Ender in Exile [Hardcover]

Orson Scott Card (Author)

Book Description

Series: Ender | Publication Date: November 11, 2008

After twenty-three years, Orson Scott Card returns to his acclaimed best-selling series with the first true, direct sequel to the classic Ender's Game.

In Ender’s Game, the world’s most gifted children were taken from their families and sent to an elite training school. At Battle School, they learned combat, strategy, and secret intelligence to fight a dangerous war on behalf of those left on Earth. But they also learned some important and less definable lessons about life.

After the life-changing events of those years, these children—now teenagers—must leave the school and readapt to life in the outside world.

Having not seen their families or interacted with other people for years—where do they go now? What can they do?

Ender fought for humanity, but he is now reviled as a ruthless assassin. No longer allowed to live on Earth, he enters into exile. With his sister Valentine, he chooses to leave the only home he’s ever known to begin a relativistic—and revelatory—journey beyond the stars. 

What happened during the years between Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead? What did Ender go through from the ages of 12 through 35? The story of those years has never been told. Taking place 3000 years before Ender finally receives his chance at redemption in Speaker for the Dead, this is the long-lost story of Ender.

For twenty-three years, millions of readers have wondered and now they will receive the answers. Ender in Exile is Orson Scott Card’s moving return to all the action and the adventure, the profound exploration of war and society, and the characters one never forgot.

On one of these ships, there is a baby that just may share the same special gifts as Ender’s old friend Bean…

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set between Card's Hugo and Nebula–winning Ender's Game (1985) and Speaker for the Dead (1986), this philosophical novel covers familiar events, but puts new emphasis on their ethical ramifications. In the wake of his victory over the alien Formics, 12-year-old military genius Ender Wiggins is hailed as a hero, but governments opposed to the International Fleet, which trained him, intend to portray him as a monster. Ender winds up as titular governor of one of the new human colonies, where he struggles to adapt to civilian life and ponders his role in the deaths of thousands of humans and an entire alien species. His agonized musings aren't always sophisticated but possess a certain gravitas. Fans will find this offering illuminating, and it's also accessible to thoughtful readers new to the series. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Here is Card's answer to all those readers who asked, "What happened to Ender?" between Ender's Game (1985) and Speaker for the Dead (1986, both Tor), a gap that covers nearly 3000 years. Twelve-year-old Ender Wiggin should be coming home to a hero's welcome after wiping out the dreaded buggers—aliens who have twice defeated humanity in the past—in a fierce space battle. He is instead proclaimed a dangerous weapon and appointed titular governor of a colony world to keep him as far away from Earth as possible. His beloved sister Valentine joins him on the colony ship but is unable to penetrate the barriers he has erected around himself. Wracked with remorse at his genocide of the buggers, Ender searches for the reason the aliens allowed him to defeat them, knowing the answer will give him direction. As in most great speculative fiction, Card mines the depths of humanity's philosophical and political ideas through Ender's trials and discoveries. Exile brings together many drifting story lines from a number of other books in the series, so it's not for the uninitiated. For those who are familiar with Ender and his world, this is a wonderful treat to be devoured whole in a gulp and then returned to later to digest at leisure.—Charli Osborne, Oxford Public Library, MI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (November 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765304961
• ISBN-13: 978-0765304964
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (130 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #145,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Orson Scott Card is the bestselling author best known for the classic Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow and other novels in the Ender universe. Most recently, he was awarded the 2008 Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in Young Adult literature, from the American Library Association. Card has written sixty-one books, assorted plays, comics, and essays and newspaper columns. His work has won multiple awards, including back-to-back wins of the Hugo and the Nebula Awards-the only author to have done so in consecutive years. His titles have also landed on 'best of' lists and been adopted by cities, universities and libraries for reading programs. The Ender novels have inspired a Marvel Comics series, a forthcoming video game from Chair Entertainment, and pre-production on a film version. A highly anticipated The Authorized Ender Companion, written by Jake Black, is also forthcoming.Card offers writing workshops from time to time and occasionally teaches writing and literature at universities.Orson Scott Card currently lives with his family in Greensboro, NC.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

174 of 185 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ender and Valentine are back, and Card cleverly ties up loose ends, November 12, 2008

By 

Billy Hollis (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ender in Exile (Hardcover)

This book is more properly considered part of the Ender's Shadow series, rather than a sequel to Ender's Game. It is stylistically like the Shadow series, features many of the same characters, and ties up loose ends from those books.

