Earth Afire: Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston on the First Formic War
One hundred years before Ender’s Game, the aliens arrive on Earth with fire and death. This is the story of the First Formic War, told by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston in Earth Afire (2013), the second book of the trilogy.
Authors: Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston
Title: Earth Afire (2013), The First Formic War 2
Format: English mass-market paperback (Tor), 546 pages
Scope: Space adventure set in the world of Ender’s Game; between Earth Unaware and Earth Awakens
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/0765367378 (ASIN 0765367378)
A Warning No One Believes
Victor Delgado, a young miner from a family ship in the Kuiper Belt, beat the alien ship to Earth, but only just. Not soon enough to convince sceptical governments that there was a threat. They did not believe it until space stations, ships and colonies went up in sudden flames.
Mazer Rackham Steps In
And when that happened, only Mazer Rackham and the Mobile Operations Police could move fast enough to meet the threat. Readers of Ender’s Game know Rackham as the legendary hero of the Formic Wars; here we see him as a young New Zealand officer, long before he becomes a myth.
The Invasion Begins
After the first book’s slow build-up in deep space, Earth Afire brings the war home. The Formic ship reaches Earth and lands in China, where the aliens begin spraying a gas that kills every living thing, clearing the land for their own use. Through the eyes of Bingwen, a clever young boy from a village in the path of the invasion, the novel shows the human cost on the ground, while the world’s governments argue about who should respond.
Many Viewpoints
Card and Johnston tell the story through several characters spread across the solar system. Victor Delgado, together with the investigator Imala Bootstamp, keeps trying to get someone to listen on the Moon. Lem Jukes, the ambitious son of the head of the mining corporation Juke Limited, faces the consequences of his own decisions. And Wit O’Toole, commander of the Mobile Operations Police, an elite multinational unit, recruits soldiers like Mazer Rackham for a fight no one has trained for.
How the Trilogy Came About
The First Formic War began life as a comic-book series, Formic Wars: Burning Earth, written by Aaron Johnston, who had already worked with Card on comic adaptations of the Ender books. The prose trilogy expands that story: Earth Unaware (2012), Earth Afire (2013) and Earth Awakens (2014). The authors went on to a second trilogy about the Second Formic War, beginning with The Swarm (2016).
What It Adds to Ender
For fans of Ender’s Game, the main pleasure is seeing the backstory that the original only hints at: why humanity is so afraid of the Formics, how the International Fleet came to exist and who Mazer Rackham really was. It is more of a military thriller than a novel of ideas, and it lacks the moral depth of Ender’s Game or Speaker for the Dead, but it is a well-paced middle volume that leaves you wanting the conclusion.
Reading Order
Read Earth Unaware first: this volume assumes you know its characters, and it ends on a cliffhanger that only Earth Awakens resolves. The trilogy can be read before or after Ender’s Game; reading it afterwards makes the many small references to Ender’s world more rewarding.
For Ender Fans
This space adventure series is set in the world of the bestselling science-fiction classic Ender’s Game. It is fast, full of action and politics, and fills in the history that Ender’s teachers keep referring to. Start with Earth Unaware for the full story.
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