First Meetings in Ender's Universe Mass Market Author: Visit Amazon's Orson Scott Card Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0765347989 | Format: PDF
First Meetings in Ender's Universe Mass Market Description
Amazon.com Review
A Reading Guide for Ender's Game.
THE ENDER UNIVERSE
Ender's Series: Ender Wiggin: The finest general the world could hope to find or breed.
The following Ender's Series titles are listed in order: Ender's Game, Ender In Exile, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind.
Ender's Shadow Series: Parallel storylines to Ender’s Game from Bean: Ender’s right hand, his strategist, and his friend.
The following Ender's Shadow Series titles are listed in order: Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant, Shadows in Flight.
The First Formic War Series: One hundred years before Ender's Game, the aliens arrived on Earth with fire and death. These are the stories of the First Formic War.
Earth Unaware, Earth Afire.
The Authorized Ender Companion: A complete and in-depth encyclopedia of all the persons, places, things, and events in Orson Scott Card’s Ender Universe.
From School Library Journal
Grade 6 Up-Andrew "Ender" Wiggins, a brilliant leader and tactician and destined to save Earth by destroying an entire alien civilization at the age of 12, was first introduced in Card's "Ender's Game" in Analog magazine (1977). That novella, plus three other stories (including one never before published) make up this appealing and entertaining collection of tales, all dealing with first meetings that played significant roles in the life of Ender Wiggins. "The Polish Boy" introduces his extraordinary father, John Paul, who manages at the age of six to trick the Hegemony into bringing his entire family from Poland to the United States. "Teacher's Pest" is the story of how John Paul meets and romances the equally brilliant graduate student Theresa Brown. Finally, in "The Investment Counselor," a mysterious accounting program named Jane appears just when 20-year-old Andrew Wiggins needs help figuring out both his taxes and what to do with the rest of his life. All four stories use the future setting as a framework to explore various issues of religion, government control, population limits, education, and moral responsibility. Character, setting, plot-Card does them all right, and makes it look effortless. The graphic novelesque illustrations will appeal to teens. For newcomers to Ender's universe and long-time fans, this book will hit the spot and whet the appetite for more.
Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public LibraryCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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- Series: Other Tales from the Ender Universe
- Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Tor Teen (August 26, 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0765347989
- ISBN-13: 978-0765347985
- Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5 x 0.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
I would not call these three new works novellas, but simply longish short stories; they are very quick reads.
The most memorable, I think, is "The Polish Boy". Concerning duels between a 5-year-old and various administrative figures, it recalls some of the best of "Ender's Shadow": the illustration of how a very young child can, with sufficient wit and preternatural maturity, overcome adult opposition.
"Teacher's Pest" is the least of the three. It concerns cleverness used in the furtherance of adolescent romance. While this might be as excitingly done as the first story, it would have to be on a higher level of wittiness to succeed as well. But it doesn't reach that level, and it seems a bit pedestrian.
"Investment Counsellor" is set in Ender's "quiet" stage--after he's overcome the trauma of "Ender's Game" and before he's set out upon his Speaker of the Dead life. The fireworks of his passion are missing here--neither his command skills nor his personal interaction livelihood are generating the sparks that provide much of the interest in the books. It's a connector piece, showing some origins of things to come. These are good things, and it's good to have their origins, but it's not very exciting story-telling.
The illustrations do nothing for the book but take up page-space, adding 10 or 12 pages to the total. Without them, the book would be under 200 pages in length--and better, in my estimation. (When are illustrators going to stop putting airplane wings, rudders, and elevators on spacecraft??)
Having the original "Ender's Game" included is rather interesting, allowing for comparison with the novel it spawned.
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