It looks like the classic Ender’s Game cover art as been slightly altered to include the words “A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE EVENT IN 2013”. This is a very small change from the normal cover, but it’s exciting to see the movie creeping into the bookstores! There will no doubt be new Ender’s Game cover art in the near future, as is the case in many book to film cases.
What would you want on a Ender’s Game movie edition cover? Asa Butterfield in a flashsuit? The entire jeesh? Tell us in the comments!
Learn how to fold this little yellow ship from the Ender’s Game book cover below (after the jump)!
First a few tips:
1. This is an intermediate level origami, if you’re a beginner and want some help tell us in the comments!
2. Make sure you crease every fold as neatly as possible with a coin, popsicle stick or something similar.
3. It’s ok to use one-sided color paper!
4. If you complete the design show us on Facebook!
5. When you’re done you can use it as a Christmas ornament, zipper pull or make a handful and put together a baby mobile. The possibilities are endless!
According to The Wrap, the Ender’s Game movie will premeie at IMAX theaters. The news came via an a conference call with analysts.
Lionsgate’s CEO, Jon feltheimer also spoke about the possibilites of making Ender’s Game into a franchise. “There’s a lot of books […] We’re excited about the franchise,” Feltheimer said. He also noted, “It’s a very different kind of franchise than ‘The Hunger Games.'”
Will you been seeing Ender’s Game in the IMAX? Tell us in the comments!
It looks like Peter-actor, Jimmy Pinchak (@JimmyJaxPinchak) has been keeping very busy since he finished wrapping Ender’s Game movie. In addition to acting, Jimmy is a talented musician. He plays a number of instruments, although guitar is his favorite.
He just released a preview of his latest song via his Facebook Fan Page, called “Tell Me.” In addition to guitar and vocals he also co-wrote the songs. Take a listen below.
Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll write a song for the Ender’s Game movie.
IMDb lists two new international release dates for the Ender’s Game movie. We should note that IMDb can be edited by anyone with a membership, but we’ve checked with Summit Entertainment and these dates are accurate:
UK Friday October 25, 2013
Germany Thursday October 31, 2013
The UK release date is a full week earlier than the US release of Friday November 1, 2013. Is anyone from UK or Germany excited about getting to see the Ender’s Game movie before the US… and is anyone from the US taking a trip to either of these two locations to see the Ender’s Game movie a week early? Tell us in the comments!
Earth Unaware is atop the New York Time Bestseller list in hardcover fiction at #14. Congratulations Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston! We can’t wait to see where it ends up on the bestseller list next week.
Read out review of Earth Unaware here.
Buy Earth Unaware here.
“The judges cut Ender’s Game for the same reason — Ender himself is young, but the book’s violence isn’t appropriate for young readers.” The same reason cited was in reference to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and reads “Though the language was relatively simple, the themes were entirely adult.”
Although I have personally never considered Ender’s Game a YA (young adult) novel, having read many of the books on the list, it’s interesting that The Hunger Games (series), The Lord of The Rings and Twilight (series) make the list after this exclusion. Make of this what you will.
This news got me thinking, what is a YA novel and does Ender’s Game qualify as one? So I suppose we need to define what a YA novel is. I tried to find a definition from NPR and this is as close as I got:
“By general agreement, the YA years are 12 to 18. Our panel drew a very clear line between YA books and those they considered “mid-grade;” targeted to readers aged 10 to 12 […] There is, after all, no objective test for teen fiction…The judges looked at qualities such as a book’s themes, the age of its main characters, its reading level. But in the end, the most important test was often whether a given book is one that teens themselves have claimed — whether they do, in fact, voluntarily read it.”
So with no objective test they employed judges to cast the specter of their (less than objective) opinion on the matter. I kept looking and you wouldn’t believe it but I think I found an objective definition of what YA fiction is. I know it isn’t really the kind of place anyone looks for such definitions but it’s good old Wikipedia to the rescue, read the full entry here but I’ll just quote the first line. “Young-adult fiction or young adult literature (often abbreviated as YA), also juvenile fiction, is fiction written, published, or marketed to adolescents and young adults.” I’m not sure how hard NPR looked, but I’d suggest next time they try Wikipedia.
So using the above definition of YA fiction, does Ender’s Game qualify? The criteria are – written for, published, or marketed to young adults. Ender’s Game was not written for young adults, in the Introduction to Ender’s Shadow, Orson Scott Card writes ” For many years, I have gratefully watched as Ender’s Game has grown in popularity, especially among school-age readers. Though it was never intended as a young-adult novel, it has been embraced by many in that age group…” As Mr. Card says it wasn’t written as a YA novel so we can say no on the first criteria. We can take the second and third criteria and look at them together. At the top of this post is the current cover on copies of Ender’s Game for sale in the UK, and it looks a lot like a YA cover to me. Also it is tagged as YA on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com, so that is a yes on the last criteria.
