Help Reading Ender's Saga

I want to read the Ender's Saga, however, my research has shown me that the books are not published in chronological order or in a cohesive tale. Does anyone have any recommendations on how to break down that series?

Should I separate the Shadow Saga and read that distinctly? Should I read in publication order? Or chronological order?

My advice is to read it in publication order.

When in doubt, publication order is always best, for sure.

Which means that you should definitely begin with the short story (novella) version published in 1977. Do NOT start with the 1985 novel. You'll be glad you followed this advice.
The short story used to be difficult to locate, having been published in the magazine Analog Science Fiction & Fact. However, it is now easily available in First Meetings.

The novels rewrote and expanded on the short story to such an extent that it doesn't even feel like it belongs in the same canon anymore. As a historical novelty, sure, maybe read it later, but unless you really want to spoil the novel's ending, I certainly wouldn't read it first.

I agree. I've not read the short story and never felt the lack.

Oh my!

The short story is perfection. It has the iconic first line ("Whatever your gravity is when you get to the door, remember -- the enemy's gate is down.") and the raw emotional punch that the novel left behind.

Not that the novel is in any way shabby; I wrote my final paper on it for literature class. But the short story is the one that stays in my psyche.

To make it easy, Card has the whole text of it on his website:
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/stories/enders-game.shtml

#1: I have the same confusion too! I actually had no idea they were written out of order or that there was a short story before!

If I remember rightly, the short story was Card's first foray into science fiction, and it garnered a Hugo nomination.

I've read most of the saga and can say skipping the short story doesn't harm the reading.

One suggestion I could say: Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow back to back. (Both cover the same time period, from different POV.)

If you want to see the movie due out this weekend, read these two BEFORE you see the movie. (Which reminds me, I have to go back and reread Ender's Shadow in a week...)

Okay, definitely Ender's Game first and then Ender's Shadow. Which, I guess means publication order, more or less, since I'll try and read them all relatively close together. Thank you very much for the advice.

Here. Publication order goes top to bottom. Chronological order is the numbers.

The original "Ender Quartet" goes:

1. Ender's Game
2. Speaker for the Dead
3. Xenocide
4. Children of the Mind

Due to time dilation effects, there's a huge jump in the timeline from book 1 to 2. Also a fairly dramatic tonal shift between Game and the rest of the quartet, as the short story mentioned upthread was actually expanded into the novel for the express purpose of acting as a prelude for Speaker.

Anyway, the "Shadow" series starts off by rewriting Ender's Game from one of the other character's perspectives, and its sequels carry on from there:

1.1 Ender's Shadow
1.2 Shadow of the Hegemon
1.3 Shadow Puppets
1.4 Shadow of the Giant

Later, Card came back and wrote a new Ender novel that takes place between the first two Ender books, but references the Shadow books. He then followed that up with a final Shadow book:

1.5 Ender in Exile
1.6 Shadows in Flight

Lately, he's started a prequel series (with Aaron Johnston) that deals with the wars that formed the background of the original series:

0.1 Earth Unaware
0.2 Earth Afire
0.3 Earth Awakens

I can only vouch for the original 8 books. In my humble opinion, the first two books are by far the best, with Speaker being the best book OSC has written (and one of the finest first-contact novels I've read.) The third is also very good, but the quality starts to dip at Children (which is necessary to complete the saga.) The first Shadow book was pretty good, too, but the others are just okay. (My two cents on Card is that anything he wrote prior to the turn of the century is worth reading; after that, not as much. Certainly there are many who'd disagree with me, though.)

#12 - I would be one who agrees with your analysis.

Personally, I think the first book in each quartet (Game and Shadow) were the best two he wrote. All the others were ... meh. I just started Ender in Exile, but it doesn't grab as Ender's Game did. Kinda stalling on Xenocide and Shadow of the Giant, because the rest of the series were just so ... not well done...

12> I'd agree also. Plus, it bugged me when he started putting his religious and political agendas into the later books in the Shadow series.

Speaker for the Dead, the second book, is the best of those I've read. I stopped in the middle of the series because I could no longer ignore Card's offensive expressions of his views.

Wow, I never knew so many "Ender" novels were written. I also have never heard of the short story - I bet that is great! I read "Ender's Game" and did not dislike it but thought it was horribly bloated and needed some weeding out. I started the next in the series and could not finish it, because of the rambling bloat {I was not aware of his political views}.

