fellow cadet in the game, for instance, he replies that it saved him future problems. It is this attitude that makes Ender’s superiors think they have a great future leader on their hands.
And so it proves when Ender, using a daring tactic, manages to defeat the Buggers. However, Ender does not know that he has won in real life, believing it was a game.
欺骗安德的谎言只是小说所展现的政治寓意的冰山一角。权利斗争纵贯整个作品——从地球的不同群体乃至安德兄弟之间，都不乏出于渴望权利而产生的尖锐矛盾。同时，小说也展现了人是多么容易受到他人影响。德高望重的老年人影响初出茅庐的年轻人，权势熏天的大人物影响无足轻重的普通民众…… 阅读这本小说，你不仅仅会沉浸在未来星球大战的广阔图景中，更会情不自禁思考人类社会的现状。
The lies told to Ender and others are an example of the political themes of the novel, seen in the power plays of different groups on Earth and, later, between Ender and his brother Peter.
Ender’s Game has been criticized for its violence, with some even seeing Ender as a Hitler figure. But Card disagrees with this criticism, pointing out that Ender doesn’t know about his violence, and is therefore morally pure.
It would seem closer to the truth of the book to say that it is about the way humans can be influenced – the old do it to the young, and the powerful do it to the weak. It is certainly a novel that makes you think about planet Earth today, not just in the future.
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