posted
I am just curious, what is the order in which to read them? I have read EG, SftD, and Xenocide, but I am not sure if there is a proper order to read them in or just as they are listed in the OSC Library link. I wish to finish up the series after I am done reading Lovelock and want to make sure I am not jumping around...
posted
I prefer to read series in publication order, regardless of time order. That's what I'm doing with Stephen Brust's Vlad Taltos novels, in part because he's deliberately made it impossible to do anything else So the publication order of the Ender novels is:
Ender's Game Speaker for the Dead Xenocide Children of the Mind Ender's Shadow Shadow of the Hegemon Shadow Puppets Shadow of the Giant [mysterious unpublished book #1] [mysterious unpublished book #2]
However, if you started getting bogged down in Speaker and Xenocide and realized they weren't your speed, you can skip ahead to Ender's Shadow and its sequels, which are paced a lot more like Ender's Game.
If you WANT to read them in time order (which I don't recommend as strongly), the order is:
Ender's Game Ender's Shadow Shadow of the Hegemon Shadow Puppets Shadow of the Giant [mysterious unpublished book #1] Speaker for the Dead Xenocide Children of the Mind [mysterious unpublished book #2]
posted
I just read the whole "Ender" series in order of publication, and then the whole "Shadow" series in order of publication. It didn't make that much difference to me, but then, the Ender books are (*gasp!*) not my favorite OSC series anyway.
Three guesses which one is. And the first two don't count.
posted
hhmmmmmmmmmm is your favorite series The Homecoming series?? j/k wait wait no it's the Alvin series....LOL
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posted
Actually, if you want to read them in the proper 'internal chronology' order, you'd have to read Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow at the same exact time, which is a bit difficult for most of us. Unless you're a hive queen and you have a couple of spare workers lying around.
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posted
OSC's son who, since OSC started spending more time on Hatrack, has ceased to be the official resident expert on Orson Scott Card Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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No worries. You can get them all here. You'd do better going through the Hatrack link, but I can't for the life of me find it.
Seriously though, there's also First Meetings, which should be read after Shadow Puppets if you're doing release order or partially before Ender's Game and partially in between [mysterious unpublished book #1 (I'm still pulling for Ender's Wake)] and Speaker for the Dead if you're doing chronological (which would a pretty bad idea, I think).
quote: Ender's Game Speaker for the Dead Xenocide Children of the Mind Ender's Shadow Shadow of the Hegemon Shadow Puppets Shadow of the Giant [mysterious unpublished book #1] [mysterious unpublished book #2]
That's what I was wondering about... okies...
quote:However, if you started getting bogged down in Speaker and Xenocide and realized they weren't your speed, you can skip ahead to Ender's Shadow and its sequels, which are paced a lot more like Ender's Game.
I did get a little bit bogged when I started reading Speaker, so I put it down for a while and read other things... when I picked it back up however, I was able to fly right through it and Xenocide. I just stopped there though because I wasn't sure where to go after that. I didn't want to get out of order, and confuzel my self...lol
Nicole
P.S. BTW nice to meet you Puppy, I'm fairly certain you hear this all the time, but you have a very talented dad.. *fangirlish awe* I feel honored to have you post to a thread that I started..
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posted
Puppy knows Orson Scott Card way better than I do, since I am still deceived by all my own self-deceptions.
Chronological order actually begins with the first two stories in First Meetings.
I would rather people read the Shadow series first, in order, and THEN go back and read Ender's Game and then the Speaker trilogy.
But that's only because I think I learned something about writing in the fifteen years between EG and ES, and would like to put my best foot forward ...
Heh heh ... where you have self-deceptions, I have long-standing childhood neuroses, so we're probably even Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
So the Recommended Chronological Reading Order would be...
