From EG I went through the rest of the series... Then Homecoming... Then Ender's Shadow... Now I'm more than halfway through the Alvin Saga, I'm reading Alvin Journeyman.

My first exposure to OSC was reading the novel Ender's Game in sixth grade, on the recommendation of my science teacher. I must say that unlike many young readers, I at that time found the majority of the story to be full of pretentious moralizing. The "Speaker for the Dead" chapter I found precious. I don't think I even ever puzzled out what was going on in the Locke-Demosthenes subplot. Overall, the novel left a bad taste in my mouth. (It must be remembered that at that time I thought that the Dragonlance Chronicles and Joe Dever's Lone Wolf choose-your-own-adventure RPG books were the height of speculative fiction. I have since rejected Dragonlance totally, but I am still fond of Lone Wolf as a fun and undemanding picaresque adventure series.)

For quite some time after that I had no exposure to OSC. In the summer after eleventh grade I bought a used copy of How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, because I remembered the author to be the same one who wrote Ender's Game. I thought it was an interesting behind-the-scenes look at sf and was particularly impressed by his insistence that most of the deep meaning in stories and poems is not consciously put there by the author. That previous school year I had written an English term paper (for which I got an A!) in which I had worked out an ingenious and amazingly subtle "hidden" pattern of references to solitude and society in Robert Frost's book North of Boston, which elucidated a trite theme (the two must be balanced) with the incredible delicacy of innumerable shades of meaning. (My classes had led me to believe that this was the point of all literature, so monkey see monkey do.) Thus OSC's simple and convincing arguments about the role of the unconscious in imaginative writing came as a shock, but since it came after I had bled all my enthusiasm for Frost dry while writing my paper it was a welcome shock, both for my mind and for my own poems and stories.

The shock didn't last, though. As a senior in college, internalizing the hidden assumptions of both my English professors and literary critics like Harold Bloom, I became obsessed with ranking the works of writers, determined to unlock the secret rules that would enable me to acquire an exalted consciousness and allow poems to spring from my mind at the sight of every tree and stream. As you can guess, my ambitions were frustrated, to my great sorrow. (It was this that drove me away from being an English major, though not from writing.) But at the same time our college library had a subscription to and bound copies of Analog, and remembering from HtWSF&F that OSC had written stories for Analog I looked him up in some old issues. The only story I actually read all the way through was "Lifeloop," but it made me laugh in a way that I didn't think sf could. I read it soon after at an all-night sf reading, and everybody else laughed, too. This story turned me back to thinking about OSC (which explains the origin of my user name).

Hehe...it seems that a lot of us have started reading OSC with Ender's Game.

I read Ender's Game when I was in 7th grade. I remember not being able to read anything for weeks. But I didn't touch any other OSC books, not even the Speaker For the Dead, despite how much I loved Ender and how I felt I identified with him (I was smart enough to avoid being tagged as "gifted" during my pre-college years, mainly because I didn't want to have to deal with the extra social pressure. Unfortuantely, I got to college and surprise! I wasn't as academically smart as I thought I was).

My real introduction to OSC's writings came in the form of a paper I had to write two weeks ago, an analytical review of "Maps in a Mirror" (HC). I ate that thing up. I love how the introductions and afterwords bring the reader to a better understanding of OSC and what he saw as important (the story! the story!), and why he wrote. I've been struggling as a writer for several years, trying to come to grips with my seemingly sporadic ability, and these books have helped me tremendously.

Lime

for me, 'Friday' by Heinlein, a woman protagonist, smart, quickly paced. I read everything of his there after, hitting used bookstores as well. This was ~ 9 years ago, a late bloomer, considering that I'd just entered college.

btw, surprise, EG was my intro to OSC

I was in my honors chem class, 10th grade (shouldn'tve taken it...bitterly disliked the instructor as a teacher and was unwilling/unable to work enough for the mat'l.) Someone who was a better student in that class had a copy of Ender's Game (ironically, they were reading it for their AP English Language course, which I took a year later).

