Card, Orson Scott Books

Ender's Game (Ender, Book 1)

Orson Scott Card

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2532 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

Stephen King, Cory Doctorow, George R. R. Martin, Octavia E. Butler, Jonathan Lethem, Orson Scott Card, Gene Wolfe, Jack McDevitt, Tobias S. Buckell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A few really good...and a lot of so-so 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This was a collection of short stories all somehow themed around an apocalpyse - something has gone horribly wrong with the world. I picked it up after enjoying "Earth Abides" by George Stewart so much.

Overall some of the stories were good, some not so good, but on the whole I definitely like longer books as opposed to short stories. I'd rather really get to know characters and see a story unfold than the short stereotypes that are given in this type of collection with the "catchy" endings. I'd certainly prefer to read a good 5-book series as opposed to a collection like this. However it should give me some good ideas for future reading.

Here are my thoughts on each individual story:

Stephen King - The End of the Whole Mess - I liked it, good story, well done, etc... But I've always liked Stephen King so this was sort of a gimme.

Orson Scott Card - Salvage - This story did nothing for me. It's funny, Orson Scott Card is so highly regarded, yet I read "Ender's Game" and didn't love it like so many people do. This story did nothing at all for me.

Paolo Bacigalupi - The People of Sand and Slag - Good one. Deep apocalpyse stuff, and really thought provoking about some of our assumptions about the world. One of the best in the book I'd say.

M. Rickert - Bread and Bombs - This story was "Ok", not the best nor the worst. Interesting twist ending.

Jonathan Letham - How We Got In Town and Out Again - Very entertaining - not the deepest story but a good tale that really kept moving. I liked it.

George R. R. Martin - Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels - My favorite story in the collection. Thought provoking, tense, interesting. Brutal ending. Just really well done and I'll definitely check out something else by him based on this.

Tobias S. Buckell - Waiting for the Zephyr - Good one, not great. Short story (even within the collection) and more hopeful than many.

Jack McDevitt - Never Despair - So-so. Interesting use of a real historical figure, but I felt like the story gave me more questions than answers.

Cory Doctorow - When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth - You know, being a programmer you'd think I'd have liked this more, but I didn't. I found it rather boring. Not one of my favorites. But I may check out some of his other stuff simply because of his knowledge on the topic of technology.

James Van Pelt - The Last of the O-Forms - Wow I don't even remember this one, after flipping through it. Clearly didn't make much of an impact on me.

Richard Kadrey - Still Life with Apocalypse - Short, but interesting. But only 3 pages.

Catherine Wells - Artie's Angels - Again, so-so. Painted a good picture and good imagry, but the story didn't really compel me. Still I liked the writing.

Jerry Oltion - Judgment Passed - Very, very good. Of course I like the questioning of the Rapture that's implied here, it meets with my own personal religious beliefs. So I really enjoyed this one.

Gene Wolfe - Mute - Didn't like it at all. Just didn't do anything for me.

Nancy Kress - Inertia - This one was pretty good, interesting. Definitely made you think a bit. She even tried to do some characterization in addition to just moving the story along.

Elizabeth Bear - And the Deep Blue Sea - I think this was a good story, but it was a bit hard for me to understand eactly what was going on all the same. I'd check out more by her though, it was that compelling at least.

Octavia E. Butler - Speech Sounds - Very good one, really made you think, and a good, hopeful ending. Also an author I'd check out more from.

Carol Emshwiller - Killers - Did nothing for me. Sort of interesting start but then got really flat.

Neal Barrett, Jr. - Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus - This was a good story, interesting and compelling, though it felt a bit like a deux ex machina ending.

Dale Bailey - The End of the World As We Know It - Another very good one - it really in its own way made fun of the apocalypse genre, which was entertaining near the end of this book. I liked the tone and style.

David Grigg - A Song Before Sunset - Another good one - thought provoking and deep while still a bit soft on the surface. Well done.

John Langan - Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers - By the time I started this story I was bored with the collection, and this story reads sort of like one long run-on paragraph, and it just didn't do anything for me. I stopped reading it, though it maybe would have been more interesting to me had it been earlier in the book, I don't know. I probably judged this one a bit unfairly.

And that's it. I'll take some notes on future reading based on authors I liked and some of the "for further reading" listed in the book.

