The Swarm (Card and Johnston novel)
The Swarm is a 2016 science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston, the first book of the Second Formic Wars trilogy of novels in the Ender's Game series. It was released on August 2, 2016; the first invasion of Earth was beaten back by a coalition of corporate and international military forces, the Chinese army, but China has been devastated by the Formics' initial efforts to eradicate Earth life forms and prepare the ground for their own settlement. The Scouring of China struck fear into the other nations of the planet. Earth's government has been reorganized for defense, but ambition and politics and self-interest remain. It is up to Bingwen, Mazer Rackam, Victor Delgado and Lem Jukes to create a weapon that can defend humanity; the book is the first of the Second Formic War trilogy by Johnston. The projected titles for the second and third books are The Queens respectively; the release of The Hive is scheduled for June 11, 2019. As of July 2018 it had a rating of 4.12 out of 5 on Goodreads.
List of Ender's Game characters List of works by Orson Scott Card The Swarm title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Earth Unaware
Earth Unaware is a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston in the Ender's Game series. Published in 2012, it is the first book of a prequel trilogy to Ender's Game; the novel is set before Ender Wiggin tells the story of the first Formic War. Earth Afire, the second book in the trilogy, was released on June 4, 2013, the conclusion, Earth Awakens, was released June 10, 2014. A family of "free miners" living on the spaceship El Cavador is working an asteroid far out in the Kuiper Belt when they detect what appears to be an alien ship decelerating from near light speed as it approaches the solar system. Meanwhile, Lem Jukes and heir of the hard-driving founder of the largest mining corporation, is in the remote region, far from the prying eyes of competitors, secretly testing a "glaser" that promises to revolutionize mining. Back on Earth, Captain Wit O'Toole goes recruiting among the elite New Zealand Special Air Service for the more select, multinational Mobile Operations Police.
Jukes orders his ship to "bump" El Cavador from the asteroid the family is mining, as it is the only suitable one nearby for his test. During the violent collision, an El Cavador crewman is killed; the miners hack into the corporate ship's network, planting a message for Lem Jukes and downloading confidential files pertaining to the glaser. Jukes, fearful of a scandal involving the death of a free miner and the danger of the miners selling the confidential files to his competitors, sets out for Weigh Station Four, where he intends to plant a hacker to strip El Cavador's files. El Cavador's transmission equipment having been destroyed in the bump, the crew are unable to warn another mining clan about the intruder, can only watch helplessly as the alien pod destroys them. El Cavador rescues a few survivors. In the meantime, Victor and a few others modify a "quickship," an automated vessel used to send processed metals to Luna, to carry one person to warn Earth; when the pod attacks El Cavador, the men on the quickship ram and disable the pod using mining equipment.
During the attack, the aliens emerge to battle the humans. Their physiology is revealed to be Formic. El Cavador heads to Weigh Station Four to use their laserline transmitter; as a backup, Victor volunteers to take a datacube with the evidence of the aliens' hostile intentions to Luna aboard the quickship. The journey is perilous. Meanwhile, the Juke ship makes its way to Weigh Station Four, only to come under attack from roughnecks who recognize the crew as despised corporates. Several of the attackers are killed by Chubs, a man junior to Lem Jukes, but revealed as having been assigned by Ukko Jukes to protect him; the corporates are still able to leave behind a hacker to strip El Cavador's files, but the scheme becomes moot when the Formic ship destroys the station. El Cavador sends a short-range, broad radio call and is able to contact the Juke ship and a Chinese mining vessel. El Cavador sends its women and children aboard the Chinese vessel, too small to help in the attack; the plan is to plant mining explosives along the hull of the alien ship.
One of them detonates early, drawing the attention of the Formics, who at first engage the humans wearing space suits, but subsequently attack without any protection. Seeing the battle go against them, Chubs withdraws Lem Jukes and his men and moves the corporate ship away, as the Formic ship destroys El Cavador. Victor arrives at Luna, only to be ignored and confined for his illegal arrival. Meanwhile, Wit O'Toole prepares his MOPs for any situation, including what he thinks is a hypothetical alien attack. Victor is assigned a case worker who believes his story and helps him transmit the evidence onto the Nets. Victor Delgado, a young mechanic of great talent who, along with his father and a young apprentice, keeps El Cavador running Concepción Querales, captain of El Cavador Lem Jukes, son of mining magnate Ukko Jukes and captain of the Makarhu, a corporate mining vessel Captain DeWitt Clinton O'Toole, commander of the Mobile Operations Police Lieutenant Mazer Rackham, a Maori soldier whom O'Toole is interested in recruiting Alejandra, Victor's second cousin Mono, Victor's assistant The Formic Wars: Burning Earth List of Ender's Game characters Orson Scott Card bibliography
Earth Afire
Earth Afire is a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston, the second book of the Formic Wars novels in the Ender's Game series. It was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for science fiction. A century before the events of Ender's Game, an alien spaceship enters the solar system and soon makes known its hostile intentions by destroying harmless human ships, it wipes out a ragtag fleet of asteroid miners who have banded together in a desperate attempt to stop it. All of the adult male members of Victor Delgado's extended clan die in the battle; the survivors are unable to transmit a warning, so Victor volunteers for a near-suicidal mission to try to reach Earth in a tiny, hastily converted unmanned cargo ship. He is unable to get the authorities to take him seriously. Thus, humanity is unprepared when the First Formic War starts; the invader sends three enormous landing craft to southeast China. The Formics use gas to defoliate the area and kill everyone. Despite suffering stupendous losses, the suspicious Chinese government refuses outside help.
