Actually I Hate "Ender's Game"...

Did you see the Fiction Reader's Guide to Social Interaction? Once I knew the question (what's your favorite novel?) and the premise (that the question is difficult to answer because, *gasp*, you wouldn't answer it honestly!) I just scanned down through looking to see if my honest answer might be mentioned, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, because I think it's the coolest book ever - and assumed it probably wouldn't be in there. Instead I found this section:

The choice of Frank Herbert’s Dune or Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy insinuates that you were too ashamed to admit your first choice, Ender’s Game, because it involves non-satirical spacecraft and is not yet vindicated by being “retro” or “classic.”

Errrrrgh!!! I HATE Ender's Game. As Dorothy Parker said, some books are not to be tossed aside lightly but hurled with great force. For me, Ender's Game was one of those books. Yes, I know opinions vary but that's mine. I don't want anyone assuming that I use The Hitchhiker's Guide as a beard for that book. Ever. So now I feel like if anyone asks about my favorite novel I will have to answer with, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy... and, by the way, I really hated Ender's Game." An answer that, depending on the company, might get me into a fight. But some things are worth fighting over and for me books are almost always in that category.

Perhaps I need to clean my eyes with another reading of the Hitchhiker's trilogy. I've read the whole thing at least ten times starting when I was nine years old. Because when I say favorite I mean favorite.

*Revised 1/5/10 to be slightly, uh, less reactionary. Slightly.