I'm a long-time fan of Card's classic Ender's Game, and Earth Unaware is the backstory to the Ender and Shadow series. For those not familiar with Ender's Game, the futuristic Earth has suffered through two brutal interstellar wars with the ant-like Formics and is preparing for a third. Earth Unaware tells how the first contact between the Formics and humans occurred. Set against the backdrop of asteroid mining, the first ship to notice the Formics is El Cazador, a small independent mining ship in the Kuiper Belt, whose captain and crew struggle with how to let Earth and the other mining ships know. It should be a simple decision, but interference by a corporate mining ship makes it much more difficult.
It's interesting reading this and knowing everything that subsequently happened in third Formic war and beyond. Card is not known for writing cheery books, and this is no exception. He's once again written characters dealing with complex moral and ethical situations, making the reader fall in love with them before giving them his trademark tragic twist. That said, I enjoyed this, and I'm looking forward to the next book. Earth Unaware gives just a tantalizing glimpse of the Formics and some of the people and weapons that play a major role in Ender's Game.
No comments:
Post a Comment