Before the landing, Mazer Rackham had been training the Chinese military on a new transport aircraft, the HERC, in exchange for training on their new invention, drill sledges that can tunnel underground. During the Formic invasion, he saves Bingwen, a intelligent eight-year-old Chinese boy, but is shot down. Bingwen saves his life, with the remote help of Kim. Bingwen and Mazer set off to destroy the nearest Formic lander; the Mobile Operations Police, a small but elite international force, enters China. The MOPs save Mazer from a Formic attack; the lander is shielded, but it does not extend underground. Mazer manages to find some drill HERCs to transport them close to the lander. MOP Captain Wit O'Toole obtains a tactical nuclear weapon from anonymous Chinese who do not agree with their government's stance on foreign assistance, they destroy the lander, but Captain Shenzu arrives and places Mazer under arrest. Meanwhile and Imala manage to drift close to the Formic ship, using a disguised ship provided by Lem Jukes to avoid being destroyed.
Victor breaks into the alien ship through a gun port. Victor Delgado, a young mechanic of great talent who, along with his father and a young apprentice, keeps the family mining ship El Cavador running Rena Delgado, Victor's mother Lem Jukes, son of mining magnate Ukko Jukes and captain of the Makarhu, a corporate mining vessel Captain DeWitt Clinton O'Toole, commander of the Mobile Operations Police Lieutenant Mazer Rackham, a Maori soldier whom O'Toole is interested in recruiting Bingwen, a young child whose parents and grandfather are killed in the Formic invasion Ukko Jukes, Lem Jukes' father Imala Bootstamp, Victor's Luna Trade Department attorney Captain Shenzu, a Chinese military officer The Formic Wars: Burning Earth List of Ender's Game characters List of works by Orson Scott Card
Children of the Fleet
Children of the Fleet is a science fiction novel written by Orson Scott Card. The title of the novel was announced by the author on 12 November 2015, it was released on October 10, 2017; the series is set after Ender's Game and is set in Battle School, renamed to Fleet School, a school run by Hyrum Graff where kids learn how to become commanders of the colonies they will lead and form on other planets. The protagonist and lead character is 10-year-old Dabeet Ochoa. Gavin Hood, director of the Ender's Game film, stated that if a sequel were to happen it could be the first book in the Fleet School series, Children of the Fleet. There are no plans for a sequel; the book received positive reviews by Deseret News, Publishers Weekly, RT Book Reviews and Den of Geek. Forbes called it "Orson Scott Card's best since Ender's Game", it had a rating of 3.63 out of 5 on Goodreads as of December 2017. Ender's Game
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. According to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed over 4.5 billion years ago. Earth's gravity interacts with other objects in space the Sun and the Moon, Earth's only natural satellite. Earth revolves around the Sun in a period known as an Earth year. During this time, Earth rotates about its axis about 366.26 times. Earth's axis of rotation is tilted with respect to its orbital plane; the gravitational interaction between Earth and the Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes Earth's orientation on its axis, slows its rotation. Earth is the largest of the four terrestrial planets. Earth's lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earth's surface is covered with water by oceans; the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere.
The majority of Earth's polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet and the sea ice of the Arctic ice pack. Earth's interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earth's magnetic field, a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earth's history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earth's atmosphere and surface, leading to the proliferation of aerobic and anaerobic organisms; some geological evidence indicates. Since the combination of Earth's distance from the Sun, physical properties, geological history have allowed life to evolve and thrive. In the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely. Over 7.6 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and natural resources for their survival.
Humans have developed diverse cultures. The modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most spelled eorðe, it has cognates in every Germanic language, their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō. In its earliest appearances, eorðe was being used to translate the many senses of Latin terra and Greek γῆ: the ground, its soil, dry land, the human world, the surface of the world, the globe itself; as with Terra and Gaia, Earth was a personified goddess in Germanic paganism: the Angles were listed by Tacitus as among the devotees of Nerthus, Norse mythology included Jörð, a giantess given as the mother of Thor. Earth was written in lowercase, from early Middle English, its definite sense as "the globe" was expressed as the earth. By Early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, the earth became the Earth when referenced along with other heavenly bodies. More the name is sometimes given as Earth, by analogy with the names of the other planets.
