by Orson Scott Card and various other authors
Release Date: August 2008 (First Edition)
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Description: This collection from Card’s IGMS contains 4 Ender short stories, including: Mazer in Prison, Cheater, Pretty Boy and A Young Man with Prospects.
“Bestselling writer Orson Scott Card founded the online magazine Intergalactic Medicine Show in 2006. It has been a big success, drawing submissions from well-known sf and fantasy writers, as well as fostering some amazing new talents. This collection contains some of the best of those stories from the past year.
There is fiction from David Farber, Tim Pratt, and David Lubar among others, also four new Ender’s Game universe stories by Card himself. This collection is sure to appeal to Card’s fans, and be a great ambassador to them for these other talented writers.”
Book Length: 432 pages (Tor first edition)
Reviews: “The first collection of short stories from online magazine Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show (www.oscims.com), launched in 2005, features noteworthy SF and fantasy stories from a bumper crop of talented new authors. Four new Enderverse stories from Card will initially draw genre fans, but the stories from lesser-known writers are the compilation’s real driving force. James Maxey’s provocative To Know All Things That Are in the Earth takes a decidedly skeptical look at the Rapture; David Farland’s The Mooncalfe puts an interesting—and unique—spin on oft-trod Arthurian legend; and
Tom Barlow’s brilliantly sardonic Call Me Mr. Positive explores isolation on a deep space mission gone tragically awry. If the quality of these stories is any indication, IGMS has as much promise as the newcomers it showcases.” -Publisher’s Weekly
“This collection of 17 stories from Card’s e-zine takes its title from his belief that writers getting readers to suspend disbelief is like old-fashioned medicine-show hawkers convincing customers that their patented elixirs will work. On the whole, he and Schubert have selected well, even if 5 of the 17 are Ender universe stories by Card himself. The best of those is Pretty Boy, about one of Ender’s opponents and of a particularly horrifying form of child abuse. Highlights among the remaining dozen entries are Aaron Johnson’s comics adaptation of Card’s Fat Farm; Brad Beaulieu’s In the Eyes of the Empress’s Cat, which will not necessarily make cat lovers purr; The Mooncalfe, in which rising fantasist
David Farland takes a dark look at the Matter of Britain; and David Lubar’s Hats Off, in which dealing with a bully with magic backfires amazingly quickly. Adding value are the authors’ afterwords, which disclose the remarkable diversity of ways writers reach the Web or the page and how Card influences new writers.” -Booklist