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Category: Reviews

REVIEW: Ender’s Game Blu-Ray/DVD Combo

Tomorrow, Ender’s Game will be released on Blu-ray and DVD combo pack, giving Launchies the chance to watch Ender’s Game in the comfort of their own homes. Sure, we won’t get to watch Ender dominate on futuristic televisions, but at least we’ll get to watch it whenever we want.

A couple of weeks ago, Lionsgate was nice enough to send me a copy of the Blu-ray to review and so I got to watch the Blu-ray exclusive featurettes Ender’s World: The Making of Ender’s Game and Inside the Mind Game along with six deleted scenes from the movie. Since deleted scenes are what most people are looking for, I’ll get right to it.

Say Goodbye

The original goodbye scene in the movie was ridiculously short, with just a tearful hug from Valentine and some voiceover and watching this extended scene with goodbyes from Mr. and Mrs. Wiggin, Peter, and Valentine made it feel like the final scene sums up how people felt about the movie in general: it was way too cut down.

You can watch each scene with commentary from Gavin Hood and he expresses regret on losing the scene with Peter, something I agree with, but it would have been more important if they’d made Valentine and Peter a constant presence in the film. Valentine gives a rather nerdy goodbye with a quote from Shakespeare, but this fits with what I always saw Valentine as: a really cool nerd.

The part I felt should have stayed in was Anderson objecting to Mrs. Wiggin giving Ender a token to take with him. I feel like that would have contributed to Ender’s isolation and outweighed any “break in pace” that Gavin mentions was the concern here.

A New Recruit

This is one of the few completely deleted scenes in which Ender has just entered the mess hall and sees Bonzo and Fly Molo obsessing over the current battle between Rat and Asp, which will determine whether or not Salamander remains on top. After being yelled at by Bonzo, he’s ordered to go sit in the corner with O’Reilly (who he later replaces) who turns out to be Mick. He takes Ender’s dessert and gives him his roll, basically like in the book, which was a nice touch. Gavin talks about how he was particularly sad to lose this scene and that his original cut was 15 minutes longer. Another little homage to the book, we later see Ender trying to fall asleep by counting doubles, a trick he’d picked up from Valentine.

It’s For His Own Good

This scene is an extended one of a conversation between Graff and Anderson and Gavin mentions that it was cut simply because it would have tipped the audience off on what was really going on. As we know from the final movie, the studio chose to preserve the twist of the book, contrary to what the trailers were implying during promotion.

Leadership

Gavin mentions that this scene follows the mess hall scene, but while technically true, I think this actually comes right after Ender wakes up from his nightmare about Peter. He’s in the bathroom washing his face and Dink comes by to check on him while Graff still wears his pissed off, slightly sweaty from bed look after his fight with Anderson. Like in the book, Dink talks about how he was promoted twice, but he turned it down because power drives people crazy.

We Need Ender

Although this is the extended version of a scene in the movie with Graff and Valentine in the car, I’m not really sure I understand why it was cut. At one point, Valentine looks at Graff in shock and simply says, “I hate you.” His reply was nicely done and I agree with Gavin that it’s a pity it was cut.

They Should Know

This extended scene between Mazer and Graff is actually one that we saw in the trailers and promos and was eventually cut out to help preserve the twist. Be sure to read my editorial on why I thought that a spoiled twist would have made for a powerful movie too.

The saddest part about the deleted scenes was that you see a ton of odes to the novel, including Val’s “I love you forever!” I’m not sure all of them would have worked, but some seem like they would have fit into the film just fine.

Featurettes

Although you can buy the DVD, the Blu-Ray of Ender’s Game is a combo pack, meaning that you get three copies of the movie: Blu-ray, DVD, and Ultra-Violet. The two featurettes are available only on the Blu-ray and if you don’t yet have a BR player, on the assumption that you will probably eventually get one, you might as well just buy the BR combo.

The featurette on the Mind Game was sadly pretty underwhelming and raw. There was no special introduction or commentary, it was basically just splices of raw footage and behind-the-scenes stuff. That being said, you do get to see Gavin act as the Giant, which was pretty cool. It just didn’t impress me production wise.