Editorial Review:

Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon - these are our guides through the Wastelands... From the Book of Revelations to The Road Warrior; from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today's most renowned authors of speculative fiction, including George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King, Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon.

A War of Gifts: An Ender Story (Ender)

Orson Scott Card

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 42 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

There are better alternatives out there 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I've read a lot of Orson Scott Card's books, and have always found myself coming away from them a little frustrated. The ideas always seem to be interesting, but end up getting lost in mediocre storytelling. Card dwells on the same unique ideas so persistently, going back to the same well so often, that by the end of the book what I had originally found unique now just seems hackneyed. And now that I've found out Card is so outspoken politically with such (literally) fascist and discriminatory views, I don't even want his books in my house. I've sold them online and donated the money to a worthy charity.

If you find Card's story ideas at all interesting, I'd suggest the following authors for a more satisfying storytelling experience:

Neil Gaiman. Gaiman has the same unique flavor to his ideas, but he also has the execution to deliver an incredible story as well. His work is more on the fantasy side, like Card's Alvin Maker series. The only problem is that Gaiman writes so few books that I find myself becoming incredibly impatient waiting for his next story to come out.

Stephen Baxter and Isaac Asimov. Asimov's works can sometimes be a little less accessible then Card's, but Baxter's are not; they are just as easy a read. Both men are visionaries scientifically, and tell gripping, page turning stories. Both are sci-fi based, like Card's Ender Series.

Stephen King. Most people groan when I say how much I love King's writing, but universally I come to find out that those people have never read his Dark Tower series, just his horror. The seven books that comprise the Dark Tower story, widely considered King's Magnum Opus, are a truly unique blend of equal parts fantasy, sci-fi, and western. Note these are not in any way like King's horror writings, though once you've read the Dark Tower you'll see characters from it turn up in ancillary roles in many of his other books. The Dark Tower, like the Alvin series, is set is a world that is kind of our world, kind of not. The Dark Tower series is hands-down the best series I've ever read. Period.

I hope this helps some readers find some great stories they may have otherwise not found. Happy reading!

Editorial Review:

Orson Scott Card offers a Christmas gift to his millions of fans with this short novel set during Ender's first years at the Battle School where it is forbidden to celebrate religious holidays.  The children come from many nations, many religions; while they are being trained for war, religious conflict between them is not on the curriculum. But Dink Meeker, one of the older students, doesn't see it that way. He thinks that giving gifts isn't exactly a religious observation, and on Sinterklaas Day he tucks a present into another student's shoe.

This small act of rebellion sets off a battle royal between the students and the staff, but some surprising alliances form when Ender comes up against a new student, Zeck Morgan. The War over Santa Claus will force everyone to make a choice.

Speaker for the Dead (Ender, Book 2)

Orson Scott Card

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 410 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not Card's best 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Don't get this if you liked Ender's game and are looking for a sequel. Speaker for the Dead has only one of the same characters - Ender - and he's much older. No one he knew is in this book, and there's little that relates to his past or future.

If that were not enough, I found the book to be subdued and tedious, and somehow off-center. It certainy isn't Card's best at all. The story doesn't have a lot of coherence, and none of the characters are very memorable or admirable at all. Alot of details and features of the story really iritated me.

I think if he wanted to write this story, he should have just presented it as a totally new book. I came to this wanting a sequel to Ender's Game (a masterful and original book) but instead got a book that had nothing to do with Ender's game besides Ender himself appearing in it. I know Speaker for the Dead has a lot of sequels too but a far more interesting line of sequels to follow, if you liked Ender's Game, is Ender's Shadow, followed by Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant, which deal with the story of Ender's Game from Bean's point of view and then the other students of Battle School and what happens back on Earth. Read those instead of Speaker for the Dead.

Editorial Review:

In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.

Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.

Xenocide (Ender, Book 3) (Ender Quartet)

Orson Scott Card

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 212 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Weak Science Fiction Philosophy 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

In the middle of my last law school exam, someone looked at my copy of Xenocide and asked me if I had been disappointed by the direction the series had taken. Although stressed from the upcoming exam (anyone who has survived their first year of law school can understand), I looked at him and told him that I was disappointed, especially considering how remarkable the book that started it all - Ender's Game - had been.

