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Ender in Exile
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Product Description
After twenty-three years, Orson Scott Card returns to his acclaimed best-selling series with the first true, direct sequel to the classic Ender's Game.
In Ender’s Game, the world’s most gifted children were taken from their families and sent to an elite training school. At Battle School, they learned combat, strategy, and secret intelligence to fight a dangerous war on behalf of those left on Earth. But they also learned some important and less definable lessons about life.
After the life-changing events of those years, these children—now teenagers—must leave the school and readapt to life in the outside world.
Having not seen their families or interacted with other people for years—where do they go now? What can they do?
Ender fought for humanity, but he is now reviled as a ruthless assassin. No longer allowed to live on Earth, he enters into exile. With his sister Valentine, he chooses to leave the only home he’s ever known to begin a relativistic—and revelatory—journey beyond the stars.
What happened during the years between Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead? What did Ender go through from the ages of 12 through 35? The story of those years has never been told. Taking place 3000 years before Ender finally receives his chance at redemption in Speaker for the Dead, this is the long-lost story of Ender.
For twenty-three years, millions of readers have wondered and now they will receive the answers. Ender in Exile is Orson Scott Card’s moving return to all the action and the adventure, the profound exploration of war and society, and the characters one never forgot.
On one of these ships, there is a baby that just may share the same special gifts as Ender’s old friend Bean…
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #30276 in Books
- Published on: 2008-11-11
- Released on: 2008-11-11
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 384 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9780765304964
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Set between Card's Hugo and Nebula–winning Ender's Game (1985) and Speaker for the Dead (1986), this philosophical novel covers familiar events, but puts new emphasis on their ethical ramifications. In the wake of his victory over the alien Formics, 12-year-old military genius Ender Wiggins is hailed as a hero, but governments opposed to the International Fleet, which trained him, intend to portray him as a monster. Ender winds up as titular governor of one of the new human colonies, where he struggles to adapt to civilian life and ponders his role in the deaths of thousands of humans and an entire alien species. His agonized musings aren't always sophisticated but possess a certain gravitas. Fans will find this offering illuminating, and it's also accessible to thoughtful readers new to the series. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School—Here is Card's answer to all those readers who asked, "What happened to Ender?" between Ender's Game (1985) and Speaker for the Dead (1986, both Tor), a gap that covers nearly 3000 years. Twelve-year-old Ender Wiggin should be coming home to a hero's welcome after wiping out the dreaded buggers—aliens who have twice defeated humanity in the past—in a fierce space battle. He is instead proclaimed a dangerous weapon and appointed titular governor of a colony world to keep him as far away from Earth as possible. His beloved sister Valentine joins him on the colony ship but is unable to penetrate the barriers he has erected around himself. Wracked with remorse at his genocide of the buggers, Ender searches for the reason the aliens allowed him to defeat them, knowing the answer will give him direction. As in most great speculative fiction, Card mines the depths of humanity's philosophical and political ideas through Ender's trials and discoveries. Exile brings together many drifting story lines from a number of other books in the series, so it's not for the uninitiated. For those who are familiar with Ender and his world, this is a wonderful treat to be devoured whole in a gulp and then returned to later to digest at leisure.—Charli Osborne, Oxford Public Library, MI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Card’s latest addition to the Ender Wiggins canon nicely dovetails with Ender’s Game (1977) and Ender’s Shadow (1999), which it parallels by looking at the same events from another viewpoint. The war against the Buggers is over; all the Formic hive queens are dead—so now what is Ender to do? Returning to Earth seems problematic, since he’s viewed as both war hero and villainous murderer of children. Ender, wracked with guilt over the destruction of the Formics, tenaciously struggles with the question of why the queens let him kill them and begins his long pursuit of atonement. His exile sends him, at age 13, with a large group of new colonists, including his sister, Valentine, to an established human colony on a former Formic world, of which he will be governor. Meanwhile, his brother, Peter, back on Earth, is surreptitiously manipulating politics in order to become the Hegemon. Threads from all the other books in the series flow through this narrative, which fills gaps, fleshes out familiar characterizations, and introduces well-limned new ones. Ender’s angst, combined with his handling of the intrigue swirling around him, ensures the depth for which the series is famous. --Sally Estes
Customer Reviews
Ender and Valentine are back, and Card cleverly ties up loose ends
This book is more properly considered part of the Ender's Shadow series, rather than a sequel to Ender's Game. It is stylistically like the Shadow series, features many of the same characters, and ties up loose ends from those books.
