Clearly the Ender's Game Saga has allready made and stands to make more money. First came Ender, and before his story ended there was the beginning of Bean. There will be another book on Ender, but now that a time span has been set it will be harder to follow that with another. A few more can be done on Bean probably, but can there be another line based on another character? Maybe Peter? Make it like the first Bean book and have it shadow Ender's Game and Shadow of the Hegemon.? Maybe even Petra, or it could be made on a collection so it seems like you're jumping from person to person or story to story on Earth with their reactions as events unfold around them. Honestly, nobody wants this story to ever end. Everyone was crushed when Ender died. You know it's a made up character, but you come to love him anyways. Shen said it best, you want him to be proud of you if it where possible. In a war of injustice, corruption, and war he stands a beacon of that which is right. Who would want that to ever end? Who is capable of filling the shoes of giants?
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
Hard to believe, I know, but this is NOT money-driven. I can only write stories I care about and believe in; stories that intrigue me. There is not a quota of "Ender stories" that must be filled.
If that ever happens - if "Ender" or "Shadow" become brand names, with books coming out like clockwork, it'll be because somebody else is writing them.
Remember how long it was between Children of the Mind and Ender's Shadow. My publisher might have WANTED more Ender books, but he never pressured me or even hinted to me that I ought to write more.
Posted by watsonwil (Member # 1904) on :
If OSC were interested in writing them, here would be my some of my preferences:
Mazer Rackham (and the early Bugger wars)
Hiram Graff(the problem would be is that this would be another parrallel novel of Ender's Game and one, while good, was enough.)
That's probably it. I'd really like to see OSC start a completely new scifi series.
Maybe his take on a long ranged, generational colony ship. The non-relativistic speed, space exploration angle is largely untapped in scifi.
Posted by Michiel (Member # 7649) on :
I read on the B&N university that OSC doesn't believe there will ever be an ALIEN INVASION. Why not?
Posted by Avicus (Member # 7652) on :
My first line was probably too cut and dry. I understand that it is not money driven. In fact I can't honestly think of anything I've seen that anything you do is money driven. However, your fans cry for more and they increase in numbers each day. Understandably there is only so much you can do and there will be an end, but being the selfish person I ask for more. So although I know you are writing another book with Ender I'm hoping that another alumni of battle school will have his story told.
Posted by DemonGarik (Member # 7793) on :
I like the idea of a new sci-fi series, but in the Enderverse. I think a book about the beginning of the bugger wars would be most interesting. Not even Mazer but before that. How the first ship was defeated, what happened on earth after China was scoured. The creation of the IF... Exactly what lead up to the scouring of Mecca... I think that stuff would be very interesting and fun to write about! Just my thought
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
quote:I read on the B&N university that OSC doesn't believe there will ever be an ALIEN INVASION. Why not?
Probably because the universe is so vast that there could be thousands or millions of light-years between us and any highly advanced alien species (rather than the convenient 70 or so light-years between us and the Hive Queens in EG), and why would any species that was advanced enough to travel such a distance have any more interest in invading us than we have in invading an ant-hill? And that's if they find us at all. Again, it's a very big universe.
It seems more likely that a highly advanced species would just observe us for a bit without our even noticing, and then go about their business.
Posted by Avicus (Member # 7652) on :
Neo- From the mouth of Graff "Becuase if you can't understand what the other guy is saying then how do you know he's not trying to kill you".
Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
I'd be interested in:
Mazer Rackham
Peter Wiggin
Fly Molo (He was sort of forgotten)
Petra Arkanian
Alai
John Paul Wiggin
But it isn't my decision. OSC can write whatever he feels he needs to write.
Posted by Frangy. (Member # 6794) on :
Yes, a book on the buggers wars and Mazer Rackham would be very nice
Posted by Avicus (Member # 7652) on :
fangy- Maybe a continuation from first meetings. I always felt that book was way too short. And I've allready read Ender's game a few hundred times so having it as half the book was just another time. I would have liked to learn more about his parents and how they fought with religion and the news of buggers and all of that.
Posted by DaBigKahuna (Member # 6648) on :
Avicus comes closest to my idea, with his reference to the parents and "First Meetings".
Consider that in the Ender's Game book, the parents often seem to be somewhat unaware of what was going on - especially with Peter.
In later books, we find the parents being very smart and inciteful when dealing with Peter's situation.
Now, go back to "First Meetings" and we have a situation where they knew the authorities may be trying to get them to have children - this kinda changes the whole dynamics of WHY they may have said or done any number of things.
But the key element is where, in "First Meetings" Ender's future father observes that he had a knack for knowing what to say to get people to do things. Plug that into the Ender's Game situation and all kinds of things may be viewed differently.
Ender's Shadow gave new views and one centering on his parents during all the time of Ender's Game would do that even more. For example, maybe the father was well aware of the internet activity that Peter and Valentine were up to. When he praised Demonsthenes writings, which upset Valentine, perhaps he expressed that opinion not because he actually felt that way, but because saying so may influence Valentine in some way.
Let's see, a book about the parents and their influence - "Casting a Parental Shadow"?
Posted by DaBigKahuna (Member # 6648) on :
Avicus,
= Everyone was crushed when Ender died. =
You know, I wonder. This has to do with the nature of philotes and aiuas.
Remember the hive queen - who seems able to sense aiuas in some way - said that the new Peter and Ender were actually expressions of Ender's aiua. While that doesn't make them the same as Ender's aiua, they apparently were controlled by his so we may have an odd inbetween situation here where the new Peter was not Ender himself, but sort of a subset.
Lots of questions - kill a hive queen and virtually all her "subselves" die fairly quickly and don't do anything while waiting to die. Clearly when Ender died, this did not happen to his subselves so with humans there is a big difference right there.
Might be nothing more than how strong a philote is attracted to a bugger worker compared to how strong a philote Ender attracted to make Peter and Valentine.
We also know that sometimes a bugger worker wouldn't obey - maybe too strong a philote?
Anyway, how much of Ender might we think could still exist in Valentine and Peter, or would they be the same as when hive queens "call" an aiua to take control of a new queen - it may communicate with other queens, but it is, I think, a totally independent creature (aiua).
Posted by urbanX (Member # 1450) on :
I'd even go one step more. John Paul stated in "First Meetings" that his goal was to replace the current government with a new one. For all we know John Paul could have said just the right words to get Peter to move along those lines. We never find out what John Paul's job is, all we know is that he works for the hegemony. Who's to say he didn't get Val her writing job. Everybody has a pseudonym, why not the parents. Who knows what they did. I'd say another couple of short stories are in order, but not another book series.
Posted by DaBigKahuna (Member # 6648) on :
I forgot about the part about changing the govt - even better!
I don't see it as a series - after all, a lot of stuff that happens after the destruction of the buggers is already covered in the shadow books including insights into the parents.
We just need to flesh out what they were REALLY up to between first meetings and the lead-up to Peter going public basically.
Maybe it wouldn't be enough for a book, but it should be able to cover a series of short stories or a part of another book covering that same time period.
Posted by urbanX (Member # 1450) on :
DaBigKahuna when Ender created Peter and Vsl they didn't have their own auia, Enders auia was in control of all three bodies. Ender's Auia couldn't handle three bodies, *SPOILER*
Ender's Auia now dwells in Peter and Jane now controls Val's body. With no Auia Ender's body crumbled to dust.
Posted by DaBigKahuna (Member # 6648) on :
UrbanX,
You expressed it better than I did - as I posted elsewhere, I can come up with ideas, but have a heck of a time expressing them clearly.
But as I recall, OSC said at the time that he was bringing the Ender story to an finish with that book - essentially by killing him off. But it never struck me that he was REALLY killed off!
Posted by CRash (Member # 7754) on :
Yeah, that nags me a little bit, because it always made me wonder if Peter ever had any connection to Ender after CotM ended. I suppose Shadows in Flight might have him in it somewhere. Wouldn't it be interesting if one of Bean's children was the trigger necessary for Peter to make such a connection? Gah, never mind me, I'm just trying to resurrect a dead character with the mind of a fanatic. But that's not to say it wouldn't be interesting to read about.
Posted by Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged (Member # 7476) on :
The fanboy in me wants Peter to at least say, "The enemies gate is down."
Posted by Rose the ____ (Member # 7791) on :
Ok. this isn't something I'd ask Mr. Card to do -but I like the idea that someday, all this stuff Card writes today? someday other writer will take inspiration from it, and - more to the point, write stories in these universes. like the I, Robot books not written by Asimov, or the almost infinite number of books that grew out of Star Wars. sure, some of this stuff ended up being just junk, and oh LORD am I tired of Jedi.
But someday I'd like to see people writing about these universes Mr. Card has created. I'd like to see someone write Valentine's histories, or stories of the Captains who ran the fleet ships in the bugger wars - y'know - just fantastic stories for fantastic worlds.
probably I want to see this because I have a great deal of admiration for the people who have added new ideas to old characters and old worlds. I like these superhero comic books because there's a sense of history. sure, it's malleable, it has to be - but that there's so many people who have something to say about these stories - it'd be nice if someday people contributed as much to Mr. Card's worlds - WITH HIS PERMISSION FIRST! - as others have contributed to the legacies of Bob Kane, Will Eisner, Stan Lee, George Lucas, Issac Asimov, etc.
Posted by Avicus (Member # 7652) on :
Rose, all sci-fi books stem from like two or three great great novels. I can't remember the names, but every other author tries to in some way write like one of those three. So where has it gotten them? They make some money and a few fans, but the're no Ender's Game. They'll never be a Dune or Lord of the Rings. Just filler for the shelves. I don't want anyone trying to do the same thing Orson has done in the world he has created. It's just a poor move. I think he even said personally somewhere that the really great writers don't try to copy what someone else has done. They start from scratch and after some time can create something truley great and original. It helped him didn't it?
Posted by lonelywalker (Member # 7815) on :
I would like something on Petra, mainly because I am so disgusted with her as a character (and disappointed in her) that I feel I need some kind of explanation for all her behaviour. But perhaps she's just destined to annoy me perpetually.
Posted by Avicus (Member # 7652) on :
lonely - Because she married peter?
Posted by lonelywalker (Member # 7815) on :
Well, perhaps I am being hard on Petra, because I haven't yet read "Shadow of the Giant". However, as she is the only main female character in Ender's Game, and the Shadow series (apart from Valentine, who is very much your typical passive, loving, female character) I expected much more of her.
Petra's supposed to be incredibly tough and incredibly smart, yet all she does in Ender's Game is endanger Ender's life, and then crack under pressure by the end. Then in the Shadow series, all she does seems to be to traipse around after Bean begging to have his babies. NOT a great female rolemodel for all the female fans of Ender's Game. But, as I say, I haven't read "Giant" yet, so I'm hoping I'll think better of her after that. I keep hoping that all her weird behaviour is a result of some government plot... Posted by Nelson (Member # 7761) on :
The idea of people building on the stroy line would be a sweet idea. I have read all of the books that are titled Star Wars before they split off into things jsut for the kids. The wonderful thing about all those is that it wasn't jsut permission driven the book you wrote had to be authorized by Lucasfilm because it was treated like another page in the story. By that right if one writer created a new charectar say there was a new head of the new republic, the susequent writers had to use that charectar or at least explain why they went away. That way the tangents were kept to a minimum.
Posted by kaioshin00 (Member # 3740) on :
quote: lonely - Because she married peter?
Not Cool.