I think the first novel captured the spirit of Heinlein { I spelled Heinlein correctly all by myself without spell check for possibly the first time!} as I remembered him in about the 6th grade but without H's concise edge. Maybe thick books sell better. The movie previews I have seen look like some great special effects.

Card is infamous for not being able to let go of a character. He almost always has to fidget, re-write, expand on. Sometimes the results are magical. Ender's Shadow is remarkable, telling approximately the same story from a secondary character's POV. Bean has become almost as iconic as Ender.

His best writing is at the very beginning of series. The Tales of Alvin Maker span 6 books plus other short stories, but the only truly strong book is Seventh Son.

Wow. So glad I didn't read the series of Alvin Maker then. If book one was the best... Ugh!

That shouldn't stop you from reading Seventh Son. It really is worth a read.

I read it. Struggled with it. HATED it. It is book one. As I said, if that is the best of that series... Ugh. (Yeah, 2 stars, poor review.)

But I think there are more than 6 books now... Nope, I'm wrong on this...

A good example of his fascination with re-writing is to compare 1979's A Planet Called Treason with the 1988 heavily reworked Treason.

Both are really interesting, both have some impressive flaws and strangeness, and they manage to make almost complete opposite moral and sociological points despite being the same essential plotline and characters.

Really interesting.

If you only have time for one of them, in my opinion Treason is the stronger of the two.

I also agree that the older works seem better. I struggle with the conflict of enjoying older works but wanting to distance myself from the author. It's difficult and complicated.

I really liked Red Prophet, too, though not quite as much as Seventh Son. Each book in that series takes a step down in quality, though I at least enjoyed the first five; The Crystal City was pretty terrible. Just in general, I find his oldest stuff is the best: Wyrms, Treason, and The Worthing Saga are all amazing.

Yeah, I used to be an unreserved Card fan.
Lost Boys was his first betrayal, but that reflected well on his writing ability. Homecoming Saga was a disapointment from the first. But then he would try a new sub-genre, as Enchantment, and I'd be okay with him again.

His right wing political speeching, though, has been a real turn-off. I doubt we'll ever make up.

wait. should i be reading Enders Shadow before Speaker for the Dead? I haven't heard of Enders Shadow.

No, you don't have to read Ender's Shadow before Speaker for the Dead. They are nearly totally unrelated.

The author skips over a significant amount of time (and travel) between Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Other than Ender being the same person, only older, there isn't really a direct connection between those two books other than being set in the same universe and dealing with issues of morality and self-determination.

However, if you really LIKED Ender's Game, and want to essentially see the same events through another person's eyes, then Ender's Shadow does that - it's from Bean's perspective. Then if you liked Ender's Shadow, that book sets off a totally different tangential series dealing with Earth and with Ender's siblings Valentine and Peter.

Not confusing at all, right? :)

Ender in Exile also helps fill in the gap after Ender's Game, though it isn't essential. Of his other books, I really enjoyed Homebody, which was a bit of a departure for him from his usual stuff; and also Magic Street, which is really something different.

27: My favorite OSC books (apart from the original Ender quartet) are his oldest ones: Treason, Wyrms, The Worthing Saga, and Hart's Hope. And I could not put down Treasure Box, for whatever reason.

I loved Treason (did you read the original version, or the re-write? I've read both and I feel like the re-worked version is better writing craft, but the original had a power to it that was not so gripping in the do-over version) but Wyrms just freaked me right out. I was a little young and innocent for that sort of book, and was really not expecting anything like what it dealt with.

I enjoyed the first two Alvin Maker books, especially Red Prophet, but the next two devolved into romance novels, and by then Mr. Card's political views had turned me off to the point that I've never purchased another of his books.

29: I've read both, and agree that the second version is superior.

@30: I also loved the first two Alvin books. I found the decline in quality more gradual than you, but it was definitely noticeable, and I absolutely hated The Crystal City (#6.)

I hope I'm not the only one who couldn't stand the Alvin Maker series. I read the first book and just couldn't stomach it.

>32 gilroy: I know people who feel the same as you do, but I actually enjoyed the whole series. I'll admit I read them at a time when I was less critical, though.

Although I can see some issues with it, I also really liked Pathfinder. And The lost gate, but I had some serious issues with the sequel.

I enjoyed the first 3 Alvin Maker books, but after that they were a bit pointless. I also liked Pathfinder, but not Ruins.

>34 Karlstar: Ah, I liked Ruins as well. What didn't you like about it?