The 45 minute Ender’s World featurette, however, was very satisfying to watch and is worth the extra cost for the BR. The featurette is split into 8 chapters and features interviews from not just the big stars, but our favorite characters from the book such as Aramis Knight (Bean), Khylin Rhambo (Dink), Brandon Soo Hoo (Fly Molo), and Suraj Partha (Alai).

Hidden in the featurette are some little snippets of deleted scenes that aren’t highlighted in the deleted scenes section such as a brief flash of Bean presenting the deadline to Ender and Bean in tears at the end saying, “He lied!” There’s really cool Space Camp footage, as well as training footage that Launchies will get a real kick out of. The creature design was very detailed, with their creature designer even going so far as to determine how Formics digested things.

Set designer Ben Proctor gives you a look at his iPad app that shows the final set as he videos the set live, something that almost seemed like it couldn’t be real. That’s how cool it was.

I haven’t yet had a chance to watch the movie with commentary from Gavin Hood, Roberto Orci, and Gigi Pritzker, but hope to soon. As I mentioned earlier, if you’re still deciding between DVD and BR combos, keep in mind there’s only a $5 difference between the two sets on Amazon. Having the added benefit of a BR and two exclusive featurettes is definitely worth $5 in my book. I will be launching a Blu-ray giveaway later today, so be sure to stay tuned for that!

February 10, 2014
Another “Ender’s Game” Review – Too Much, Too Quick

(Review by EnderWiggin.net staffer Liz Spencer)

So Crystal has posted her official review, and it’s good stuff. I was the lucky tag-along who got to have the experience of a lifetime and attend this red carpet premiere with our famous webmaster. We made it home in the wee hours of the morning, but were absolutely too wired to sleep. So I present to you now my 3AM ramblings, the unedited review that created itself as I just couldn’t lie down without writing it all out. I’ll be seeing the movie again tonight, as Summit Entertainment has been kind enough to provide us with quite a few tickets to an advanced screening here in Honolulu (if you haven’t asked Crystal for tickets, there’s still time!). So it’s quite possible that my opinions might change, as tends to happen any second time ’round. But here is my initial reaction for your review.

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I’ll start right off by saying that I was not as horribly disappointed by this film as I feared I would be. However, I was also not as pleasantly surprised as I hoped I would be, especially after reading reviews from several fellow fans who kindled in my mind a small fire of hope that all my worries would be for naught.

It was a good film, but it was not a great film, and what makes it so frustrating is that all the elements were in place to create what truly could have been a marvelous adaptation.

It was just too dang fast. All the key plot pieces were there, and they were actually done rather well. But it didn’t matter, because the story took off at a sprint and never realized that it should have been pacing itself for a marathon. Or at least a 5K.

If I had not read the book, and went into this story completely blind, I would be asking several very important questions right now. First, I would not for a minute buy the plot. So we’re training kids to command our entire international fleet, protect our civilization from imminent destruction, and somehow they are both capable and qualified to do this after about six months in space playing laser tag?

Condensing the timeline was a killer. It took away from the authenticity of the story. To those naysayers who have complained over the years that the story was totally impractical anyway (and I bite my thumb at them) it was at least more plausible under the original terms. Taking children – real children, not adolescents – removing them from their homes, and conditioning them under the strictest of environments for half their natural lives, one can appreciate the depth of their training, their study, and their practice.

Of course this was also the biggest plot element that had to be revised. And this is entirely understandable, and why I have always known that any film adaptation of this book will never do it justice. Because unless they make a 20-episode miniseries (which I think would actually work fantastically) there is no way to chart the time and the growth that must occur. But I guess I was just hoping that Gavin Hood would have made it work better.

It’s not good when even I didn’t believe that Ender was capable of what they were asking him to do. From what I saw, he showed up at Battle School, spent two days as a launchie, got transferred to Salamander, was in one battle, got promoted to commander, was in another battle, fought Bonzo, quit, decided to come back the next day, flew to Command School, met his army, and was ready to conquer the home planet in like a week. While there are several “Dear Valentine”letters that are meant to inform us of the true passage of time, we just don’t see enough of his teaching, his training, and his tactical leadership to understand why Graff seems to think he’s that big of a deal.

