Home Page: Minus the thousands of quotes I wanted to put everywhere

First Column

"We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams” 

― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

Have you heard of the Buggers? Do you know about their invasion of Earth? Well, it's too late...a little boy named Ender, he almost wiped them out...

The Enderverse is a futuristic universe created by reknown novelist, Orson Scott Card. (The term “Enderverse” is widely used to describe the setting of a chain of book series. The name refers to the boy, Ender, who is the POV character in the capstone book, Ender’s Game.) The Enderverse is, essentially, our universe, and the history Card creates for his futuristic world is rooted in the current and past political climates of Earth.

Those who are fans of the Ender books might spend hours trying to convince you to read the series. They’ll explain how Card’s characters have lingered in their minds long after finishing the words on the page. Ender, Bean, Graff, Victor, Lem Jukes, it doesn’t matter whether the character is hero or villain, dipping into the mind of one of Card’s POV characters is an experience you’ll never forget. They follow you, shape the way you look at the world through your own eyes. 

Their way of viewing their universe is so different from one character to the next, and yet so human, so rich, that it is difficult to describe the Enderverse as a series of locations and events. Instead, it is a massive compilation of human experiences. 

It would be innacurate to even describe the Enderverse as the struggles of mankind in a setting where they discover they are not the only sentient species. The Enderverse is more individual than that, and it is experienced through its individuals. Card’s characters, especially Ender Wiggin, allow a reader to experience what the universe is like for “the other.” Whether your alien is human, formic, pequenino, or an artificial sentience whose only corporeal form is the wireless network between all the civilized worlds, experiencing the Enderverse is to learn a new way of seeing that which is alien.

Below are a number of sources that may serve as a further introduction to the Ender Universe. Most of this site is dedicated to fan-made artifacts and resources, but on this home page you can find more official links to follow. Reading the books is the best way to immerse oneself in the Enderverse, but even avid fans can only re-read them so many times before they find their relatives locking them away with concerns for health. So for those of you who are curious, for those of you who need to read about, talk about, and re-visit your favorite universe to get lost in, keep exploring this site.

(I may put the below resources in the second column, depending on where there is more room.)

A list of the Ender Stories in Chronological Order:

Color Coding:

• [color] Ender Series
• [color] Shadow Series
• [color] Formic Wars (Prequels)
• [color] Short Stories

• Earth Unaware
• Earth Afire
• Earth Awakens
• "The Swarm"
• "The Hive"
• "The Queens"
• Ender's Game
• Ender's Shadow
• A War of Gifts
• Shadow of the Hegemon
• Shadow Puppets
• Shadow of the Giant
• Ender in Exile
• Shadows in Flight
• First Meetings
• Speaker for the Dead
• Xenocide
• Children of the Mind
• Shadows Alive

[All of these will be linked to the wiki pages with summaries]

For more timelines in the Enderverse, check out the Ender Databases page. (with link to one of the pages on my site)

For more summaries of all of Card’s books, look here. 

Listing all of the Enderverse characters, even all of the prominent ones, would take much more room than this page should hold. Here is a “partial” (but actually very extensive) list for you. 

Bio for Orson Scott Card:

With over 50 novels written for enthusiastic readers to explore, Card has established a very devoted fanbase. He is an American writer who grew up in the Western United States. Card doesn’t just stick to one genre when he weaves stories, although he is most well-known for his science fiction. He has written fantasy, historical fiction, LDS & Christian fiction, screenplays, and even dabbled in comic books. His novel, Ender’s Game, was recently released as a motion picture. His audio play, however, published after the movie, comes more highly recommended from the author of this site. You can find it available for listening on Audible. 

[Much more than an audiobook, Ender’s Game Alive is a full cast dramatization of Ender's Game. Fans who were dissatisfied with the movie (which hardly did the book justice) will likely rate this screenplay (entirely written and controlled by Card) far higher than the movie release.]

Card's official site is called Hatrack River. It is a mountain's worth of resources for anyone interested in Card's works, philosophy, and writing tips. In fact, for those of you who may aspire to mirror Card’s success in creating spectacular universes for others to enjoy, you might like this: UncleOrson’s Writing Class.

Second Column

Why “Ender on the Nets”? This site is intended to chronicle parts of the digital footprint of the Enderverse. It is both a “tribute” to the Enderverse and a resource for fans—but it is also an exploration and display of fan culture and digital media. 

Much of the analysis and content on this site will take its angle from the thoughts of Lev Manovich (link to bio), expressed in The Language of New Media (link to summary). Manovich mourns the absence of a record for the emergence of cinema. He feels an exploration of its significance and impact on the culture of its time and our own has been buried,  reduced to fragments that we must now sift through from outside that timeline.

Manovich has decided not to stand so idly by and attempts to make an analysis of an equivalent modern genre, doing so from within its beginnings. His discussion of this genre, computer and digital media, is of particular interest for generations who treat ipods, laptops, and Bluetooth devices with as much reverence as people treat jewelry. We are a meme culture. Masters of the google search and addicts to the Youtube. What do all of these mediums have to say about us as a people? What insights do they give us into our own psyche and the world our children will grow up in?

This site can serve as an introduction to some Manovichian concepts that pose an answer to these questions. As you indulge yourself with the nerd feast I have gathered related to the Enderverse, I anticipate you’ll also find the commentary on computer culture and mediums enlightening.