The point being, Ender’s Game wasn’t written as YA fiction, but it can be categorized as such, and I think that considering the books that make the grade, it is plain wrong for NPR to claim Ender’s Game is too violent to be placed in the poll. Have you read The Hunger Games? What do you think?
The past few weeks Ender fans have been hard at work nominating Ender’s Game for NPR’s annual summer reading list. Last year Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card topped third on NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy booklist, this year Ender’s Game won’t even make it on the list as NPR has decided to cut Ender’s Game from the polls. They write,
” The judges cut Ender’s Game for the same reason — Ender himself is young, but the book’s violence isn’t appropriate for young readers.”
Apparently NPR doesn’t believe Ender’s Game is appropriate for readers aged 10-12. Do you agree with their decision? Should 10 to 12-year-olds be reading Ender’s Game? The producers of the Ender’s Game movie will have to make a similar decision in the near future when they decided on a maturity rating for the film.
If you would still like to vote in NPR’s poll, click here.
Observant Ender’s Game fans who saw The Dark Knight Rises this weekend may have noticed Bean actor, Aramis Knight in the film. IMDb credits him as “Kid with Apple.” Now, we were expecting a few background shots, but he actually has a line or two. He portrays a kid with a stolen apple, running from a pursuer. He is rescued by Selina / Catwoman (Anne Hathaway). Check out the stills below! Did anyone else catch him in the movie? Looks like great practice for the streets of Rotterdam.
It would unfair to Ender’s Game fans if I were write this review for Earth Unaware without comparing it to Ender’s Game, but it would unfair to Aaron Johnston and Orson Scott Card if I only reviewed Earth Unaware in comparison to Ender’s Game. Keep that in mind.
Unlike most of the Shadow series and the short stories, Earth Unaware doesn’t follow any of the major characters depicted in Ender’s Game. If you’re looking for the story of Mazer Rackham: The World’s Hero you have the wrong book. Mazer Rackham only makes a small appearance and it’s not anything particularly interesting at that; it’s just enough to keep this prequel connected to Ender’s Game. Hold tight though, Orson Scott Card promises that Mazer Rackham will become a much more prominent character in the second installment of the Formic Wars Trilogy (On a side note, Aaron Johnston told us in a recent interview that the next book has already been submitted to the publisher).
If you’ve read the Formic Wars: Burning Earth comics, you’re in good shape. Earth Unaware’s storyline only covers the first three and a half issues, leaving plenty of pages to be filled with rich background and story. If you haven’t read the comics you won’t be missing anything from the storyline, but consider the rest of Formic Wars: Burning Earth and Formic Wars: Silent Strike to be early spoilers for the rest of the trilogy as well as a striking visual aid on the difference between free and corporate miners.
On the surface, Earth Unaware is a story that’s been told and retold in the publishing world of science fiction. An alien invasion takes places and the human race responds. What differentiates Earth Unaware from earlier storylines are the characters presented in the novel. Different chapters are told from the perspective of various characters which keeps readers turning pages and eagerly waiting to learn who survives (and doesn’t survive). If there’s one thing you need to know about Earth Unaware, it’s what Aaron Johnston writes in the novel’s afterword “We knew from the get-go that we weren’t writing Ender’s Game. This wouldn’t be the story of a single hero; it would be the story of many.” Each character is motivated by familiar and personal relationships in a way that allows readers to experience the emotions and rationale of each character. No character is as brilliant, witty or compassionate as Ender, which is refreshing considering Bean’s development in the Shadow series. Most, if not all the characters, have minor successes which will keep readers cheering for the fight for the survival of the human race.
Earth Unaware is an enjoyable read for any fan of science fiction. If Ender’s Game made you want to play laser tag, Earth Unaware is going to send you into the paintball field to play Capture the Flag. The story is strong enough and distant enough from the original story to stand apart from the Enderverse. Certain passages will remind Ender’s Game fans why this is a prequel for Ender’s Game, but consider that a bonus for observant readers. I recommend Earth Unaware to all and I look forward to reading the second and third installment of the Formic Wars Trilogy. I really did love it.
[If I had one complaint, it would be that I’m not sure whether Aaron and Card are familiar with the colloquial use and meaning of the word “zogging.” If they are familiar with the meaning, I’m really not sure what to say.]
Film Cover Editions to Come
