Yes. I know. This page needs work. But here you will find a start at an account of how "Ender's Game" grew from a short story into a novel, got revised there, when the USSR fell, and then was transformed into a film, with some parts strengthened, but others neglected, as the change of medium so often demands.

In 1977, Mr Card was not yet a star in the firmament of science fiction writing.

Mr Ben Bova, at that time the editor of Analog magazine wisely accepted Ender's Game, as a short story, for the September 1977 issue. ("Analog" was a monthly publication, a bit like Reader's Digest physically, if rather different in content and audience.)

All of the essential elements of the novel the short story grew into, published in its first form in 1985, were included in the short story. Nothing in the short story had to be chopped or significantly revised. Mr Card "got it right" from the first (published) attempt.

But when he wrote the novel, he added marvelous additional elements to the story. And developed the elements he'd put in from the start.

In the short story, he already had the very special "laser tag", played in a huge sphere, in zero-G, called "nullo" by the players. (In the short story one can infer (from material on page 118) that the sphere is on the earth, with earth's gravity somehow canceled. In the novel, and the film, the sphere is in orbit above the earth.)

The game is a team sport, and used for training space- warriors- to- be in teamwork, tactics, and strategy. (There will no "man to man" ray gun fights in what the cadets are training for.) The sphere has air... but no gravity. In the film of Ender's Game, the walls of the sphere are transparent. A little implausible, in engineering terms, but for what it gives the film in stunning visuals, I'm willing to let that pass!

The participants of the game wear special suits. When a joint of the suit is hit by a laser beam, it "freezes" for a time. If the wearer is hit in the head or torso, the whole suit becomes immobile... although breathing remains possible... taking that player out of the game for a time... or so less brilliant players than Ender think.

I'm not going to say much about the end of the short story... there is a fabulous "twist" in the tale. But I will tell you that the terminal twist present in Ender's Game, the novel, was already there in the short story. The material which suggests that there might be a sequel was NOT part of the short story.

Colonel Graff and Mazer Rackam were very much part of the short story. The scene in the film in which Ender first meets Rackham comes directly from the short story, even in matters of detail, such as how Ender falls over.

The legend of Mazer isn't provided in the short story, is very well developed in the novel, and only barely raised in the film. (And in the short story, his name is spelt "Maezr".)

Here are some things the short story did not include, things which had to wait for the novel before they appeared:

In 1977, there was no Petra, although there is a "Pedr". Of Ender's subordinates, only Bean developed beyond name. Even Bean's story is not as fully told as it is in the novel. The following are mentioned, but not much more is said about them: Wins, Younger, Lee, and Vlad. Bonzo does not appear in the short story. Very little of Ender's life before or outside of Battle School is in the short story. (The novel has a great deal about both, material which had to be left out of the film, sadly, because with it we know so much more about Ender.) There is one brief transit though the "real world", in isolated an isolated part, (pg. 117/118) speaks briefly of Ender having spent years in a "pre-school"... those years going back to the earliest memories of "the short story Ender".

The novel, as I've suggested, expands material from the short story, and introduces other material. When it came time to create a screenplay, large chunks of the material in the novel had to be neglected, or merely sketched, but no radical changes were made to the story.

Between the novel appearing in 1985, and the film appearing in 2013, a revision of the novel was done, published in 1991.

I still have check this to be sure, but I believe that all the changes were to chapter 15... a chapter near the end of the book.

I hope it helps you believe my assertion that the book is more than just a shallow "gizmos and gadgets" science fiction story when I tell you that it was the fall of the USSR which prompted Card to do the 1991 revision. The novel, in part, is about the fall of a great enemy. When the USSR fell, it gave Card new insights into the relationships between enemies, and consequences of enmities, insights which he wanted to use to improve his book.

Editor's email address for comments or questions.

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