Earth Afire: Book 2 of the First Formic War

Doesn't Orson Scott Card always make a hit? After so many books in the series, the risk of stagnation isn't a worry - this is well scripted, moving, excellent character development. You can see this book come to life.

Interesting story that concluded a bit too suddenly. It seems the publishers knew that followers of the franchise would continue the story so they needlessly chopped up the story into 3 parts when it easily could have been one complete novel instead.

Excellent writing, pace, and character development. As the cool kids say, it's all good. If you're all in on this series, you'll definitely enjoy this installment, if not the (understandably) infuriating cliffhanger. I know this is the midpoint of the series but I'm just too upset about the cliffhanger to write anything more here. How many months to the third one?

The first book was decent, this one was not. Lot's of double/triple explanation of things, and supremely thin story plot. And (spoiler alert?) at the end there are too many loose ends for a prequel/sequel book. I imagine Orson Scott was not involved on the direction of this book nearly as much as the first one, and a comic book writers shortfalls echo throughout. My expectations were high, but not as high as Aaron Johnston.

I like the Enderverse, and this fills in an important part of the story prior to the movie's release.

The problem I have is that these Formic War books are a little more fluff and filler than the Ender & Bean books.

I find myself skipping over paragraphs where way too much detail is given about a non-unique item or situation.

Also, being a non-sharable e-book, the price is too high. With a printed book, I can loan the book to my wife or a friend, but with a Kindle book, I can't really share it with anyone without getting into complicated procedures to extract and convert to a MOBI. Then, I don't really have a way to "take it back." This is more of a technological limitation of the store than OSC/TOR, but the price should be reflective of this limitation.

After Earth Unaware I was hooked on this series, and the second instalment did not disappoint. I'd say that for me it was not quite as good as Earth Unaware, in which I loved how much of the book was set in space and how routine it was all made to seem.

I am certainly excited to know how the series continues and I pre-ordered the 3rd book.

I have to say this was an absolutely horrible book. I'm pretty tolerant of poor writing but poor writing combined with a complete suspension of belief are hard to take. The main characters in Earth Afire are cartoonishly indestructible, all knowing, and the only people out of the 10 billion or so on earth who seem to have a clue about how to fight the aliens. The first book in the series (Earth Unaware) was not as over the top as this book. Had the trilogy ended after the first book, it would have been okay (but then, of course, would not have been a trilogy). Unfortunately, the second book was written. I'm not sure if this is just the middle book syndrome or not and I am not going to find out because I will not read the third book. This book ended right in the middle of 2 major plot points and I totally do not even care how they ended - that is how bad this book was.

As an example of the complete suspension of belief present in this book - one of the main characters is severely injured in an aircraft crash. He has severe internal injuries and required some major surgery (I think he needed to have some length of intestine removed, but I cannot remember). Unfortunately, he is still near his downed aircraft and has been unconscious for a few days. Fortunately, a 10 year old genius Chinese boy has found him and he builds a structure by himself to raise our injured hero off the ground and place him on a stretcher so that he can be pulled by an ox many miles to a barn that is miraculously the only building within many miles that has not been destroyed or even visited by the aliens who are executing a scorched earth policy in the rest of the surrounding area. They get to the barn and through the miracle of modern science have a scanner/medical device that tells them what they need to do (operate) and how to do it. The device gives voice commands - the voice is, of course, the voice of our injured hero's ex-girlfriend. When the operation starts to go south (like the rest of this book), they use the help feature on the medical pad to get direct help. Who do they get on the line? The injured hero's ex-girlfriend. I certainly did not see that coming. So, eventually the hero recovers from this major surgery by two amateurs without major issues, in a barn, without any infection, not too much medication, very little food, and not any visits by the aliens. Fortunately for us, the aliens held off looking for these remaining stragglers until our hero had recovered enough strength to once again be indestructible.

I know this is fiction, but this was crazy. The exploits of Victor, the space-born hero are equally ridiculous, such as his being able to watch a couple of videos and determine how to gain access to the alien mothership when the best military minds on Earth were apparently just licking their wounds after a recent defeat and had decided this was too tough to deal with. These plot twists and characters were just plain silly. I loved Ender's Game and have read a lot of OSC books, but this trilogy has made me question just what happened to this author.

I don't worry about the social issues surround Card. My favorite author is Dickens, and he was a terrible antisemitic. What I find important here is that the writing is simply not good. Card's choice to have another writer do most of this heavy lifting of writing the Ender prequels is evident and while I will probably be suckered into buying the next novel out of desire to know the rest of the story, I feel the need to make known my displeasure with the state of the series in hope that the next novel will be more well written.

The characters live beyond the page. This work holds its place among the other brilliant literary masterpieces. The reader is transported to a world where she realizes that nothing and no one should be discarded. Card emphasizes that fear kills the mind and hate destroys the soul, but sacrifice and hope can still redeem the human race.

I really enjoyed Orson Scott Card's earlier Ender works, and the Shadow series. Xenocide, in particular, struck me as an incredibly elegant piece of writing and explored issues of empathy, duty, and love. I had been away from Card's books for a while but had a bit of renewed excitement at the prospect of seeing Ender's Game on the big screen. So it was with some enthusiasm that I started the prequels to the Ender series.

Honestly, they are a disappointment. I would never call the Ender series high literature, but at least as the series progressed, there was some abstract thought and manipulation of larger, more diffuse concepts. It's what made them pretty and also appropriate for later teen reading. But Earth Unaware and Earth Afire are terribly simple. Card tends toward straight explanation of his characters' motivations and feelings rather than inference. There is no moral ambiguity, just straightforward conflict. Honestly, it's rather pathetic.

Earth Afire is a continuation of the first book. It gives just enough hints to remind you what happened in the first book but wouldn't really make sense unless read the first book. Plus it just leaves you on a massive cliff hanger for the third book.

The three books of The First Formic War were very good. I loved seeing the development of the characters and plots seen in The Ender's Game. Could hardly put any of them down. Can't wait to read The Second Formic War Series.

Any fan of Ender's Game, will understand this. All of the Ender's Game books were fabulous, but as pieces of a puzzle, they were the inside without any outside pieces...the "So THAT'S why...." was missing. This trilogy is about the first hero of the first encounter with the Formics (or Hormosas, as I learned from the Spanish-speaking miners), Mazar Rackham. But OMG, so much more! Mr. Card weaves a perfect story, full or rich, memorable characters, twists and turns and, naturally, many "So THAT'S why.....". (Doncha LOVE those "Aha" moments!

Fans of Ender's Game, Space Opera genre, or heart-thumpin adventure, I promise...you will NOT be disappointed.