I always thought of Ender's Game of something like a child's book. Something like Harry Potter to LoTRs. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, I mean, Harry Potter got a whole bunch of people reading. But seeing this explanation helps me better understand why I feel like that, and what it means.
I'd call this an analysis more than a review. Whatever you think it is, I found it a pretty honest and open piece coming from someone who has such a personal stake in the book.
There is speculation that the full length novel was ghost written. Essentially somebody asked Card a bunch of questions about it, and he didn't know the answers to any of his questions...
I've seen Elaine's notes and heard Card on the phone, and there is no doubt in my mind that the Hitler Hypothesis is correct; it is simply impossible that Ender's Game and Speaker were written by someone who did not have a very detailed knowledge of Adolph Hitler's life. There are very exact parallels in there that you wouldn't even notice unless you read the footnotes to the most detailed Hitler biographies. I also tend to believe that Card does not have that level of knowledge about Hitler.
It would be simpler to assume that a story where a person causes the extinction of a species would have some similarities with a war in which genocide occurred.
I've read Card's books and I have reasonable knowledge of Hitler and I didn't notice any particular parallel. I suspect that the claim that he doesn't know his own books comes more from a reluctance to engage in a telephone debate rather than the idea that he didn't write them
I say that as someone who really liked Ender's Game, but thought Speaker for the Dead was crap. I had always assumed that Speaker for the Dead had some kind of Mormon message, but I think these accusations go way too far and are unsupported by the evidence.
To be fair, having read all of the books in the...currently 9? 10? Enderverse-related series, Ender's Game does come off as extremely low-level. The later Ender books go oddly metaphysically-shaped towards the end, and not always enjoyably so. The Shadow series, on the other hand, was (to me) rather more interesting.
I'd call this an analysis more than a review. Whatever you think it is, I found it a pretty honest and open piece coming from someone who has such a personal stake in the book.