Ender's Game

The book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card was a very intriguing book. I'm really not a fan of science fiction, but I managed to get myself to read this book. It turned out to be more fantasy tied than I expected. The book started off slow, but I really became hooked as I continued reading. The Mind Game that Ender plays kept me thinking, as I kept trying to visualize the interesting dream-like events. Not to say that the rest of the book wasn't interesting, I was simply more interested in the more fantastic and mysterious portions. But, to move on away from that, the actual science fiction was great. The author put in a lot of visualization on the feelings and actions of the characters, providing a nice idea for what life was like in this time period. I have never read any of the sequels to this book, so I remain curious as to where the book leads to.
I felt a very empathetic connection to the characters. It was touching to read about Valentine's relationship with Ender, but I almost felt like Valentine when she realized how she no longer knew her brother. As for the Mind Game, I sort of felt drawn to the world Ender was in, the strange obstacles and the mysterious findings. Ender's returning to the game frequently made it feel like having a dream over and over, but every action performed is imprinted into the dream and remains there the next time around. It actually felt sort of depressing, but that's just because I drifted too much from what was actually happening to the idea of not being able to go back. Ender kills that giant, and it's still dead when he returns. It almost gives off a lonely feeling, to know that once you conquer everything, there is nothing left to return to.
Strangely enough, it keeps me thinking about a game I play, when you play outside of the story, you can destroy all the obstacles in the area, some providing more life into the game with movements, and once everything is destroyed, the area is still, and you just feel a sort of emptiness, it feels fake, and the joy is sucked out by the idea that you are alone.
The same feeling was created with everyone on earth going to live on another planet. I've had a dream where the apocalypse came and we had to go live in outer space. Despite being with so many people, it felt extremely depressing to be living a completely new life, devoid of all ties to my old life, not to mention how depressing space is on its own.
I'm going off topic here, so, to finish this off, I felt there was a lot of depth to each event, each relationship, and I think anyone with a love for science fiction, and even fantasy and some mystery, would thoroughly enjoy this book.

~~~~Just a side note~~~~
After immersing myself in this book, I tried reading Ender's Shadow to get some background on the other little genius, but, not being an actual sequel, but rather a compliment to the book, I felt rather uninterested. I don't know how it works for other readers, but once I become emotionally bound to a book, reading the ending pretty much severs the ties along with my interest, and as much as I think about how great the book was the first time around, I feel totally uninterested in reading it a second time.