And here’s where this all really sucks. Because all of these individual plot segments were actually done pretty well. If I was just watching them as clips, I’d think, “Oh, that was cool, I can’t wait to see the rest of it.” But there is no rest of it. There was no pacing, no waiting, no ten seconds to catch your breath and actually establish a scene. I didn’t have time to grow to care about Ender, really care about him. And again, if I hadn’t read the book, I don’t think I would have appreciated his internal struggle. I knew what he was supposed to be thinking because I KNEW what he was supposed to be thinking.

And again, this sucks. Because the performances were great. I actually have no qualms with any of the actors. Asa Butterfield was magnificent. Once I accepted a 15-year old Ender (who could legitimately pass for 13) he did embody the character. If he had been given more time, more TIME to reflect and study, watch those Bugger vids and monologue a little, I would have been able to truly appreciate and believe in his story. Harrison Ford was also good, and had several excellent lines, but also suffered from a sheer lack of time. Ben Kingsley was great (I don’t know what some of those reviewers are whining about), and all the other kids were good, but given so little to do they seemed merely extraneous. They tried to build up Bean, but he never got a chance to do more than act as comedic relief (which he did very well). Moises Arias (who I was terribly, terribly worried would bring down this entire thing himself) actually made a convincing Bonzo. Unfortunately, the theater was laughing every time he was on screen. Because it WAS funny that he was so little and trying to be so tough, and while he did a good job, you never felt that Ender was in any danger at all because all he would have to do is stiff-arm the guy and he’d never get near him.

Time. It needed more time. I’m hoping for an extended edition DVD release, but even that won’t fix some of the intrinsic rushing of these scenes. So in the end, I give it a passing grade. Of course the visuals were awesome (I just realized that I haven’t even mentioned them), but what I wanted was the story. The struggle. The journey. This cast and crew took on a most difficult project and performed admirably, and I freely acknowledge the near-impossibility of making it work just right. I guess I just hoped for a miracle. Thank you, Gavin, for all that you did. Your heart was truly in it– our visions just differ is all.

October 30, 2013
Ender’s Game Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Awesome

Review by EnderWiggin.net founder Crystal Watanabe

Yesterday I had the amazing pleasure of watching the result of years of hard work by Gavin Hood and his amazing cast and crew after covering my very first red carpet premiere. For the last week I’d been half-reading reviews, scrolling through one-line Twitter reviews, and going through a hand-wringing roller coaster of anticipation and apprehension.

I’ve talked a lot with Kelly from Ender News about the mutually shared terror that we might have done all this work only to hate the movie. When I saw The Hunger Games at the world premiere last year, I left the Nokia with the dull buzz of disappointment in my head as everyone around me raved about the movie. I never really truly got over that opinion and so going into Ender’s Game, I had no illusions about the fact that I might actually end up in a moody funk at the after party.

Fortunately, I had nothing to worry about.

The Good

The first thing I have to say that it was a dream come true to watch Ender’s Game sitting next to my Ender BFF Kelly, so Summit Entertainment has my sincerest thanks for inviting us to the screening, giving us carpet access, and inviting us to hang out afterwards as well. When you share your geeky hopes and dreams about a movie for 36 weeks on a podcast, you really start to cling to the idea of experiencing the movie for the first time with that person.

The fansite girls! L-R: Ender’s Game Fandom, Ender’s Ansible, EnderWiggin.net, Ender News

Thankfully, Kelly is a movie-talker too because we were constantly leaning over to say things to each other. At one point, she whispered in my ear, “This is surprisingly good! I’m really enjoying myself!” and I could only say, “I know! Me too!”

I don’t know why we went in with so much apprehension. Perhaps it’s because we’d heard a bad vibe from Germany. Maybe it was the fact that Gavin Hood recognized us on the carpet right away and came at us like Chunk in Goonies, sure that he was in trouble because he thought we’d already seen it. Either way, we were happy and once again found ourselves on the same level of thought.

I think what surprised me the most was how light-hearted and funny the movie was. With the cast focusing their interviews on the serious aspects of the movie, it was easy to walk in assuming it was going to to be strictly saving the world business the entire time. When you get down to it though, the movie still stars kids and with kids being kids, there were quite a few laughs. There’s one particular line of Bean’s that was truly hysterical and made the whole theater crack up laughing.

I know some people hate voiceover, but with the majority of Ender’s Game taking place inside Ender’s head, Gavin Hood needed some kind of method of getting inside his head. To do this he had Asa do voiceover of emails Ender writes to Valentine. These occur throughout the film and I felt it helped to really move the story along. Without it, I think fresh viewers would have been extremely confused.

