So, I just discovered that Orson Scott Card
has a bunch of his books up online. This clearly means I should get around to reading the books after Ender's Game.
So, given a finite amount of time to read this stuff and not really wanting to have to plow through two entire series in the near future, what should I read? Speaker for the Dead comes next in the Ender series, but apparently Bean has his own thing going on at the same time in the Shadows books as well?
Wikipedia is no help. A series which requires a flowchart? Really?
I
am pretty sure that avoiding xenocide is the sort of thing which is
commonly recommended, but aside from that...
Edit: Meh. Just realized that while there are full short stories, none of the books are posted in complete form. :-P
Posts
I also read Xenocide and it was so bad it almost soured the previous 2 books. Do stay the hell away from that. I have no idea what Children of the Mind is like, after Xenocide I lost all interest in going further along the series.
I have also heard good things about Ender's Shadow and the whole Bean side-series, but haven't read it yet.
This, so hard. I hated Children of the Mind and Xenocide, although some of my friends will defend them till the end.
Seconded. Ender's Shadow is fantastic.
Read it!
After that... meh.
I liked Speaker for the Dead eventually though.
Ender's Game -> Speaker for the Dead -> Xenocide -> Children of the Mind.
Xenocide and Children of the Mind are a bit "bleh" but Speaker for the Dead is good. I recommend reading through all of them at least once, though.
The other storyline involves Bean. I'd read it after reading Ender's Game (but you can start reading them before reading Speaker for the Dead):
Ender's Shadow -> Shadow of the Hegemon -> Shadow Puppets -> Shadow of the Giant
I highly enjoyed these more than the Ender main storyline. They involve what happened on Earth while Ender was experiencing relativistic travel, and focus mainly on Bean, Petra, and Peter Wiggin.
There are also some short stories/novellas involved with the Enderverse:
* Ender in Exile - Novella that describes what happens in the events that follow immediately after Ender's Game. Comes in between Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Fairly decent, but Ender is basically the ultimate Mary Sue character in this one.
* First Meetings - Collection of Short Stories:
** Investment Counselor - Ender's first "Speaker for the Dead" job, comes after Ender in Exile, probably.
** Ender's Game - The original Ender's Game short story. Highly recommended to read (after reading the novel)
** "The Polish Boy" - John Paul Wiggin (Ender's Dad) as a kid. Doesn't get taken to Battle School.
** "Teacher's Pest" - John Paul Wiggin and Theresa meet and fall in love. A bit contrived, but provides good background on Ender's parents (who are central characters in the Bean "Shadow" series).
* A War of Gifts - Occurs when Ender is at Battle School. Basically, Xmas at Battle School, or "A Very Special Ender Xmas Special". Ender is, once again, the ultimate Mary Sue.
* Intergalactic Medicine Show. I have not read this one, but it apparently is a collection of short stories. From Wikipedia (I can guess what most of these are about):
** "Mazer in Prison"
** "Pretty Boy"
** "Cheater"
** "A Young Man with Prospects"
** "The Gold Bug"
** "Ender's Stocking"
** "Ender's Homecoming"
** "Ender in Flight"
I really enjoyed the Bean/Shadow series more than the main Ender storyline. But get at least Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. They are meant to be read concurrently.
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It isn't anywhere near as good as Ender's Game, but it also doesn't deserve the hate it gets either. Not great, but worthwhile, imo.
Read them all.
judge for yourself.
The next one really is a major plot point so you may not want to read it if you haven't read Xenocide before:
Children of the Mind is pretty bad.
edit: tx for fixing
Hell, you can finish reading Ender's Game after the climax, cause after that it's hella emo.
GT: Tanky the Tank
Black: 1377 6749 7425
Some people apparently can't get over some of the metaphysical stuff in the last couple Ender books. I say either suspend your goddamn disbelief, or just agree with yourself to not dwell on stuff that makes you raise your eyebrows. You will be richly rewarded with an excellent story finishing Ender's tale, and why would you stop in the middle of a story rather than find out the ending?
This is coming from someone who has read both series at least ten times each. These books deserve a proper read through.
GT: Tanky the Tank
Black: 1377 6749 7425
It really does suck because Ender's Game is one of my favorite books of all time
OSC, why must you be such a dickface
Read it.
Now.
No worries. I'm a Christian, so that article is likely significantly less offensive to me than to many other people.
Jingoist, though? It's been a while, but that really seems like the opposite of some of the themes Card was developing in Ender's Game.
Um, read the Christmas Enderverse book.
Also, what the fuck mr. card
That would presumably have been his viewpoint in the 1950's.
That's the most tragic part of it, really. After feeling so empowered and good after reading Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, I made the mistake of looking for him on the internet... where I found out that this statement above is indeed true.
Now, I'm not sure whether that means that his opinions have just taken a total 180 since those days, or whether the things that seemed tongue in cheek or ironic in Ender's Game were actually meant to be taken literally... but reading his modern material (and especially his blog) soured me to his writings for good and really made me depressed.
So with that said, my advice is to read Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, and then take whatever meaning you choose to take from them... and don't spoil the memory of it by looking up any of his modern writings.
Part of the reason I liked Ender was his vulnerability. It is present throughout the Speaker for the Dead novel line. With Ender in Exile and the Xmas At Battle School book, you might as well replace him with "young Kal-El" and get the same result.
I'm a Catholic and I'm extremely offended at the thought that because I'm a liberal I'm "destroying America" and worthy of being killed for my traitorous beliefs
Also, I don't believe in violent overthrow of the government because some dudes want to get married