AN engaging science fiction, Enders in Exile is about the soldier after the war. The plot takes off from a stage where warring nations are trying to gain control over outer space, and are trying to colonize other stars and planets in the universe. The brain behind it all is a 13 year old American boy Enders or Andrew Wiggins, who has devised methods of winning the war. Naturally, he has earned the enmity of the defeated nations. Now the question is how he can come back to Earth and his family. Along with people who hero-worship him he has to fear those who are thirsting for his blood.
And while the debates on Earth go on, Enders realizes that the over-riding view is not to send him back.
Enders is made Governor of a space-ship on a mission to colonize planets, but he is not comfortable with it because one thing that keeps bothering him is his conscience. It troubles him that in this whole war-game he has been responsible for the death and destruction of whole colonies of formics.
And now there is young Allessandra who has come with her mother as new settlers in one of the colonies, with the clear motive of enticing Enders.
There are further adventures and challenges coming, as the new planet has to be searched and readied for future settlers.
Finally, is Enders forgiven for his ‘war crimes.’ It takes a few pages of intense reading to get into the flow of narration. The effort is worth it.
(Hachette, Little Brown Group, 100 Victoria Embankment, London EC 4Y 0DY.)
