I’ve just gone through the Enders Game series of novels by Orson Scott Card, four books that follow Ender Wiggin from childhood onwards. Although the protagonist Ender isn’t the centre of the books, this is not character driven series of novels, it’s idea driven. As an ex missionary Scott Cards driver isn’t too shocking, religion and resurrection.

If you take the Enderverse to include the novels not featuring Ender it comes to nine novels and one short story collection. I’m sticking to the main four.

I was surprised at the depth of these novels, taken as a whole, as for some reason I’d labelled Scott Card as a fluff writer. My mistake, hands up. Apologies given, that’s not to say I enjoyed these books, one and four were the best. Two was so bad I nearly quit the series while plodding through it.

Is it worth reading? Yes, with caveats. The series won two Hugos and two Nebulas, as well as selling by the bucket-load. It’s not my thing as I don’t agree with the religious overtones which are central to the plot engine. I don’t think it is as accomplished as Ian M Banks Culture series which I recommend over this any day.

Book one is an old school enjoyable romp through sci-fi clichés. Enders Game.

Ender’s Game 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 Tactical and Command Schools for some) to be the future leaders of the protection of Earth.

Book two, Speaker for the dead, is overtly religious and more philosophical in nature. I disliked the push on religion a lot, but then I’m not a religious person at all.

Whereas the previous novel was hard science fiction with armies and space warfare, Speaker for the Dead is more philosophical in nature, although it still advances a xenology for the planetary setting unique in SF. Its story finds Andrew in a human colony on the colony planet Lusitania, believed to be the only remaining planet in Card’s universe with an intelligent alien race after the xenocide of the Formics (”buggers”) in the Ender’s Game. The novel deals with the difficult relationship between the humans and the “piggies” (or “pequeninos”, since the action is set in a Catholic Brazilian research installation) and with Andrew’s attempts to bring peace to a brilliant but troubled family whose history intertwines with that of the pequeninos.

Book three is Xenocide, it tones down the religion a little, keeps up the philosophy and has more of a plot than book two. A stronger book. Odd then that book two won a Hugo and Nebula while book three didn’t.

Following the events of Speaker for the Dead, we find Ender living as a member of a Brazilian human colony on the planet Lusitania, a planet is unique in human space in that it is inhabited by two other sentient species: the Pequeninos and the Hive Queen (transplanted to this world by Ender partly in penance for his near-total destruction of their species in Ender’s Game).
Unfortunately, the Lusitanian ecosystem is pervaded by a virus, named ‘descolada’ by the humans. The virus is incredibly adaptable, and potentially fatal to all living things. However, the native pequeninos and other life that survived on Lusitania are adapted to it.

Book four ties up the ideas generated in two and three, with the focus less on the annoying characters.

At the start of Children of the Mind, Jane is using her newly discovered abilities to take the formics, humans and pequeninos to distant habitable planets to colonize them, but she is losing her memories and concentration as the vast computer network connected to the ansible is being shut down. If she is to live, she must find a way to transfer her aiúa to a human body.
Ender’s wife has left him to join a religious order, the Children of the Mind of Christ. His own aiúa now controls his own body as well as young Valentine’s and Peter’s, but his own body is suffering as a result of his split attention. Peter goes off to distant worlds attempting to convince people diplomatically that destroying the planet would constitute a second xenocide, and Miro and young Val are spending all available time looking for additional habitable planets. The Lusitania fleet is expected to arrive outside the planet and destroy it within a few weeks. They also discover a new alien race called descoladores.

Quotes are from the Wikipedia article on the Enderverse. See [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender\'s_Game_series]

Related Posts: