Ender's Game (series)

The Ender's Game series (often referred to as the 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 of the same title. It currently consists of fourteen novels, thirteen short stories, 47 comic issues, an audioplay, and a film. 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 formally as "Formics", but more colloquially as "Buggers". The series protagonist, 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.

Enderverse

Ender series

Starting with Ender's Game, five novels have been released which tell the story of Ender (also known as the "Ender Quintet"). Card first wrote Ender's Game as a novelette, but went back and expanded it into a novel so he could use Ender in another novel, Speaker for the Dead. That novel takes place three thousand and two 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, the novels in the Speaker trilogy (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 (Ender's) attempts to stop another xenocide from happening.

A War of Gifts: An Ender Story was released in October 2007.^[4] It is a parallel story 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 (and thus serves as a replacement of the last chapter of Ender's Game and as a sequel to the remainder of the novel), as well as his meeting a character from the parallel Shadow saga (effectively wrapping up a remaining plotline in the parallel series) all with awards for the novel of the year.

Shadow saga

Starting with Ender's Shadow, five 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 "Shadow Quintet").

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 the first three sequels, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant tell the story of the struggle for world dominance after the Bugger War. This involves the Battle School children, as well as Ender's brother, Peter Wiggin, and Petra Arkanian going up against Achilles de Flandres (from Poke's crew).

A sequel novel to Shadow of the Giant named Shadows in Flight further introduces Bean's children who also have Anton's key turned.

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.

Formic Wars

The First Formic War

Card and Aaron Johnston wrote a trilogy to cover the events of the First Formic War. Chronologically, this series comes before all other books in the Ender's Game series. Earth Unaware was released on July 17, 2012. Earth Afire, was released on June 4, 2013,^[5] and Earth Awakens^[6] on June 10, 2014.

The Second Formic War

On November 4, 2013, Johnston confirmed^[7] work on a second trilogy of novels covering the Second Formic War, with the manuscript for the first book due in 2014.^[8] The titles of the novels (In order) will be The Swarm, The Hive, and The Queens.^[9] On July 2, 2015, Johnston confirmed^[10] that the first book, The Swarm, has been completed and continues Vico's story.

Children of the Fleet

According to an interview with Orson Scott Card^[11] at Southern Virginia University, Fleet School^[12] is "a new set of sequels to Ender's Game. It's for a YA audience. It's what happens to Battle School after the International Fleet loses its purpose of war. It becomes what is called Fleet School, and it prepares kids to become commanders / explorers in the colonies that are going to be forming. We get to see that as the school administrators repurpose the school, the Battle Room is still there, but it's a whole different kind of education." On November 12, 2015, Orson Scott Card announced the name of the series, Children of the Fleet, with the first title in the series titled Fleet School.^[13]

Publications

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.^[14] The books can be read in the order in which they were originally written 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^[15]
4. Children of the Mind (1996)
5. Ender's Shadow (1999) – Shortlisted for a Locus Award, 2000^[16]
6. Shadow of the Hegemon (2001) – Shortlisted for a Locus Award, 2002^[17]
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. Earth Unaware (2012)
14. Earth Afire (2013)
15. Earth Awakens (2014, final book in the First Formic War trilogy)
16. The Swarm (2016)
17. The Hive (TBA)
18. The Queens (TBA)^[18]
19. Shadows Alive (TBA, "Shadows in Flight" was originally planned as part of "Shadows Alive")
20. Fleet School (TBA)

Chronological order

1. Earth Unaware
2. Earth Afire
3. Earth Awakens
4. The Swarm (August 2, 2016)^[19]
5. The Hive (TBA)
6. The Queens (TBA)^[18]
7. Ender's Game
8. Ender's Shadow (Note: The events of Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow take place in roughly the same time period.)
9. A War of Gifts (Note: This takes place during Ender's Game/Ender's Shadow.)
10. Shadow of the Hegemon
11. Shadow Puppets
12. Shadow of the Giant
13. Ender in Exile (Note: Beginning takes place during Shadow of the Hegemon and through Shadow of the Giant)
14. Fleet School (TBA)
15. Shadows in Flight
16. First Meetings (A collection of short stories whose settings range from before Ender's Game until after Shadows in Flight)
17. Speaker for the Dead
18. Xenocide
19. Children of the Mind
20. Shadows Alive (TBA)

Short stories in the series

Comic books in the series

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

Manga

In 2014, Satō Shūhō's manga, Ender's Game (Jp Ender no Game) appeared.

Audioplay

Film

The film Ender's Game was released in the UK on October 25, 2013 and in the USA on November 1, 2013. The first script was based on two installments of the Ender series, Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, when optioned by Warner Brothers, but was adapted to focus exclusively on Ender's Game when purchased by Lionsgate.^[20] The cast includes Harrison Ford, Abigail Breslin, Ben Kingsley, and Asa Butterfield as Ender Wiggin. The film was directed by Gavin Hood.^[21][22]

Related

The Authorized Ender Companion

Written by Jake Black, The Authorized Ender Companion is "the indispensable guide to the universe of Ender's Game."^[23] 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 Screenplay 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.

Ender's World: Fresh Perspectives on the SF Classic Ender's Game

Ender's World contains 14 essays from Science Fiction and Young Adult writers, as well as military strategists and others about various aspects of Ender’s Game. The book includes an introduction^[24] by Orson Scott Card, who edited Ender's World and answers from many fan-submitted Enderverse questions from the Smart Pop Books Website.^[25] The following essays are included in the compilation:

• "How It Should Have Ended" by Eric James Stone^[26]
• "The Monster's Heart" by John Brown^[27]
• "The Cost of Breaking the Rules" by Mary Robinette Kowal^[28]
• "Winning and Losing in Ender’s Game" by Hilari Bell^[29]
• "Parallax Regained" by David Lubar, Alison S. Myers^[30]
• "Mirror, Mirror" by Alethea Kontis^[31]
• "Size Matters" by Janis Ian^[32]
• "Rethinking the Child Hero" by Aaron Johnston^[33]
• "A Teenless World" by Mette Ivie Harrison^[34]
• "Ender on Leadership" by Colonel Tom Ruby^[35]
• "Ender Wiggin, USMC" by John F. Schmitt^[36]
• "The Price of Our Inheritance" by Neal Shusterman^[37]
• "If the Formics Love Their Children Too" by Ken Scholes^[38]
• "Ender's Game: A Guide to Life" by Matt Nix^[39]

See also

• Ender's Game (film)
• List of characters in the Ender's Game series
• List of works by Orson Scott Card

References

External links

• The official Orson Scott Card website
• The Ender Quartet, Ender's Shadow, and Ender series pages at Tor Books
• The Ender Saga
• Ender's Universe series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database