Card has found a clever way to do that, while centering the story on Ender and Valentine. Readers of Ender's Game will recall that Ender and Valentine left on the first colony ship because there were some good reasons Ender could not return to Earth. This book picks up just before that voyage begins.
However, that voyage takes decades because of time dilation. So the events of the Ender's Shadow series all unfold during the voyage.
That allows a different slant on those happenings, while also resolving much of what happened to Ender during that period. Ender still has some life issues to face, and this novel shows us how he faces them.
I don't recommend this as anyone's introduction to the world of Ender. Read Ender's Game for sure before this. I'd also recommend at least the first couple of books of the Ender's Shadow series as prerequisites. The more of the series you've read the better you'll lke this, though I don't think you needed to read all the way through that series to enjoy this book. (By the way, it's unnecessary to read Speaker for the Dead and its sequels. They take place later in the timeline and you won't suffer any loss of enjoyment if you have not read them.)
However, if you liked Ender's Game and want to know what happened to Ender as a teen in more detail, this is the story for you. And if you felt there was one major loose end at the end of Shadow of the Giant, you're right and that loose end plays into the story as well.
I was pleased because the sequels to Ender's Game (Speaker for the Dead, etc.) really didn't give me a satisfying view of Ender's character. I concluded at the end of that series that Card really didn't like Ender that much, based on the life he lived in those novels. Perhaps I was mistaken, or perhaps Ender has grown on Card over the years, because the tone of Ender as a character is completely different here than in those books.
There are some minor inconsistencies in this story and the other books and stories in the series. Card details these in the Afterword. The biggest conflict is with the story where the computer character Jane is introduced, which was in the collection First Meetings in Ender's Universe. For me these inconsistencies did not get in the way of the story.
If you have read and liked just about any of the Ender books before, you'll definitely want to get this one to complete some disparate storylines. If you're like me, you'll read it fast. It just came today; I finished it before bedtime and felt motivated to write this review right away.
I wanted to like it more than I did
Huge fan of OSC and the series (esp. the "Speaker" sequence) and was excited about this book. I enjoyed reading it, but it wasn't as filling as most of his other books. At times it felt like a "who's who in the Enderverse" with references thrown in to many different story lines, which felt somewhat disjointed at times. The potential climactic ending...wasn't.
However, it has it's hidden gems and interesting people. As always, great insight into the complexities of human relationships. Worth the read, but not one of the better books within the Enderverse.
Good Book - Great for Ender Fans
This book lies directly between Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. It also wraps up some of the story from the Shadow books. I think that anyone new to the Ender saga would be well advised to read the books in published order and save this for later, even though it fits in earlier from a chronological point of view.
The book is very cerebral and much of the emotional impact relies upon familiarity with the works already out there. Sometimes really getting a feel for what is going on requires knowing events from Ender's Game and the other books.
Card is a good author and writes well. The characters are strong and it is an extremely interesting story dealing with many themes already brought up in the Ender books. It is one more opportunity to dig deeply into ideas about leadership, morality, survival, regrets, forgiveness, the sanctity of life, etc.
I think the people who are going to enjoy this book the most are those hardcore fans who will be happy just to have more. The good news for them is that this is a solid effort, not just something cranked out for more profit. They will be able to enjoy spending some more time in the world they have come to love.