The Mind Game was beautiful, though parts of it were excised. I’d seen a lot of concept art from it in the official companion and on screen it looked great. And seriously, Gavin Hood’s giant is one of the most epic director cameos ever.

The Bad

I think Orson Scott Card summed up the bad the best when he recently spoke to a newspaper in New Zealand and said that the movie “rockets along at a breakneck pace”. The movie clocks in at under two hours, which, if I’m being honest, shocked me and so I went in expecting to feel like I was watching the movie on fast forward.

The pacing of Ender’s Game, taking off from Desert Salt Flats.

The film definitely suffered from a rushed feeling and I’d really love to see an extended version released because I really did feel like some parts could have benefited from just a couple of more minutes here and there. I had this odd feeling throughout the movie like I was seeing the movie through some weird movie version of parent goggles and that people walking into this movie without reading the book would find that while the acting, visuals, and sets were simply stunning, it was all just going too fast. But then again, perhaps the feeling of urgency is easier to accept without prior book bias.

For diehard book fans, change will probably be the hardest thing to swallow.

Since I had the chance to go to the Ender’s Game set, talk extensively with the people behind the movie, and have interacted with the cast over the last two years, I feel like I’ve been inoculated to the changes that were going to be coming at me in the movie. With that in mind, it’s possible that because of this I was more accepting of changes that may be stark and jarring for fans just hearing about the movie last month and going to the theater to see what’s up with their favorite book from high school.

Knowing as much as I did, there were more changes I did not know about and while I felt they were all necessary for the film Gavin Hood made, I think some fans will find it hard to swallow. One in particular is on the subject I’d brought up last year on the death of Stilson.

In Pondering the Fate of Stilson, I laid out why I didn’t think Stilson needed to die and why I felt like his death was too dangerous a message to send out on the big screen. Response was almost 100% against me. Everyone felt that Stilson had to die, even though I argued in discussions that since Ender didn’t know it happened until years later, it didn’t have any bearing on his development as a character.

People can argue with me until they’re blue in the face; I will never be convinced that reading about a child’s death is equal to watching a child die in a movie. The two are completely different forms of media and what a pre-teen or teen imagines while reading a scene such as Ender and Stilson’s fight will range anywhere from tame to excessively violent depending on the individual and you can’t put a fight to the death on screen and expect that wide spectrum of youth to experience a single visual vision the same way.

In the movie, it is never specifically said that Stilson or Bonzo die; their fates are left ambiguous and most moviegoers that haven’t read the book will assume that they live. This is a choice that I fully agree with. The risks the studio would have taken sending that kind of message out on the subject of bullying was not one they should be expected to take. Bullying is a serious, serious issue with today’s youth and justifying Ender’s actions that led to another child’s death would have been stepping over a line no book fan should expect to be crossed for the sake of a film adaptation. Ender lives in an extreme situation, but you can’t assume everyone will fully understand that, especially when a lot of people will see this movie without having read the book.

In the end, my advice to fans is to go in with an open mind.

One last thing that can fall into the bad category (and yet not) is the relationship between Petra and Ender. The cast, director, and producers talked a good deal about their friendship and how drawn they are together as friends, but the fact of the matter is that there is an underlying connection between the two of them that hints at something more.

From the things Petra says to Ender to the way they smile at each other while training to the mysterious way Petra sits while talking to Ender from her room on Eros, that teen love interest angle is very carefully there.

That being said, it doesn’t come across as a bad thing. These kids are, after all, at that age and to excise even a hint of young love completely would have probably felt a little too rigid and made Ender seem unrelatable to teens his own age. If Ender had been 8 having a crush on a 12 year-old Petra, then I can see there being a valid argument, but as the movie stands, what they did felt appropriate.

The Awesome

Asa Butterfield is an amazing Ender. I did catch one time where his American accent seemed to slip slightly, but other than that, I was very impressed with his performance. His smile makes you happy and sad at the same time, but when Ender is crying you get to see the emotional core of the Ender that book fans know and love. I never really felt like I was watching Asa Butterfield. I felt like I was watching Ender Wiggin.

