Ender in Exile: in stores/libraries now - Spoilers!

Discuss all things pertaining to the EnderVerse milieu.
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Ender in Exile: in stores/libraries now - Spoilers!

Postby neo-dragon » Thu May 08, 2008 3:57 pm

Last edited by neo-dragon on Tue Nov 11, 2008 5:46 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Postby Pixel » Thu May 08, 2008 4:29 pm

Awesome, a release date. Not THAT far away.

None of the Ender covers really wow me. They're too vague and all too similar to each other. I kind of liked SotG's.

I'm really looking forward to Shadows in Flight more than Ender's Exile. But, I'll still probably have the book a week or so after its release. :D

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Postby neo-dragon » Thu May 08, 2008 4:35 pm

Yeah, I'm also more eager to read Shadows in Flight, but I'm definitely looking forward to this one too! :D
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Postby Luet » Thu May 08, 2008 8:20 pm

Okay, so this one covers the time after EG and before SftD? And then Shadows in Flight will be the book that connects the ends of the Ender and Shadow series?
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Postby neo-dragon » Thu May 08, 2008 9:01 pm

Yup. E in E should also deal with the major unresolved issue from the end of SotG.
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Postby Luet » Thu May 08, 2008 9:28 pm

I was confused at first about timing when you said that but I think I get it. Because everything that happens in the Shadow books thus far still takes place before SftD happens, right? So, that's why EinE can deal with issues after SotG?
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Postby starlooker » Thu May 08, 2008 9:33 pm

I feel really guilty, but I can't help but wish he'd leave the Ender half of the Enderverse alone and just keep playing in Bean-verse.

Successful Author Syndrome scares me too much. I love SftD. That book meant a lot to me at a really critical time in my life (as did EG, but to a lesser extent). I can't quite stand to have something retcon the whole experience. So... much trepidition. I'll be interested in people here's reviews before I actually read it, I think.
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Postby Gravity Defier » Thu May 08, 2008 11:15 pm

I can't help but wish he'd leave the Ender half of the Enderverse alone and just keep playing in Bean-verse.
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Postby locke » Fri May 09, 2008 1:35 am

I feel really guilty, but I can't help but wish he'd leave the Ender half of the Enderverse alone and just keep playing in Bean-verse.
I agree. I also get the feeling that Ender's voice is going to sound an awful lot like Bean. I'll also be curious if Val still has a different voice than Ender, or if like Malich's wife in Empire she acts and thinks the exact same way as the protagonist male.

I also bet there will be a passage on the glorious benefits of heterosexual marraige for homosexuals and another passage in which Ender reflects on the great American leaders of the past and specifically connotes George Bush the lesser with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington and concludes that GWB was the greatest military thinker and innovator of modern warfare.

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Postby neo-dragon » Fri May 09, 2008 8:47 am

You guys are such party poopers. :x

And besides, if Card sticks to what he said the book would be about 3 years ago when he first announced it, it sort of is more Shadow related. It should tie up one of SotG's loose ends, and I think he said it would be set on one of the Jeesh member's worlds. It just so happens to star Ender, but I expect it to be as much a direct sequel to SotG as it is to EG (but of course the publisher just wants any excuse to have "Ender's Game" on the cover), and it should have little to no direct relation to SftD or its sequels. It's set before Ender even meets Jane.
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Postby starlooker » Fri May 09, 2008 9:53 am

That doesn't mean it can't ruin the whole damn thing, make it ring hollow somehow.

I mean, if it has Ender in it at all, it has to give us some of the reasons that Ender went from being a traumatized boy genius to a humanistic Speaker for the Dead. So much of the story is psychological. It's poignancy, in part, I think is that we get to imagine the things that happened to make that profound sort of transformation. We see the things that have healed, and the things that are still wounded.

Obviously, there could be a really good story about that transformation. It's just, in OSC's new "Tell, Don't Show" writing style, I doubt that's going to happen. It's going to end up recasting Ender's life mission as something political, or maybe explain why he doesn't actually believe in what he's doing, and probably have some kind of direct political bearing on our current state of affairs rather than the Ender/Bean worlds. This will make me insane with wrath and the wreaking of havoc upon something that was important to my own character formation (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. Still, though.)

OSC's famous line is that the author can't write outside of his/her moral universe. That's true enough, I think. However, there's writing a story within that universe that's still a true story, that still allows characters to be themselves and then there's explicating your moral voice to a degree that obliterates the beauty of your characters and replaces them with your opinions about everything that happens to be important to you right now because you think you're just so clever and smart and right about everything and wouldn't it be great if your characters could speak for you.

Not that I'm bitter.

