Greetings from Amazon.com Delivers Science Fiction "Ender's Game" is a modern classic of science fiction. It's one of those books you recommend to people who think they don't like science fiction. Author Orson Scott Card has continued the story of Ender Wiggin in a series of bestselling novels exploring the far reaches of space. Now he returns to Ender's beginnings back at the Battle School where young cadets are prepared for the fight against an imminent alien invasion. But this time, Card tells the story of Bean, Ender's brilliant lieutenant. We're happy to present this exclusive article by Orson Scott Card, explaining why he decided to write Bean's story. You can find "Ender's Shadow" at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/031286860X/entertainmentsit and other titles by Orson Scott Card at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/?keyword=orson+scott+card&tag=entertainmentsit ****** The Long Shadow of a Little Kid by Orson Scott Card In the years since "Ender's Game" first appeared in Ben Bova's Analog magazine in August 1977, I have revisited the character of Ender Wiggin many times. I expanded the short story to a novel and then wrote about Ender's adult life in the Speaker trilogy: "Speaker for the Dead," "Xenocide," and "Children of the Mind," all published by TOR Books. Recently, a short story about Ender Wiggin appeared in Robert Silverberg's "Far Horizons" anthology. Though I've written hundreds of books, stories, and scripts that had nothing to do with Ender Wiggin, this one character remains the most popular of those I've created. And his time in the Battle School continues to be the part of the story that is most fascinating to most readers. Almost from the start, I've wished that I could return to Battle School and tell the stories of the some of the other children there, Bean, Petra, Dink Meeker, Shen, Alai, Hot Soup, Crazy Tom. The trouble is, because the events of Ender's Game ended the need for a Battle School, by definition any sequel would begin just when the most interesting phase ended. Until, last year, I realized what should have seemed obvious all along. I didn't want to write a sequel at all. Instead, I wanted to write a novel that was parallel to Ender's Game--that took another character from childhood through Battle School and on to the final battle of the war with the Hive Queens. I've been telling my writing students for years: "Every character is the hero of his own story." It was time to put that theory into practice. Bean is the obvious choice for the first such novel. He was not Ender's closest friend, or even the one Ender relied on most. But he was the only child who, like Ender in being younger and smaller than the other kids, advanced early and was keenly ambitious for command. Ender treats Bean much as Ender himself was treated by the adults, and Bean responds very differently from the way Ender did. I wanted to find out who he was and how he contributed to the shape of events. It's not easy reconciling a new story with an old one. Unlike some of my readers, I haven't read "Ender's Game" over and over again, and I had forgotten many details. Many times I wished, in writing "Ender's Shadow," that I could go back to the first novel and change this or that detail that was unimportant to "Ender's Game" but which would make "Ender's Shadow" so much easier to write! But as with writing a sonnet, where the restrictions force the poet to be more creative, so it was that in struggling to create a story that fit in with "Ender's Game" without duplicating it, I ended up writing a book that I think is every bit the equal of and in some ways superior to "Ender's Game." Most important to me, though, "Ender's Shadow" stands on its own. You don't have to have read "Ender's Game" to understand and care about the characters and events in "Ender's Shadow." And if you have read "Ender's Game," it will not feel like reading the same book twice. Bean's life is very different, and he gets a fresh view of those familiar events. I hope that if I'm so lucky as to have my books in print 10 years from now, people will honestly not care which one they read first, "Ender's Shadow" or "Ender's Game." Whichever they read first they will like best-- that's my wish, anyway. Featured in this e-mail: "Ender's Shadow" by Orson Scott Card http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/031286860X/entertainmentsit ****** You'll find more great books, articles, excerpts, and interviews in Amazon.com's Science Fiction & Fantasy section at Science Fiction
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