House styles now vary: Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, with the capitalized form an acceptable variant. Another convention capitalizes "Earth" when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the, it always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as "what on earth are you doing?" The oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4.5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4.54±0.04 Bya the primordial Earth had formed. The bodies in the Solar System evolved with the Sun. In theory, a solar nebula partitions a volume out of a molecular cloud by gravitational collapse, which begins to spin and flatten into a circumstellar disk, the planets grow out of that disk with the Sun. A nebula contains gas, ice grains, dust. According to nebular theory, planetesimals formed by accretion, with the primordial Earth taking 10–20 million years to form. A subject of research is the formation of some 4.53 Bya. A leading hypothesis is that it was formed by accretion from material loosed from Earth after a Mars-sized object, named Theia, hit Earth.
In this view, the mass of Theia was 10 percent of Earth, it hit Earth with a glancing blow and some of its mass merged with Earth. Between 4.1 and 3.8 Bya, numerous asteroid impacts during the Late Heavy Bombardment caused significant changes to the greater surface environment of the Moon and, by inference, to that of Earth. Earth's atmosphere and oceans were formed by volcanic outgassing. Water vapor from these sources condensed into the oceans, augmented by water and ice from asteroids and comets. In this model, atmospheric "greenhouse gases" kept the oceans from freezing when the newly forming Sun had only 70% of its current luminosity. By 3.5 Bya, Earth's magnetic field was established, which helped prevent the atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind. A crust formed; the two models that explain land mass propose either a steady growth to the present-day forms or, more a rapid growth early in Earth history followed by a long-term steady continental area. Continents formed by plate tectonics
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction dealing with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, extraterrestrials in fiction. Science fiction explores the potential consequences of scientific other various innovations, has been called a "literature of ideas." "Science fiction" is difficult to define as it includes a wide range of concepts and themes. James Blish wrote: "Wells used the term to cover what we would today call'hard' science fiction, in which a conscientious attempt to be faithful to known facts was the substrate on which the story was to be built, if the story was to contain a miracle, it ought at least not to contain a whole arsenal of them."Isaac Asimov said: "Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology." According to Robert A. Heinlein, "A handy short definition of all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world and present, on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method."Lester del Rey wrote, "Even the devoted aficionado or fan—has a hard time trying to explain what science fiction is," and that the reason for there not being a "full satisfactory definition" is that "there are no delineated limits to science fiction."
Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying "science fiction is what we point to when we say it." Mark C. Glassy described the definition of science fiction as U. S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart did with the definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it." Science fiction had its beginnings in a time when the line between myth and fact was arguably more blurred than the present day. Written in the 2nd century CE by the satirist Lucian, A True Story contains many themes and tropes that are characteristic of contemporary science fiction, including travel to other worlds, extraterrestrial lifeforms, interplanetary warfare, artificial life; some consider it the first science-fiction novel. Some of the stories from The Arabian Nights, along with the 10th-century The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and Ibn al-Nafis's 13th-century Theologus Autodidactus contain elements of science fiction. Products of the Age of Reason and the development of modern science itself, Johannes Kepler's Somnium, Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, Cyrano de Bergerac's Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon and The States and Empires of the Sun, Margaret Cavendish's "The Blazing World", Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Ludvig Holberg's Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum and Voltaire's Micromégas are regarded as some of the first true science-fantasy works.
Indeed, Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan considered Somnium the first science-fiction story. Following the 18th-century development of the novel as a literary form, Mary Shelley's books Frankenstein and The Last Man helped define the form of the science-fiction novel. Brian Aldiss has argued. Edgar Allan Poe wrote several stories considered science fiction, including "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" which featured a trip to the Moon. Jules Verne was noted for his attention to detail and scientific accuracy Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea which predicted the contemporary nuclear submarine. In 1887, the novel El anacronópete by Spanish author Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau introduced the first time machine. Many critics consider H. G. Wells one of science fiction's most important authors, or "the Shakespeare of science fiction." His notable science-fiction works include The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds. His science fiction imagined alien invasion, biological engineering and time travel.
In his non-fiction futurologist works he predicted the advent of airplanes, military tanks, nuclear weapons, satellite television, space travel, something resembling the World Wide Web. In 1912, Edgar Rice Burroughs published A Princess of Mars, the first of his three-decade-long planetary romance series of Barsoom novels, set on Mars and featuring John Carter as the hero. In 1926, Hugo Gernsback published the first American science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, in which he wrote: By'scientifiction' I mean the Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe type of story—a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision... Not only do these amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading—they are always instructive, they supply knowledge... in a palatable form... New adventures pictured for us in the scientifiction of today are not at all impossible of realization tomorrow... Many great science stories destined to be of historical interest are still to be written...
Posterity will point to them as having blazed a new trail, not only in literature and fiction, but progress as well. In 1928, E. E. "Doc" Smith's first published work, The Skylark of Space, written in collaboration with Lee Hawkins Garby, appeared in Amazing Stories. It is called the first great space opera; the same year, Philip Francis Nowlan's original Buck Rogers story, Armageddon 2419 appeared in Amazing Stories. This was followed by the first serious science-fiction comic. In 1937, John W. Campbell became editor of Astounding Science Fiction, an event, sometimes conside