I feel guilty because when I joined this forum nearly six years ago, I was such a fan and I don't like the fact that I'm not, anymore, when other people obviously are. So, I think I'm done being such a naysayer. Maybe. For right now.
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Postby locke » Fri May 09, 2008 10:00 am

and I think he said it would be set on one of the Jeesh member's worlds
oh boy, if it's Alai's islamic world I don't think I'm ready for all the contemporary political philosophizing moralizing and retconning of today's climate into the Enderverse.
So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

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Postby neo-dragon » Fri May 09, 2008 11:14 am

This whole discussion reminds me of something I've been thinking about since I happen to be re-reading the original quartet for the first time in at least a few years. Does the fact that many of us probably now know more about Card as a person and his beliefs than we did the first time we picked up one of his books change the way we view his writing? I try not to think about such things when I'm reading fiction since I don't like to drag the real world into it, but as I was re-reading Xenocide this time I think I was more aware of themes and concepts that I think are personally held by OSC himself. I should emphasize "I think" because it's not like I know the man personally, but things like Ender and Novinha's marriage, and the idea of aiuas and such can have very religious connotations. I'm not saying that I disapprove, I'm just pointing out the obvious.

My point is, have we become more critical and maybe a bit more cynical because we think we know Card's "agenda" and we recognize it in his fiction?
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Postby Janus%TheDoorman » Fri May 09, 2008 9:39 pm

I know for certain that I experienced something similar, when someone first told me that Matt Parker and Trey Stone are very much to the right side of the political spectrum. South Park was still South Park, still funny in it's own way, but certain themes, etc. became immediately more apparent.

I almost feel bad comparing EG to South Park, but I don't know much about OSC as a person, so I haven't read through any of the books with that sort of thing in mind. also...
... it has to give us some of the reasons that Ender went from being a traumatized boy genius to a humanistic Speaker for the Dead.
Didn't OSC do this already, somewhat in Investment Counselor? It's certainly not fully fleshed out, but as far as I know, it is the canon personality of Ender circa that time period.[/quote]
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Postby Pixel » Sat May 10, 2008 6:28 am

Investment Counselor showed how Ender decided to BECOME a Speaker for the Dead, an occupation/cult that arose after his own story he wrote many years ago.

It didn't show psychologically how Ender went from traumatized to calm and experienced. And while this may show Ender becoming more wise and experienced, I don't think Ender's going to be traumatized or psychotic at the beginning. Why? Because, as far as we know from EG and SotG, Ender was pretty calm by the time he was governor of the Shakespeare colony anyway.

I get a little nervous with sequels that take place in the middle of a series, especially due to continuity errors. That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to Shadows in Flight more. SiF is more of an actual sequel. I'm afraid that trying to tie up loose ends using a semi-sequel will cause Card to make some mistakes that screw up the timeline.

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Postby Bean_wannabe » Sat May 10, 2008 1:24 pm

Where does this 'Investment Councillor' story come up - people keep mentioning it?

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Postby Pixel » Sat May 10, 2008 2:51 pm

OSC released a book called "First Meetings", which is a collection of Ender-related short stories. "Investment Counselor" is one of those short stories, in which Ender meets Jane.

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Postby locke » Sat May 10, 2008 6:34 pm

actually Investment counselor was first published in an Anthology edited by Robert Silverberg called "Far Horizons" which included short stories set in the most popular scifi verses (it was a companion to the Legends anthology which was for fantasy worlds, and had an Alvin Maker story)

First Meetings was a special book printed for Endercon with Investment Counselor, the original EG short story and a new short story about the origin of Ender's Father. a year or so later First Meetings got a wide publication and had the addition of an origin story of how Ender's Father met Ender's mother and they fell in love all Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan style (complete with cheesy dialogue!).
So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

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Postby Pixel » Sun May 11, 2008 8:11 am

That was a pretty unrealistic love story.

Though I guess it depends if you're the type to be flattered or freaked out by one of your students sitting outside your office for hours, listening to you cry, while he orders mass amounts of food every 20 minutes or so.

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Postby Darth Petra » Sat May 17, 2008 7:34 am

ooooh, I can't wait. I don't like the cover, but I still can't wait.
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Postby wigginboy » Sat May 17, 2008 11:59 pm

You know DP, you have a point there. I've always felt that the art on the Ender books sucks. It shows absolutely nothing about what the book is about. I mean, the art for most of the Shadow books was a silhouette of a tiny Bean, looking like he was wearing pajamas. That doesn't really draw me into the book. All of the Speaker books are just images of ships and space, which are just a tiny part of what the books are really about. More people would pay attention if the books' art wasn't all the same.

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Postby Pixel » Sun May 18, 2008 7:38 am

I know, I can't even tell what those ship-space pictures are supposed to be illustrating. And they do look almost exactly, EXACTLY, the same in concept.

I'm not saying that the covers should show pictures of the Buggers, Piggies, or the faces of the humans. I know that would ruin the imagination and view of the readers. But, for instance, for one of the Speaker books, they could've shown a picture of the MotherTree. Or maybe Rooter and Human's fathertrees, or something.

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Postby UnnDunn » Sun May 18, 2008 11:00 am

Um... am I the only person who doesn't really care for the cover art? My opinion is if a book has fanciful cover art, that means the publisher thought it couldn't sell on its own merits. All of my favorite books have nondescript cover art that only makes any kind of sense once you have actually read the book.

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Postby neo-dragon » Sun May 18, 2008 2:53 pm

I actually do like the cover art. Something about the colours appeals to me, and the spaceship and generic sci-fi-ish look actually follows the trend of the original quartet.
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Postby Pixel » Sun May 18, 2008 6:26 pm

I'm not saying the covers need to be all fancy and have a lot of stuff on it. I know, there have been great covers that are just, like plain.

