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Ender's Game Alive: The Full Cast Audioplay cover art

Ender's Game Alive: The Full Cast Audioplay

By: Orson Scott Card
Narrated by: Full Cast Recording
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Editor reviews

With a full cast production, this highly-entertaining dramatization of the award-winning military science fiction story Ender's Game will wow fans as well as listeners new to this classic. Using an original screenplay written by Orson Scott Card himself, the audioplay takes listeners through Battle School with prodigy Ender Wiggin.

The cast fleshes out their characters with full personalities and motivations - in particular, the actors who portray the children at Battle School do a wonderful job in bringing out their precociousness and fading innocence. The action scenes are brisk and electrifying, and listeners will be swept up in the events of the story.

Summary

Audie Award Finalist, Multi-Voiced Performance, 2014

Audie Award Finalist, Original Work, 2014

Experience Ender's Game as you've never heard it before! With an all-new, original script written by Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game Alive is a full cast audio drama that reimagines the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning classic.

Ender’s Game Alive puts you into Battle School with young Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, as he trains to become the general who will lead Earth against the Formics, the alien "buggers". Removed from his family at the age of six, Ender must prove his strength and his leadership, even as he fights his own doubts. The stakes are nothing less than the fate of humankind.

Ender's Game Alive is performed by Kirby Heyborne, Stefan Rudnicki, Theodore Bikel, Scott Brick, Samantha Eggar, Harlan Ellison, Susan Hanfield, Roxanne Hernandez, Janis Ian, Rex Linn, Richard McGonagle, Jim Meskimen, Emily Rankin, John Rubinstein, Christian Rummel, and a full cast.

Directed by Gabrielle de Cuir

Original Score by John Rubinstein

Valentine's Theme by Janis Ian

Additional music and arrangements by Mark Mitchell

©2013 Orson Scott Card (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Listeners will feel surrounded by Card's sophisticated, high-stakes universe. With a stately musical score and video-game sound effects, this "re-imagined" production sticks close to the novel while offering listeners an entertaining new way to enjoy one of science fiction's best loved stories.” ( AudioFile)

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What listeners say about Ender's Game Alive: The Full Cast Audioplay

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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  • 03-11-13

Could have been great. Was only okay.

What made the experience of listening to Ender's Game Alive: The Full Cast Audioplay the most enjoyable?

Ender's Game is a fantastic story to begin with and with the author writing the dramatisation it means all the important bits are left in.

Any additional comments?

BUT.The musical intervals were horrible and could be quite off-putting. And although the cast did a good job, having adult-sounding children was also a little ... irritating. If they can make a movie of this fantastic story using child actors, why couldn't they do the same with this dramatisation?So overall, a good way to spend a lazy Sunday. But would have been better with age-appropriate actors and NO music!

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Overproduced and rather oddly cast

There are a few issues with this adaptation of a classic story. Firstly, the use of 'specially commissioned' music seems gratuitous. often inappropriate and always intrusive. That leads to a feeling of overproduction; 'We'll fit this in somehow'. The cast is oddly chosen; as others have commented, the use of adults to voice child characters is frequently jarring. There are variations in the background of the various voices, suggesting recordings in different places.

The story, although battered, remains more-or-less intact.

I hesitate to recommend this version; I think reading (or listening to) the original would be preferable.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Pleasant and enjoyable to listen

Never read the book prior and was going into this blind. Voice acting was well cast in my opinion. Voiced were clear and recognisable.

I was trying to decide between the audible version and the original but decided to go with the audible version. Can't say for the other one but the audible version was enjoyable and easy to follow. Well dramatised.
Personally I wasn't bothered that the voices didn't sound like children like with the other reviewers (they did sound like kids to me)
Would definitely recommend this if you would just like a good story that's easy to listen to.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good story but poor performance

The story is good and easy to follow but I just couldn't get past the performance. The voices were ALL wrong and just spoiled it, I had to stop listening.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

An excellent adaptation of the original.

Would you consider the audio edition of Ender's Game Alive: The Full Cast Audioplay to be better than the print version?

Having never read the print version but listened to the entirety of the Ender Universe on audio books, it's hard to say if this is better than the print version. What I can say is that lived up to expectation and really helped to bring the characters to life and add to the story in subtle ways.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Due to the way Scott Card uses third parties to convey to the reader what happens in Ender's head in the original text, Colonel Graff takes an even larger role and could easily be my favourite character - especially read so brilliantly by Stefan Rudnicki who is one of the greatest narrators I have had the pleasure of listening to.

Which character – as performed by Full Cast Recording – was your favourite?

See above - Graff by Stefan Rudnicki.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Having already trodden the entire path of the Ender Universe, one cannot help but be emotionally attached to the central characters and this performance only adds to that. To isolate any particular emotion would be to diminish the impact of the performance.

Any additional comments?

I implore anyone to continue the journey. But go through the Shadow Saga next, then Ender in Exile and then pick up the thread of Ender's story with Speaker for the Dead. it is one of the greatest stories ever told and finishing the saga makes you feel like you've just said goodbye to your closest group of friends. I had to go back and do them all again to satisfy my need for more!

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

I'd rather listen to someone reading the book

I feel you lose so much in an adaptation, if I hadn't bought this as part of a two for one deal, I'd have returned it pretty early on.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The music !

As usual this story is amazing even in this format I felt sometimes some of the music parts were too long however the intensity of music was about right

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

great!

I have read the book but this brings it to life. Great voice performance! highly recommended

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

classic sci-fi

Would you consider the audio edition of Ender's Game Alive: The Full Cast Audioplay to be better than the print version?

Whilst some things are lost in this version, the dramatisation of the book works well with great performances.

What did you like best about this story?

This is a great story, a classic sci-fi novel with intrigue, humour, and storytelling

Which character – as performed by Full Cast Recording – was your favourite?

the grown-ups do tend to be better

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

no

Any additional comments?

no

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A good adaptation of a great story

I very much enjoyed the audiobook version of "Ender's Game", so I was keen to get this play version too. After reading other pretty negative reviews, I was worried the acting would be very wooden. However, I was pleasantly surprised- whilst the acting is not up to the standard of some of the finest radio examples, like Ian Holm's Frodo in the BBC's Lord of the Rings, I found it to be perfectly adequate. The adaptation of the book to a play script was also very good, such that I think someone who has not read or listened to the original will also be able to enjoy the play.

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2 people found this helpful