Earth Unaware

May 7, 2012
Card and Johnston expand Card’s near-future universe in this readable, if not notable, novel, which launches a prequel trilogy to the bestselling Ender’s Game that will cover the same ground as the recent Formic War comics from Marvel. The residents of the mining spaceship El Cavador discover what appears to be an alien ship, and although young Victor advises alerting as many people as possible, he is overruled by the too cautious ship’s council. Then a human corporate ship, under the guidance of Lem Jukes, a son attempting to crawl out from his father’s shadow, attacks the El Cavador. Between the alien attacks and the intra-human warfare, there’s plenty of action, but the story adds little to the space invasion subgenre, and even less to the Ender universe. Fans won’t find anything to actively dislike, and they might appreciate the added development of characters who were one-dimensional in the comics, but there’s little to love.

May 1, 2012
The beginning of a prequel series to Card's iconic Ender's Game yarns (Shadows in Flight, 2012, etc.), this greatly expands on material from existing backstory and a suite of Marvel comics. Far out in the Kuiper Belt floats the independent mining ship El Cavador, which is occupied by a single, loosely related family. Fresh from a personal disappointment, young mechanical genius Victor Delgado learns that a younger colleague has discovered an incoming object moving at half the speed of light--and decelerating. The solar system is about to receive an interstellar visitor, and though the vessel is far from El Cavador, Captain Concepcion wonders who they should inform: Distances are vast and ships are few. Unknown to El Cavador, however, Lem Jukes, scion of a powerful space mining corporation, lurks nearby testing a machine capable of disassembling entire asteroids into their component molecules. Jukes needs a test site, and the nearest suitable one is the asteroid currently occupied by El Cavador. In a callous stealth attack, Jukes cripples El Cavador and sets it drifting away. Days pass before Victor and his father can bring their ship's main systems back on line, but they still lack laser communications, and the radio's being drowned out by clouds of radiation emitted by the alien vessel. So they can't warn a neighboring family that the aliens have dispatched a probe toward them. Meanwhile on Earth, in a second narrative that doesn't, here, link up with the main story, Capt. Wit O'Toole seeks recruits from the world's most elite military units for his U.N.-backed Mobile Operations Police. The story progresses nimbly, with plenty of tension and excitement and Card's usual well-developed characters, although regulars may note a tendency to belabor certain matters in a manner uncharacteristic of Card solo (he co-writes here with screenwriter Johnston). Like the similarly endless Dune saga, it's impossible to pass up a new entry no matter how unpromising it may seem at first glance.

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Starred review from May 15, 2012

Those aboard the family-run mining ship El Cavador, stationed in the Kuiper Belt beyond Pluto, depend on ore-rich asteroids for their livelihood. When a young girl operating the ship's powerful telescopes spots a distant unidentified object moving at an extremely high speed, she alerts family elders. However, the elders find more immediate concerns, including the theft of their current mining site by claim-jumping corporate miners, until a sudden attack by the "object" convinces them that they are witnessing the beginning of an alien invasion. VERDICT Card's gift for strong, memorable characters combined with screenwriter Johnston's (Invasive Procedures, with Card) flair for vivid scene-building results in a standout tale of sf adventure that gives "Ender" series fans fascinating backstory to the classic Ender's Game. It should also please readers of military sf.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2012
In the 35 years since the original novella Ender's Game appeared, the universe of Ender Wiggins has continuously expanded in size without ceasing to display its creator's virtues, notably, literate prose and superlative characterization. It has even been adapted by Marvel Comics for both miniseries and single shots. Marvel then proceeded to broach the idea of doing some of the backstory of the Enderversewhat the Buggers did that left earth willing to try turning six-year-old boys into Napoleon or Genghis Khan. This book provides at least part of the answerthere are two Formic Wars. It begins aboard a classic space-mining ship, but far beyond the asteroids, and even beyond Pluto. The characters have a lot on their plate already: a deteriorating ship, miners from the asteroids claim jumping on a large and lethal scale, and a family feud (not being a TV show). The approach of an incredibly fast spaceship from interstellar space takes a lower priority until it slows enough to be boarded and turns out to contain alien, insectoid life-forms. They are warlike to the nth degree, and fast and bloody action follows on a grand and gripping scale. At the end, the surviving miners are high-tailing it for earth to bring warning of this new horror that the universe has spawned. Quite as grim as it is excellent.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)