Being a person of incredible nerd skillz, I asked them if I could read it while I should've been taking notes. What the hell, right? It had some spiffy spaceships on it, and it didn't look very thick or complex from size and cover, y'know? Needless to say, I relearned that adage about books and their covers, and didn't get much done in school for that class or the three after it.

By next year, I had read that one over again, and had picked up copies of the next two and read them (This was before I hadda job, that gave me money to spend on things like books, so forgive the long interlude Hatrackers )

I almost broke my mouth (impossible, I know you're thinking) trying to keep my trap shut about the book, ESPECIALLY when we started covering it in class

Five years later, and there's at least a half dozen OSC books scattered in my mess of a room that I can see as I type, and more probably mixed in the flotsam and jetsam.

I read Ender's Game my sophomore year in high school because my school teaches it to all the sophomores. At first I wasn't overly excited about it because I thought I wouldn't like science fiction. Well you guessed it: once I started I couldn't stop. I read the entire book the day Chapter One was assigned.

Almost all of the class liked it, save a few complaints about the last chapter ("But I don't get it!").

When someone asked the teacher about Speaker for the Dead, he actually discouraged reading it. In fact, the teacher said he didn't like it and didn't bother reading Xenocide. Fortunately, I'm not one to take teachers' advice on reading material and read the rest of the quartet over the summer. Since then I've read (in no particular order): Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Songmaster, Homebody, The Worthing Saga, Seventh Son, The Memory of the Earth, Lost Boys, A Planet Called Treason, probably a couple more I don't recall at the moment, and numerous short stories.

Now I'm addicted to OSC and science fiction.

The next day I called my mother (who LOVES reading as much as I do) and made her go out and get the book so I could talk about it with someone. I have since converted at least 4 people and read a plethora of his books.

I was a tremendouc SF reader in high school, but got away from it in college. It has now been 20 years since I have considered myself a reader of science fiction.

Last year I was chatting with an old friend at a party. After one too many margaritas, I suddenly felt the urge to write my own science fiction novel, and I said so out loud. That friend, who is now a top executive in a major manufacturing corporation, recommended that before I write word one I should read Ender's Game.

Time passed. I forgot about my drunken dream of sci-fi glory, but I never forgot my friend's recommendation. Last month I happened to spot EG near the checkout at my neighborhood bookstore. I purchased it, mostly out of duty to my friend.

Naturally, EG rocked my world. I had never read anything like it.

I just finished Speaker for the Dead, only my second OSC book, and I will read Xenocide as soon as I find a copy. In many ways Speaker was superior to Ender's Game. In fact, yesterday my wife asked me whether or not Speaker for the Dead was the best book that I had ever read.

I am still considering my answer to that question.

Since I started, I've read nearly every novel OSC has written, including the original publishing of The Worthing Chronicle (as opposed the Saga...I know, I know, I'm a freak).... I was thrilled to find it.

I read anything that OSC published, as soon as I found out about it. I remember panhandling on the community college campus because someone with incredibly poor taste had sold their copy of The Worthing Chronicles at the used book store. I've read almost everything he's published.

I forgot all about OSC till I found Hart's Hope in the library, and decided to check itout, totally unaware that the guy who wrote this book wrote EG. I loved Hart's Hope, but since the library didn't have any other OSC I forgot about him again, till I read the story in Legends about the grinning man.I finally put two and two together... and ordered a whole bunch of his other books at the library.

Where are you guys finding Maps in a Mirror and Songmaster? I can't find them anywhere.

I immediately went to a used book store specializing in Sci-Fi and found...well, more obscure Card works, including Hot Sleep, Eye for Eye, and Future on Fire. When I found myself reading the introductions to other people stories more than the stories themselves in FoF, I knew I was going to be looking for Card stories and snippets and books my whole life.

I had no idea he was a popular writer with a zillion books to read. Imagine my surprise and delight at my own cluelessness when I finally went into a new book store and found three shelves of books to read!

I haven't even started the Alvin Maker stories yet.

Well, lookit me being the different one. I started out with Alvin, not Ender, but not with Seventh Son either. My first OSC book was Prentice Alvin, which was given to me in a strange way... by the girlfriend of the father of my friend who I had just met that day.