It almost...just, irritates that they try to make some sort of detailed scene cover, but they do the same picture every time. :/

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Postby Janus%TheDoorman » Sun May 18, 2008 10:12 pm

I really don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if the publishing world was taking its cues from the Harry Potter series and its "Spoil at least one scene per cover" approach. True, HP's covers are only spoilerrific when they're in context, but it's hard to argue with the numbers.
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Postby Gravity Defier » Sun May 18, 2008 10:24 pm

I'm working on something, so I don't really have the patience to read the whole thread to see if it's already been mentioned, but if it hasn't:

the Ender's Saga book covers aren't related whatsoever to the books, so they won't illustrate anything from the story.

At least, that's what I seem to remember. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

As for opinion, I like the Ender book covers just fine. On the flip side of that, it doesn't take much from the Bean stories to irritate me, covers included.
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Postby zeroguy » Sun May 18, 2008 10:58 pm

the Ender's Saga book covers aren't related whatsoever to the books, so they won't illustrate anything from the story.
That's not true. The covers involve space somehow. And, uh, ships.

Actually, some of the releases in other countries have more relevance, if I recall correctly. There's some site (might have even been Pweb from awhile ago) that had a list of the covers from other countries, but I forget where it was.
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Postby wigginboy » Mon May 19, 2008 1:04 am

Um... am I the only person who doesn't really care for the cover art? My opinion is if a book has fanciful cover art, that means the publisher thought it couldn't sell on its own merits. All of my favorite books have nondescript cover art that only makes any kind of sense once you have actually read the book.
This is true, flashy, avante-garde cover art does tend to overcompensate for the actual written work, and yes the cover is only one small part of the book, but even if you look at the cover for, lets say, Seventh Son. The original cover was of Alvin sitting cross-legged holding energy in his hands with a bearded man watching over him. This, to me, illustrated more of what the book was about then the art in any of the Ender books.

Book covers aside, I cannot really state my thoughts on the new book as all I have to go by is the cover. From what people have said, it sounds like a pretty good storyline. I think it is high time Card revisited his prized Ender character and delved a little deeper into his life after the Wars and before the 3000 years leading up to the events on Lusitania. Ender was a wreck after the Wars but the only time we see him after everything is over is during the league war. What about the fifty some odd years it took him and Val to reach the first colony world. (i think it has a name, it just escapes me at the moment) What of the reunion of Val and Ender on Eros? What of the resentment Ender may have felt at Peter for exiling him? These questions all need answers and I hope this book does a good job in giving us a glimpse.

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Postby neo-dragon » Mon May 19, 2008 1:51 am

the Ender's Saga book covers aren't related whatsoever to the books, so they won't illustrate anything from the story.

At least, that's what I seem to remember. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
This is true. As I understand it, the publisher just selected generic sci-fi images that had been drawn with no particular book in mind. I think they all work fine though, and this one is no exception.

The only Enderverse cover that I've ever had an issue with is that of the paperback edition of "Shadow Puppets". The hardcover edition looked fine so I don't know why they went to the trouble of changing it, and the cover they chose to replace it with just happened to already be the cover of the U.K. edition of "Ender's Shadow", which shows how much the images actually relate to the stories they're attached to.

By the way, want to hear an odd coincidence that I just noticed? My very first thread on Pweb (2.0) was in fact about the SP paperback cover (how I didn't like it), and I created this thread almost exactly 5 years to the day later... The circle is complete! "All of this has happened before, and it will happen again".
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Postby Pixel » Mon May 19, 2008 1:40 pm

Random, not about the covers:

I wonder if they'll reference Ender's ansible conversation with Peter, like they did a tiny bit in EG and in SotG. I kind've hope they do, but at the same time I hope they don't. (because it kind've spoils Peter's character development if you haven't read the Shadow series.)

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Postby Janus%TheDoorman » Mon May 19, 2008 2:40 pm

Eh. IIRC, even in EG, OSC [so may acronyms...] talks about how Peter turned out to be much less sadistic/evil, etc. than he might have seemed, and grew into a proper leader of Earth.

And, even in the Shadow series, we never see Peter in the decades following the formation of the FPE, which would likely be more relevant to any Ender-Peter discussion in Ender in Exile.
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YAY!!!

Postby Bookworm » Tue May 20, 2008 4:37 pm

I think one word sums it up. Yay! After hearing rumors, reading postings wherever I could find them & hoping the story would be released it finally is! Yay! :D :D :D

I just wish I could get the IGMS Ender stories too, but I don't have PayPal so I can't.

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Re: YAY!!!

Postby neo-dragon » Tue May 20, 2008 8:20 pm


I just wish I could get the IGMS Ender stories too, but I don't have PayPal so I can't.
Good things come to those who wait... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... trackriver
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Postby Craig » Wed May 21, 2008 2:54 pm

I'm excited. I can't help it. I love Ender, he's my childhood hero. Any book or short story that has him in it, I will read. I don't really mind the cover like some of you, I just hope its filled with good pages.

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