At some point, Card decided, or maybe it was in him all along, that a book of science fiction philosophy would be more appealing than continuing the epic adventure of Andrew Wiggin and his family in the same kind of fast-paced, exciting prose. For those familiar with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Series, this book is the kind of filler that you find in the last few books of the series. Don't get me wrong, if science fiction philosophy were a genre unto itself, then this would do very well; however, considering how almost monumental the first book was, this shift (started in Speaker for the Deadi) is incredibly disappointing. If I wanted philosophy and discussions concerning the human psyche I would turn to Sartre or the Bible. But Card is not content with advancing the story and instead gives us 300 pages of fluff.

Maybe I'm being too hard, but I've really been expecting something more from this series. Some things do happen - Ender et al figures out how to travel faster than the speed of light, the piggies and the humans learn how to tame the descolada virus, and we are introduced to a world called Path where certain individuals can commune with the gods. Unfortunately, that's almost all that happens. The buggers, humans, and piggies are still stuck on Lusitania and the fleet has yet to arrive. That is how the book starts and that is how it ends.

For those who want an end to the series, you, like myself, have to march on, but for those who have finished Ender's Game should read Ender's Shadow and possibly move on to something else.

Some interesting quotes:

"Every day all people judge all other people. The question is whether we judge wisely."

"Isn't it possible, he wondered, for one person to love another without trying to own each other? Or is that buried so deep in our genes that we never get it out? Territoriality. My wife. My friend. My lover."

"Parents always make their mistakes with the oldest children. That's when parents know the least and care the most, so they're more likely to be wrong and also more likely to insist they are right."

Editorial Review:

The war for survival of the planet Lusitania will be fought in the hearts of a child named Gloriously Bright.

On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans and pequininos and the Hive Queen could all live together; where three very different intelligent species could find common ground at last. Or so he thought.

Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all humans it infects, but which the pequininos require in order to become adults. The Startways Congress so fears the effects of the descolada, should it escape from Lusitania, that they have ordered eh destruction of the entire planet, and all who live there. The Fleet is on its way, a second xenocide seems inevitble.

Children of the Mind (Ender, Book 4) (Ender Quartet)

Orson Scott Card

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 204 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

A Not So Fitting End... 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Before reading this, I already knew what to expect having already ingested the previous three books in this series - Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide, so I'm not sure what exactly about this book was a disappointment. Card finally gives us a kind of end to Ender's 3000 year life and many plot points that arguably should have already taken place in Xenocide. Unlike the ending to the Harry Potter series, we are not left feeling a sense of sadness and loss at losing a character we have already followed for a thousand pages. Instead, we get another failed attempt at a philosophical science fiction novel. The dialogue is almost endless, one of my major criticisms of the last two books, but here, the religious and spiritual debates reach a crescendo, for me, it was almost too much and almost forced me to stop reading the book. But alas, having loved Ender's story, maybe only in the beginning to be honest with you, I had to see how everything played out.

I cannot decide whether Card's note at the end of the book, where he tries explain what it is he was and is trying to do and where he discusses the work of Oe and Endo (both authors I adore), was a good idea or a bad one. For those having read the previous two volumes and presumably this one since you see the note at the end, you already figured that he had an intense interest both in Asian culture and writing and in creating some kind of moral pedagogy in his work. Unfortunately, his finished project does not stand up as well to other writers who have successfully done it--Endo, Oe, C.S. Lewis to name a few--because the philosophy and religion and other spiritual aspects of the novel are so in-your-face and all-consuming that the plot and the storylines disappear.

Anyways, at least I can say that I'm done with this book series...

Interesting Quotes:

"Life is a suicide mission."

"Do the dead tips of fingernails feel bad when you pare them away?"

"It's all fictions anyway. We do what we do and then we make up reasons for it afterward, but they're never the true reasons, the truth is always just out of reach."

Editorial Review:

The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: the Pequeninos; a large colony of humans; and the Hive Queen, brought there by Ender. But once against the human race has grown fearful; the Starways Congress has gathered a fleet to destroy Lusitania.

Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, can save the three sentient races of Lusitania. She has learned how to move ships outside the universe, and then instantly back to a different world, abolishing the light-speed limit. But it takes all the processing power available to her, and the Starways Congress is shutting down the Net, world by world.

Soon Jane will not be able to move the ships. Ender's children must save her if they are to save themselves.