[Possible Eventual Mazer Rackham Novel]
THE POLISH BOY (Short Story) TEACHER'S PEST (Short Story)
ENDER'S SHADOW SHADOW OF THE HEGEMON SHADOW PUPPETS SHADOW OF THE GIANT
ENDER'S GAME [Mysterious Bridge Novel] INVESTMENT COUNSELOR (short Story)
SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD XENOCIDE CHILDREN OF THE MIND
[Mysterious Capstone Novel]
--
With A BATTLE SCHOOL CHRISTMAS to be read anywhere in the mix, annually, and only as a family around a blazing fire.
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posted
I have heard referece to "First Meetings".... um I have looked for this here on the site and can't seem to find it in the OSC library... Where should I look for this so that I can include it in my reading of the series? Or is this a couple of short stories that people refer to as First Meetings that are actually in a compilation book? (geesh I sound like such a newb )
posted
Bota, First Meetings: In The Enderverse is a collection of three stories about: 1) Papa Wiggin when he's real young, 2) Mama and Papa Wiggin first meeting and 3) Ender's first encounter with Jane. Here's the amazon link. It's got more detail than that.
edit: And I totally agree with Tom about Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow.
quote:I would rather people read the Shadow series first, in order, and THEN go back and read Ender's Game and then the Speaker trilogy.
Whatever you do, do not take OSC's advice. While the other Ender books may not suffer from this approach, Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow really should be read in publication order.
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This is the mass market edition, with an extra story in it so the obsessive-compulsive and the possessive among us would have something else to buy. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I also must disagree with OSC and agree with Tom on this.
My grandma read Ender's Shadow first, and as a result she didn't like Ender at all. It would be ok if I thought she fully understood Ender and then decided not to like him, but I don't think she understood him at all.
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Ender's Game must be read first. You can't know, even if you strongly suspect, that the battles are real at the end.
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posted
ya... you have to read EG first just so that you get the cliff hanger. ES ruins it for you alot earlier then its supposed to. I must say while I always more or less geuss the correct ending right in most books (except harry potter) in EG I kinda suspicted that the battles were real but not really. I believed that the battle would be 5 years away as Graff originally said.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
A BATTLE SCHOOL CHRISTMAS...yes im a n00b here..but... is it like a charlie brown christmas? is ender gonna go army to army selling chgristmasd wreaths in november?
quote:A BATTLE SCHOOL CHRISTMAS...yes im a n00b here..but... is it like a charlie brown christmas? is ender gonna go army to army selling chgristmasd wreaths in november?
quote: Puppy knows Orson Scott Card way better than I do, since I am still deceived by all my own self-deceptions.
Chronological order actually begins with the first two stories in First Meetings.
I would rather people read the Shadow series first, in order, and THEN go back and read Ender's Game and then the Speaker trilogy.
But that's only because I think I learned something about writing in the fifteen years between EG and ES, and would like to put my best foot forward ...
I'm surprised that you feel that way, Mr. Card. I had heard that you prefer ES over EG for the reason stated above, but don't you think that reading ES first detracts from the ending of EG just a little?
I personally like Ender more than Bean, so I think that people should also read Ender's Game first just so that Ender is established in their minds as the central character of his Universe. I don't like the idea of people reading the Shadow books first, thinking of Bean as the star of everything, and then reading the Ender quartet and thinking, "this new guy (Ender) isn't as good as Bean!" Bean should have to live up to Ender in the reader's mind, and not vice versa. This will only happen if the reader identifies with Ender first. That's how I feel, anyway.
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quote: "this new guy (Ender) isn't as good as Bean!"
This Ender guy isn't as good as Bean. I like Bean more and prefer Ender's Shadow to Ender's Game. I really enjoy part 1 of Ender's Shadow on the streets of Rotterdam. I appreciate it when the author spends a long time describing the characters. I think there could have been more pre-Battle School stories in Ender's Game.
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posted
Well, reading the books in an order that mankes any logical sense makes absoloutely no sense. Why not just read them in alphabetical order?
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