*hasn't read SotG yet*
Posted by Avicus (Member # 7652) on :
lonely - hahaha you look at the situation exactly as Petra would. You see the same faults she sees and like her you don't see the good in her. She didn't mean to set up Ender, and she cracked first because Ender had more faith in her then she did in herself. See I don't want to say I don't like her because you can't really read on any of the characters with exception to "ashilleeeez" and Peter without loving them as they love themselves. I just expected more from her character.
Posted by lonelywalker (Member # 7815) on :
Avicus -
You're probably right in your assessment of the root causes of my disliking Petra. She is the character in Ender's Game I would normally naturally identify with - BUT she's so terribly flawed that I ended up disliking her. Perhaps I will need to pay closer attention to her character when I re-read the book(s)...
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
Please go re-read the books. That would help.
Petra DID intend to set Ender up - in an environment where he would NOT have to face Bonzo alone.
(Refer to conversation between Bean and Petra when they travel to Command School on Eros.)
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
I'm intrigued that wanting to reproduce would be processed as a "flaw" in Petra ...
Even if New-Peter is the body controlled by the aiua that used to be Ender, without Ender's memories, is he really the same person? The same will, yes, but ... we are more than our will. We are also our history, our self-perception.
Would it be a cheat to let Ender have some means of letting some of his memories persist inside New-Peter? I'm not sure.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
And we keep talking back and forth about licensing selected Other Writers to write stories and novels within the Ender universe, even offering a few (selected and invited) writers to have an exclusive on certain characters from Ender's Jeesh.
But two things interfere:
1. Economics. A book in the Ender universe by someone not me would not sell as well, period. Can't be helped, it's just so.
There's no hugely popular movie to spur demand, so instead of a series of books selling to a fraction of the movie audience, there would only be a series of books selling to a fraction of the book audience. And that's too small a fraction to pay a writer for doing the high level of work that we would want the series to have.
2. Guilt. A writer who is good enough to meet the standards I would want such books and stories to meet should be writing his or her own novels, not wasting time adding to worlds I created. I'd feel like I was stealing time out of someone else's career in order for them to serve mine. Very selfish of me, and destructive of them - even if they freely choose to do it.
Posted by lonelywalker (Member # 7815) on :
OSC said: "I'm intrigued that wanting to reproduce would be processed as a "flaw" in Petra ..."
Well, I certainly don't think that wanting to reproduce is a flaw in and of itself (although it is becoming more stigmatised in European society). In some of the other characters in the books, it seems natural, and according to their characters (I'm thinking of Valentine, Novinha (ok, perhaps she didn't *explicitly* want kids so much as a relationship with Libo, but it still turned out that way), and even Ender himself).
However, Petra's constant pestering Bean about kids annoyed me immensely. YES she's an adult woman and it's perfectly ok to want to have kids with someone you love. YES she was working within time constraints. But the fact that she was willing to go against Bean's own wishes to impregnate herself seemed rather beyond the pale.
Perhaps I'm not looking at a big enough picture. Perhaps Petra's actions were intended for the best, to preserve Bean's unique genes for the future of the human race, or some other justification (sorry if I'm a little shaky on the details - I left my Shadow books on another continent...).
I am wondering if you (Mr. Card) intended Petra's actions to be unsympathetic. I suspect you didn't, since you often take great pains to present apparently "evil" characters on their own terms. I was thinking last night about another character who irritates me, Qing-Jao. But I don't *dislike* the CHARACTER. I think she's an amazing character, and by the end of "Xenocide" I even have some respect for her devotion, mad though it is. But I struggle, and have always struggled, to see the good in Petra.
I will keep trying Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
Mazer Racham book Shadows in flight and the linking book
possibly another first meetings collection of short stories about the various Jeesh members.
Those would probably be the best bets for OSC since after the first 3 are definatly bookable(that a word?) and anything else I don't think could be fleshed out enough to allow a full novel. A series of short stories would be better.
I am however in favor of an Enderverse sci-fi series. Possibly based on the 3 bugger wars. Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
God knows how long Bablylon 5 is going to last me.
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But that's not to say it wouldn't be interesting to read about.
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