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Ender's Game (novel series)

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Chronology of Enderverse stories. Numbers in brackets are year of first publication. Quotations indicate a short story. Question marks indicate a work that has been announced but not yet published.

The Ender's Game series (sometimes called Enderverse or the Ender series) 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 and ten short stories. 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. The year is never specified, although the ages of the Wiggin children are specified to change throughout space, also carefully taking in the relativity of space and time.

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 own 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.

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 book to Shadow of the Giant named Shadows in Flight is planned. It is said to start after Children of the Mind rather than Shadow of the Giant, tying up the two series, and explain some unanswered questions.

Novels in the series

To date, there are 5 novels in the Ender's Game series and 4 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.[5] The books can be read in the order they were originally written in or in chronological order.

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[6]
  4. Children of the Mind (1996)
  5. Ender's Shadow (1999) - Shortlisted for a Locus Award, 2000[7]
  6. Shadow of the Hegemon (2001) - Shortlisted for a Locus Award, 2002[8]
  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 (forthcoming)

Chronological order

  1. Ender's Game/Ender's Shadow/A War of Gifts
  2. Ender in Exile (Reveals plot elements of Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant.)
  3. Shadow of the Hegemon
  4. Shadow Puppets
  5. Shadow of the Giant
  6. Speaker for the Dead
  7. Xenocide
  8. Children of the Mind

Governments in the Enderverse

There are two primary governments in the Ender series. The first (listed in Ender's Game) is the Hegemony, a futuristic mix of 1984's Big Brother and the current form of American democracy. The latter is an interstellar government known as Starways Congress.

The Hegemony

After the events of the first invasion (circa. pre-Ender's Game), the world unified against the buggers in an alliance termed the Hegemony. It consisted of three offices: the Hegemon, Strategos, and Polemarch. However, the Hegemony only had power and influence as long as the Buggers posed a threat. After the end of the Third Invasion, the Hegemony lost influence as various power blocs on Earth began jockeying for influence and territory. For five days after Ender's final battle, the League War raged, which was finally ended by the Locke Proposal, written by Peter Wiggin.

Starways Congress

Starways Congress was formed some time after the colonization of the Hundred Worlds, over a timespan from Ender in Exile to Speaker For the Dead. In the series, it is an intergalactic government superpower of American root that becomes the primary antagonist in the events of Speaker For the Dead. It consists of chairmen that vote on issues (see Big Man Government or also possibly Democracy). It ruled by controlling the ansible. Various groups (religious, nationalities, ethnic groups, etc.) were granted permits to develop colonies and allowed to rule them according to their belief systems provided they followed the laws set by the SC.

Short stories in the series

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

Shorter works set in the Ender's Game series can be found in the short story collection First Meetings by Orson Scott Card and in his webzine InterGalactic Medicine Show. Card has promised to publish an Ender story with each new issue (although no new Ender stories have appeared since issue 8). The first four stories from his webzine: "Mazer in Prison," "Pretty Boy," "Cheater," and "A Young Man with Prospects," also appear in the paperback anthology Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show. The webzine story "Ender's Stocking" appears in the novel A War of Gifts: An Ender Story, while the webzine stories "Ender's Homecoming," "Ender in Flight," and "The Gold Bug" find their way into the novel Ender in Exile.

First Meetings

InterGalactic Medicine Show

Chronological order of stories

  • "Mazer in Prison"
  • "The Polish Boy"
  • "Teacher's Pest"
  • "Pretty Boy"
  • "Cheater"
  • "Ender's Stocking"
  • "Ender's Game"
  • "Ender's Homecoming"
  • "A Young Man with Prospects"
  • "Ender in Flight"
  • "The Gold Bug"
  • "Investment Counselor"

Comic books in the series

Main article: Comic books in the Ender Series

Comic books in the Ender Universe are currently being published by Marvel. These include comic book adaptations of Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "1986 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-15.
  2. ^ "1987 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-15.
  3. ^ "1985 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-15.
  4. ^ Orson Scott Card at Fantastic Fiction
  5. ^ Card, Orson Scott. "Question: What's the 'preferred' order of reading the Ender series?". Frequently Asked Questions. Hatrack.com. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
  6. ^ "1992 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-15.
  7. ^ "2000 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-15.
  8. ^ "2002 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-15.

External links

Template:OrsonScottCardSeries

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