[Also in part a reply to Robert...]

For me, Ender's Game was one of those books everyone but me had read ... until just around a year ago. I borrowed it, and the sequel Speaker for the Dead, from the library at the same time and read them back-to-back.

And of course, I immediately thought of HabZone when the story turned to "Locke" and "Demosthenes". I even had an idea of who might be Valentine's analog here -- can you guess?

When I posted my "n/t" above, I was referring merely to Card's use of the fact that 12-year-olds have better reaction times than their elders. I have only name-recognition familiarity with "America's Army", though I have to admire the Army's cleverness at developing it. When it comes to gaming, I'm a "turn-based strategy" type. Coming from chess, the original version of Risk, and the Avalon Hill games with the die-cut cardboard tokens for military units, my idea of an engaging computer game is "Alpha Centauri" (which, sadly, won't play on this new box -- it's too old to recognize a P4).

On book series as archaeology: There's more stratigraphy underlying Ender. In the way the plot follows Ender and the other kids, it is very like Joe Haldeman's The Forever War -- which, in its turn is both homage and Vietnam-Era answer to Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

There's another way in which Card's book resembles Haldeman's: a growing ambiguity about the nature of the enemy. Haldeman fought in Vietnam (I've seen the scars), and in the latter part of The Forever War it's impossible for his characters (and therefore his readers) to tell friend from foe. The dilemma Card sets up is less visually confusing, but certainly no less morally confusing -- that is, once Ender discovers that they haven't been training in sims but fighting the real war.

Hope that wasn't a spoiler for any lurkers!