Card has found a clever way to do that, while centering the story on Ender and Valentine. Readers of Ender's Game will recall that Ender and Valentine left on the first colony ship because there were some good reasons Ender could not return to Earth. This book picks up just before that voyage begins.

However, that voyage takes decades because of time dilation. So the events of the Ender's Shadow series all unfold during the voyage.

That allows a different slant on those happenings, while also resolving much of what happened to Ender during that period. Ender still has some life issues to face, and this novel shows us how he faces them.

I don't recommend this as anyone's introduction to the world of Ender. Read Ender's Game for sure before this. I'd also recommend at least the first couple of books of the Ender's Shadow series as prerequisites. The more of the series you've read the better you'll lke this, though I don't think you needed to read all the way through that series to enjoy this book. (By the way, it's unnecessary to read Speaker for the Dead and its sequels. They take place later in the timeline and you won't suffer any loss of enjoyment if you have not read them.)

However, if you liked Ender's Game and want to know what happened to Ender as a teen in more detail, this is the story for you. And if you felt there was one major loose end at the end of Shadow of the Giant, you're right and that loose end plays into the story as well.

I was pleased because the sequels to Ender's Game (Speaker for the Dead, etc.) really didn't give me a satisfying view of Ender's character. I concluded at the end of that series that Card really didn't like Ender that much, based on the life he lived in those novels. Perhaps I was mistaken, or perhaps Ender has grown on Card over the years, because the tone of Ender as a character is completely different here than in those books.

There are some minor inconsistencies in this story and the other books and stories in the series. Card details these in the Afterword. The biggest conflict is with the story where the computer character Jane is introduced, which was in the collection First Meetings in Ender's Universe. For me these inconsistencies did not get in the way of the story.

If you have read and liked just about any of the Ender books before, you'll definitely want to get this one to complete some disparate storylines. If you're like me, you'll read it fast. It just came today; I finished it before bedtime and felt motivated to write this review right away.

66 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A contrived effort that will be the forgotten title in the ender series, February 16, 2009

By 

lanik fears (Winston-Salem, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ender in Exile (Hardcover)

I really wanted to like this book. Really. I couldn't do it. Let me start at the beginning. Ender's Game is my favorite book. I have read the book and the sequels numerous times. The other books in the series create a universe wherein all of the stories take place. Call me a purist, but once the rules of the universe are setup, you don't go back and change them. I know that it is Card's prerogative, but Ender has grown from the story and far too many readers feel a kinship to have the author now change things. First off, Ender refers to the "Buggers" as the Formix through out the whole book. This is not from the Ender series. It is Bean who refers to the Formix by their formal name. Ender never did it and Card never did it in any of the Ender's series. I don't think I ever heard the term Formix until the Ender's Shadow book.
Card changes details from Ender's Game. He changes the way Ender and Valentine meet, who pilots the ship...just to name a few. These details bother me some, but the real insult is in Card's narrative at the end (of the audiobook) where he basically says: I was wrong before, I got the details right now, so get over it.
Wait a minute!?! Ender's game is a classic, you created the universe, but then you unleashed it on your readers...it is ours now too. You don't change the details when it messes with your ability to sell more books. You have to work within the confines in this previously created world.
Last complaint, the story just doesn't live up to any Card books. It is slow and the whole confrontation at the ends feels like an after thought. I kept waiting for the plot to begin just to find out that Ender had a really boring trip to the first colony.
Its not all bad, the new details about the MD device, faster than light speed travel and the events surrounding the first human introduction to it are nice. These details would have been better suited for an "Enderverse compendium" or something like that.
Like i said, I wanted to like this book. In the end, I get the impression that this book was conceived with the royalties more in mind than the filling out of one of the greatest literary characters in recent memory. I think that in time, when the Ender series is listed, this book will be left off.
So, if you are a fan of Ender, you will read this book anyway. Heck, I would have even if I had read my own review. Just don't say I didn't tell you...

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I wanted to like it more than I did, December 1, 2008

By 

Scooter (Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ender in Exile (Hardcover)

Huge fan of OSC and the series (esp. the "Speaker" sequence) and was excited about this book. I enjoyed reading it, but it wasn't as filling as most of his other books. At times it felt like a "who's who in the Enderverse" with references thrown in to many different story lines, which felt somewhat disjointed at times. The potential climactic ending...wasn't.

However, it has it's hidden gems and interesting people. As always, great insight into the complexities of human relationships. Worth the read, but not one of the better books within the Enderverse.