Ender's Shadow (Ender, Book 5) (Ender's Shadow)

Orson Scott Card

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 639 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Bean Better Than Ender??? Possibly 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

While this book is consistent with the Ender is God view, Bean is a separate and uniquely intriguing character. His childhood is about as far from fairy tale as one can get and still be a child-safe book. He's got a brain unparalleled in the known world, which must have been a daunting task for the author to describe well, but somehow Orson Scott Card succeeds.

I would recommend reading Ender's Game first, but you could potentially read this book as a stand alone novel and it would still be fine. The author has a lovely way of presenting things, even if the bad guys are as cheap a sci-fi trick as buggers.

Editorial Review:

Welcome to Battleschool.

Growing up is never easy. But try living on the mean streets as a child begging for food and fighting like a dog with ruthless gangs of starving kids who wouldn't hesitate to pound your skull into pulp for a scrap of apple. If Bean has learned anything on the streets, it's how to survive. And not with fists. He is way too small for that. But with brains.

Bean is a genius with a magician's ability to zero in on his enemy and exploit his weakness.

What better quality for a future general to lead the Earth in a final climactic battle against a hostile alien race, known as Buggers. At Battleschool Bean meets and befriends another future commander - Ender Wiggins - perhaps his only true rival.

Only one problem: for Bean and Ender, the future is now.

First Meetings in Ender's Universe

Orson Scott Card

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Total reviews: 52 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Meet Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, the unforgettable boy-hero of Ender's Game--winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novel--and enter his Universe through this collection of stories.

"The Polish Boy" is John Paul Wiggin, the future father of Ender. In the years between the first two Bugger Wars, the Hegemony is desperate to recruit brilliant military commanders to repel the alien invasion. They may have found their man--or boy--in John Paul Wiggin....

In "Teacher's Pest"-a novella written especially for this collection--a brilliant but arrogant John Paul Wiggin, now a university student, matches wits with an equally brilliant graduate student.

"The Investment Counselor" is set after the end of the Bugger Wars. Banished from Earth and slandered as a mass murderer, twenty-year-old Andrew Wiggin wanders incognito from planet to planet as a fugitive--until a blackmailing tax inspector compromises his identity and threatens to expose Ender the Xeoncide.

Also reprinted here is the original award-winning novella, "Ender's Game," which first appeared in 1977.

Shadow Puppets (Shadow Saga)

Orson Scott Card

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 133 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Good continuation 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I've enjoyed the "Ender" series since Analog first published it. I've progressed, along with Card's writing, from action-adventure to philosophy to interpersonal relationships. This book was a decent contribution to the series, in much the same way that "Heartfire" was a decent contribution to the "Alvin Maker" series. But like Heartfire, it didn't really advance the ball much. Some of the book was Tom Clancy light, and some of the further characterization seemed contradictory to previous installments (Peter continues his transformation from egomaniacal psychotic animal-torturer to just another rebellious teenager, getting bailed out by his parents). Where Card succeeds is with Bean and Petra, although my prurient and adolescent mind would have appreciated more explicit romance from the two.

Editorial Review:

Orson Scott Card's award-winning Ender series is a genuine classic of science fiction. In SHADOW PUPPETS, the third book in the new series following ENDER'S SHADOW and SHADOW OF THE HEGEMON, Ender's fellow pupils from Battle School face a terrible new enemy ...Manoeuvring through international politics and war, Peter Wiggin and Achilles fight a shadow-battle of propaganda and assassination. Each is determined to defeat the other and become Hegemon of Earth, but each has fought the other to a stalemate. Ender's greatest friend, Bean, might tip that balance, but he refuses to ally his tactical genius to either side . But now cloned embyros carrying Bean's brilliant intelligence have fallen into the hands of Achilles' people. If Bean cannot reclaim them Achilles will become unstoppable ...Find out more about this and other titles at www.orbitbooks.co.uk

Ender's Game Gift Edition (Ender Quartet)

Orson Scott Card

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards

For the perfect holiday gift for the reader on your list, pick up this special gift edition of one of the most beloved Science Fiction novels ever written. Andrew "Ender" Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games at the Battle School; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. Ender is the most talented result of Earth's desperate quest to create the military genius that the planet needs in its all-out war with an alien enemy. Is Ender the general Earth needs? The only way to find out is to throw the child into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins. He will grow up fast.But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Formics has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.