Ender's Game (series)

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The Ender's Game series (sometimes called Enderverse or the Ender saga) is a series of science fiction books by Orson Scott Card. The series started with the novelette "Ender's Game", which was later expanded into the novel Ender's Game. It currently consists of eleven novels, twelve short stories, and 45 comic issues. The first two novels in the series, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, each won both the Hugo[1][2] and Nebula[1][3] Awards, and were among the most influential science fiction novels of the 1980s.

The series is set in a future where mankind is facing annihilation by an aggressive alien society, an insect-like race known colloquially as "Buggers" but more formally as "Formics". The central character, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, is one of the child soldiers trained at Battle School (and eventually Command School) to be the future leaders of the protection of Earth.

Chronology of Enderverse stories. Numbers in parentheses are years of first publication. Novels are in blue and short stories are in red. Question marks indicate a work that has been announced but not yet published.

Contents


[edit] Ender series

Card first wrote Ender's Game as a short story, but went back and expanded it into a novel so he could use Ender as a main character in another novel, Speaker for the Dead. That novel takes place three thousand years after Ender's Game, although due to relativistic space travel Ender himself (now using his full name, Andrew) is only 36, making him only 25 years older than he was at the end of the Formic Wars.

While the first novel concerned itself with armies and space warfare, Speaker for the Dead and its two sequels Xenocide and Children of the Mind are more philosophical in nature. They deal with the difficult relationship between the humans and the "Piggies" (or "Pequeninos"), and Andrew's attempts to stop another xenocide from happening (after the one he unwittingly committed in the Bugger War).

A War of Gifts: An Ender Story was released in October 2007.[4] It is set during Ender's first year in Battle School.

A prequel to Speaker for the Dead named Ender in Exile was released in November 2008. It involves Ender's journey to the first colony, as well as his meeting a character from the Shadow saga, effectively wrapping up the final plotline of the parallel series.

Earth Unaware is a forthcoming prequel to the entire Ender series.[5] It will be released on July 17, 2012.

[edit] Shadow saga

Starting with Ender's Shadow, four more novels have been released which tell the story of the people whom Ender left behind — this has been dubbed the Shadow saga (also known as the "Bean Quartet"). Ender's Shadow is a parallel novel to Ender's Game, telling many of the same events from the perspective of Bean, a mostly peripheral character in Ender's Game, while Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant tell the story of the struggle for world dominance after the Bugger War, in which the Battle School children, as well as Ender's brother, Peter Wiggin, are involved.

A sequel novel to Shadow of the Giant named Shadows in Flight further introduces Bean's children.

Shadows Alive, a future sequel, takes place after both Children of the Mind and Shadows in Flight, tying up the two series, and explaining some unanswered questions.

[edit] Novels in the series

To date, there are six novels in the Ender's Game series and five novels in the Shadow series. According to Card, there is no strictly preferred order of reading them, except that Xenocide should be read right before Children of the Mind.[6] The books can be read in the order they were originally written in or in chronological order.

[edit] Publication date

  1. Ender's Game (1985) - Nebula Award winner, 1985;[1] Hugo Award winner, 1986;[1] Locus Award nominee, 1986[1]
  2. Speaker for the Dead (1986) - Nebula Award winner, 1986;[1] Hugo & Locus Awards winner, 1987;[1] Campbell Award nominee, 1987[1]
  3. Xenocide (1991) - Hugo and Locus Awards nominee, 1992[7]
  4. Children of the Mind (1996)
  5. Ender's Shadow (1999) - Shortlisted for a Locus Award, 2000[8]
  6. Shadow of the Hegemon (2001) - Shortlisted for a Locus Award, 2002[9]
  7. Shadow Puppets (2002)
  8. First Meetings (2002) - short story collection
  9. Shadow of the Giant (2005)
  10. A War of Gifts: An Ender Story (2007)
  11. Ender in Exile (2008)
  12. Shadows in Flight (2012)
  13. Shadows Alive (forthcoming, originally planned as part of "Shadows in Flight")
  14. Earth Unaware (forthcoming, prequel planned for July 17th, 2012)

[edit] Chronological order

  1. Earth Unaware
  2. First Meetings
  3. Ender's Shadow and Ender's Game (Note: These events take place in roughly the same time period.)
  4. A War of Gifts
  5. Shadow of the Hegemon
  6. Shadow Puppets
  7. Shadow of the Giant
  8. Ender in Exile
  9. Speaker for the Dead
  10. Xenocide
  11. Children of the Mind
  12. Shadows in Flight
  13. Shadows Alive

[edit] Short stories in the series

Main article: List of Ender's Game series short stories

[edit] Comic books in the series

Main article: Ender's Game (comics)

Comic books in the Ender Universe are currently being published by Marvel Comics.

[edit] The Authorized Ender Companion

Written by Jake Black, The Authorized Ender Companion is "the indispensable guide to the universe of Ender's Game."[10] Sections in this book include: The Ender Encyclopedia, Ender's Timeline, Ender's Family Tree by Andrew Lindsay, Getting Ender Right: A Look at the Ender's Game Sceenplay Development by Aaron Johnston, and The Technology of Ender's Game by Stephen Sywak. The majority of the book consists of encyclopedia references to the events, characters, locations, and technology found in the Ender's Game series up to the publication of Ender in Exile.

The book is notable for having new and behind the scenes information on certain topics such as Battle School Slang, The Look of the Formics, The History of Hyrum Graff, Ender and Valentine's Travels, and Mazer Rackham's Spaceship.

[edit] See also

Portal icon Novels portal

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "1986 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=1986. Retrieved 2009-07-15. 
  2. ^ "1987 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=1987. Retrieved 2009-07-15. 
  3. ^ "1985 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=1985. Retrieved 2009-07-15. 
  4. ^ Orson Scott Card at Fantastic Fiction
  5. ^ Johnston, Aaron. "Aaron Johnston Books". http://www.aaronwjohnston.com/writing/. Retrieved 2012-2-7. 
  6. ^ Card, Orson Scott. "Question: What's the 'preferred' order of reading the Ender series?". Frequently Asked Questions. Hatrack.com. http://www.hatrack.com/faq/003.shtml. Retrieved 2007-05-15. 
  7. ^ "1992 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=1992. Retrieved 2009-07-15. 
  8. ^ "2000 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=2000. Retrieved 2009-07-15. 
  9. ^ "2002 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=2002. Retrieved 2009-07-15. 
  10. ^ Black, Jake (2009). The Authorized Ender Companion. Tor Books. ISBN 978-0765320636. 

[edit] External links

List of series by Orson Scott Card
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