Ender’s World: Fresh Perspectives on the SF Classic Ender’s Game
About this audiobook
Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is a classic of science fiction. Though it began its life as a short story, it was later expanded into a Hugo and Nebula Award–winning novel, served as a springboard for a much larger universe of stories, and finally, has been made into a feature film.
In Ender's World over a dozen writers of science fiction, fantasy, and young adult books offer new perspectives on the 1985 novel, along with insights gleaned from other Ender stories that fit within the Ender's Game chronology, including Ender in Exile and Ender's Shadow. In addition, military strategists Colonel Tom Ruby and Captain John Schmitt offer insight into the human-Formic war. Also included is a contribution from Aaron Johnston, the coauthor of the Formic Wars prequel novels.
The collection's insightful analyses and moving personal essays are rounded out with short pieces answering more technically oriented questions about the Ender universe, including why the Battle Room is a cube and why the military recruited their soldiers as children.
Edited by Orson Scott Card himself, who also provides an introduction to the anthology as well as to the individual essays, Ender's World is aimed both at readers who have kept up with the many books that came after and at those who simply want to revisit the original novel.
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About the author
Orson Scott Card is best known for his science fiction novel Ender's Game and its many sequels that expand the Ender Universe into the far future and the near past. Those books are organized into the Ender Saga, which chronicles the life of Ender Wiggin; the Shadow Series, which follows on the novel Ender's Shadow and is set on Earth; and the Formic Wars series, written with co-author Aaron Johnston, which tells of the terrible first contact between humans and the alien "Buggers." Card has been a working writer since the 1970s. Beginning with dozens of plays and musical comedies produced in the 1960s and 70s, Card's first published fiction appeared in 1977--the short story "Gert Fram" in the July issue of The Ensign, and the novelette version of "Ender's Game" in the August issue of Analog. The novel-length version of Ender's Game, published in 1984 and continuously in print since then, became the basis of the 2013 film, starring Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, and Abigail Breslin. Card was born in Washington state, and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, he runs occasional writers' workshops and directs plays. He frequently teaches writing and literature courses at Southern Virginia University. He is the author many science fiction and fantasy novels, including the American frontier fantasy series "The Tales of Alvin Maker" (beginning with Seventh Son), and stand-alone novels like Pastwatch and Hart's Hope. He has collaborated with his daughter Emily Card on a manga series, Laddertop. He has also written contemporary thrillers like Empire and historical novels like the monumental Saints and the religious novels Sarah and Rachel and Leah. Card's work also includes the Mithermages books (Lost Gate, Gate Thief), contemporary magical fantasy for readers both young and old. Card lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card. He and Kristine are the parents of five children and several grandchildren.
Stefan Rudnicki is an award winning audiobook narrator, director and producer. He was born in Poland and now resides in Studio City, California. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks and has participated in over a thousand as a writer, producer, or director. He is a recipient of multiple Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as a Grammy Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Ray Bradbury Award. He received AudioFile’s award for 2008 Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Along with a cast of other narrators, Rudnicki has read a number of Orson Scott Card's best-selling science fiction novels. He worked extensively with many other science fiction authors, including David Weber and Ben Bova. In reviewing the twentieth anniversary edition audiobook of Card’s Ender's Game, Publishers Weekly stated, "Rudnicki, with his lulling, sonorous voice, does a fine job articulating Ender's inner struggle between the kind, peaceful boy he wants to be and the savage, violent actions he is frequently forced to take." Rudnicki is also a stage actor and director.
Gabrielle de Cuir is a Grammy-nominated and Audie Award-winning producer whose narration credits include the voice of Valentine in Orson Scott Card’s Ender novels, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan, and Natalie Angier’s Woman, for which she was awarded AudioFile magazine’s Golden Earphones Award. She lives in Los Angeles where she also directs theatre and presently has several projects in various stages of development for film.
Arthur Morey has recorded over two hundred audiobooks in history, fiction, science, business, and religion, earning a number of AudioFile Earphones Awards and two Audie Award nominations. He was an editor at two publishers and has taught writing at Northwestern University. His plays and songs have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Milan, where he has also performed. Arthur attended Harvard and the University of Chicago.
Janis Ian is a singer, songwriter, and author. She is best known for her 1975 hit single, “At Seventeen,” which won a Grammy Award. She won a second Grammy in 2013 for the narration of her autobiography, Society’s Child.
