Book Description
Orson Scott Card brings us back to the very beginning of
his brilliant Ender Quartet, with a novel that allows us to
reenter that world anew.
With all the power of his original creation, Card has
created a companion volume to Ender's Game, a book
that expands and complements the first, enhancing its power,
illuminating its events and its powerful conclusion.
The human race is at War with the "Buggers," an
insect-like alien race. The first battles went badly, and now
as Earth prepares to defend itself against the imminent
threat of total destruction at the hands of an inscrutable
alien enemy, all focus is on the development and training of
military geniuses who can fight such a war, and win.
The long distances of interstellar space have given hope
to the defenders of Earth--they have time to train these
future commanders up from childhood, forging them into an
irresistible force in the high--orbital facility called the
Battle School.
Andrew "Ender" Wiggin was not the only child in
the Battle School; he was just the best of the best. In this
new book, Card tells the story of another of those precocious
generals, the one they called Bean--the one who became
Ender's right hand, his strategist, and his friend. One who
was with him, part of his team, in the final battle against
the Buggers.
Bean's past was a battle just to survive. He first
appeared on the streets of Rotterdam, a tiny child with a
mind leagues beyond anyone else's. He knew he could not
survive through strength; he used his tactical genius to gain
acceptance into a children's gang, and then to help make that
gang a template for success for all the others. He civilized
them, and lived to grow older.
Bean's desperate struggle to live, and his success,
brought him to the attention of the Battle School's
recruiters, those people scouring the planet for leaders,
tacticians, and generals to save Earth from the threat of
alien invasion. Bean was sent into orbit, to the Battle
School. And there he met Ender. . . .
