First Meetings: In the Enderverse by Orson Scott Card (Hardcover Edition): Booknear.com

Everything written about the characters residing in Ender's Universe since then (following Children of the Mind) has been totally uninspired and completely pointless; in essence, big disappointments. Mr. Card, in continuing on with his goldmine series, has unfortunately turned it into a landmine series, albeit one that earns heaps and heaps of money. He has totally undermined his characters as they were originally concocted. This particular book (First Meetings) is probably the worst evidence of this so far, although it definitely has partners in crime, in the three "Shadow" books that have currently been released (as bestsellers.)

In the latest few installments to the "Enderverse" ("uggh"), we find that the characters of Ender's parents (formerly insignificant, for the most part) have suddenly become major characters, and are still totally un-interesting. Perhaps Card has decided, in his middle age, that he didn't want his parental figure characters to remain in the background (where they belong) any longer, to be conned and disrespected by their ambitious children. Now that Card can relate to the parental demographic better than to Ender's, he wants to explore them. Despite how completely average they were portrayed as being in Ender's Game (except for having three genius children), they are now apparently both geniuses themselves, who were only pretending to be oblivious the whole time. Crap. These are throwaway characters who never needed exploration, and now that their backgrounds have been explored, it is a humongous slap against the "Enderverse's" integrity as being inherently "real." It is just too contrived.

Speaking of contrived, Mr. Card has turned his sci-fi series into a "political intrigue" series along the lines of Clancy or Cussler. The problem is, Mr. Card has no working knowledge of politics or of military tactics, so the whole thing comes off as being completely unrealistic, simplistic, and totally convenient. This is painfully evident in the way that the nations act towards each other, and towards the genius battle school grads, throughout the "Shadow" series books. I think that Card needs the guise of sci-fi settings (like an orbiting battle school) to make his story seem real, because you never doubt his characters when they are floating in mid-air, but when it's tanks and planes, it all seems like it came out of a 7th grader's first attempt at writing action-adventure. It's handled very poorly.

Mainly, Mr. Card is killing his characters by continuing to breathe new "life" into them. Peter, the most well-written and rounded character of Ender's Game, is now totally watered down and a pathetic shell (who acts more idiotic these days than ingenious or megalomaniacal.) In the particular case of the "Enderverse", it is clear that less is definitely more. The more Card writes about his genius children characters (Ender, Peter, Val, Bean, Petra), the less he conveys that they are even remotely intelligent. He can't keep up the sham any longer, and all of these characters now come across as being average, petulant twerps. The only reason I can still tell that they are geniuses is because in his prose, Mr. Card explicitly describes them as geniuses (i.e. "Bean is a genius military tactician.") Thank God he does this, because they certainly do nothing to support that through their characterization any longer. Card has stopped being able to come up with clever schemes and sayings for his characters, so they all come across as being totally average. Perhaps, once again because of his middle age, Card is finding it more difficult to relate to his adolescent characters (than to the middle aged ones), and so he consigns them to being written about as simple and childish, not as multifaceted and emotionally deep, as they once were.

Anyhow...
I think it's quite clear that I love these characters to death, or otherwise I wouldn't care so much about their handling, or mishandling. Of course, they are the creation of Mr. Card, and at one time he handled them brilliantly, so he can do with them whatever he wishes. However, it would be best to put them out to pasture, lest they all become dull little caricatures of their former brilliance, or should I say MORE SO. (Exception: Ender's parents who are becoming brilliant little caricatures of their former dullness.) I understand that Card's Ender-based fan base is huge, and that they demand more and more printed material about Ender and his colleagues, but enough is enough. Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes, and it's time for Card to shun the money, bow out gracefully, maintain some integrity, and start writing new books about new characters and situations.

Summary of First Meetings: In the Enderverse

Welcome to the Enderverse.

When "Ender's Game" was first published as a novella twenty-five years ago few would have predicted that it would become one of the most successful ventures in publishing history. Expanded into a novel in 1985, Ender's Game won both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novel. Never out of print and translated into dozens of languages, it is the rare work of fiction that can truly be said to have transcended a genre. Ender's Game and its sequels have won dozens of prestigious awards and are as popular today among teens and young readers as adults.

First Meetings is a collection of three novellas-plus the original "Ender's Game"-that journey into the origins and the destiny of one Ender Wiggin.

"The Polish Boy" begins in the wake between the first two Bugger Wars when the Hegemony is desperate to recruit brilliant military commanders to repel the alien invasion. In John Paul Wiggin-the future father of Ender -they believe they may have found their man. Or boy.

In "Teacher's Pest"-a novella written especially for this collection-a brilliant but insufferably arrogant John Paul Wiggin, now an American university student, matches wits with an equally brilliant graduate student named Theresa Brown.

It is many years since the end of the Bugger Wars in "The Investment Counselor." Ender's reputation as a hero and savior has suffered a horrible reversal. Banished from Earth and slandered as a mass murderer, twenty-year-old Andrew Wiggin wanders incognito from planet to planet as a fugitive. Until a blackmailing tax inspector compromises his identity and threatens to expose Ender the Xenocide.

Also reprinted here is the original landmark novella, "Ender's Game," which first appeared in 1977.

Fully illustrated, First Meetings f0is Orson Scott Card writing at the height of his considerable power about his most compelling character.

First Meetings: In the Enderverse