On a similar note, I’d read criticism that Abigail Breslin is underutilized, but I was surprised at how well she pulled off the character of Valentine with practically nothing being said about how intelligent she really was. From her clothing to the way she walked and talked, she felt like Valentine to me.

Peter did not have much screen time, but Jimmy Jax Pinchak pulled off the character really well. One of my favorite Peter scenes in the book wasn’t present, but I didn’t even notice. Seeing Jimmy at the after party in a suit and tie wearing glasses was like a knock in the face. I was like, wow, the movie’s over and here’s Peter Wiggin the Hegemon! It was surreal in an amusing book nerd kind of way.

The Battle Room was grand and at one point I just wanted to blurt out, “LOOK at that Battle Room!” Graff’s hook was really cool and the way these kids hit the stars made me cringe every time. When we interviewed the kids on the carpet, we usually asked them their favorite scene and a lot of them went straight to the Battle Room. They weren’t wrong as the battles were amazing to watch in such an amazing arena.

The only drawback was that before you know it, the Battle Room scenes are over. However, when you have the director telling you that some 3 second shots cost $100,000 to produce, it puts the lack of more Battle Room into perspective. Gavin told us he did try for more, so we’ll all have to trust that the did what he could.

The impressiveness of the Battle Room aside, what amazed me the most in terms of VFX was Ender’s simulator on Eros. We were lucky enough to be able to stand on that platform that Ender stands at and it was in this gigantic green screen room. I remember standing there looking up and just being in awe over what they were going for and I wasn’t disappointed. Being a former hardcore MMO gamer, I loved the look of happy awe on Ender’s face as he saw what they’d set up for him.

In terms of writing, I loved the way Gavin wrote the final reveal to Ender. The scene that follows his last victory is sad, tragic, and emotional in all the ways you expect it to be with Asa Butterfield’s Ender. I also loved how he tied the Battle Room into the finale because it was an issue I’d always had trouble understanding with the book.

I got to talk to Gavin about it at the after party and he said the same thing: how do you explain the correlation of such rigorous physical training from the Battle Room to pure simulation, basically kids sitting on their butts playing “games” all day, in Command School? I thought how he explained that on film was a great choice in storytelling.

Overall, I thought the film was an amazing accomplishment and one kick ass ride. The cast turned out great performances and I’m proud and happy for all of the kids who stood around Ender making him who he is. Throughout the entire movie I kept thinking to myself: I have to see this again. I have to see this again. And I will.

Some fans will enjoy it, others may walk away disappointed. But what’s particularly exhilarating for me is that it’s finally here. My mother gave me this book twenty three years ago and as soon as I finished it, I could only wait for a movie to be made.

I waited a long time.

October 29, 2013
Review: Earth Afire: The First Formic War

Earth Afire, the sequel to last year’s Earth Unaware, is co-authored by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston and arrived in the mail from Tor last week. Even though I’m still on Shadow of the Hegemon, I cracked it open and started it right away, finishing just a few days later.

The book picks up right where Earth Unaware left off, with Victor Delgado trying in vain to spread the word of the alien ship rocketing towards Earth. We’re introduced to two new storylines with young little Bingwen in China and finally a storyline focusing on Mazer Rackham. All three of the original storylines (Lem, Wit, and the El Cavador) are present, though El Cavador has split into Victor and the El Cavador survivors. This fragments the novel into six storylines.

Bingwen is seven years-old and a very bright student, living in a very rural rice growing village in Guongdong Province with his parents and Ye Ye Danwen (his grandfather). His only access to computers is limited to the village library and Bingwen, along with his best friend Hopper and cousin Meilin, are all anxiously awaiting the time when they can take tests to go to school and leave their village for a better life. This all changes once the alien ship arrives.

Mazer Rackham, who was previously MIA for most of the previous book, re-emerges with his New Zealand SAS team as they head to China to help train their soldiers to use a new type of aircraft called a HERC.

Having just been given this long assignment overseas, Mazer must make a choice on whether to attempt to start a life with Kim, an American doctor working in New Zealand on a device called the MedAssist, or to break ties with her now to allow her to live a happier life. This felt like rather depressing foreshadowing for choices Mazer would have to make later when he leaves on a ship in order to return to train Ender.

The story with Lem Jukes continues as Lem races home towards Luna to try to help Earth destroy the alien ship. He struggles internally with his relationship with his father and while it’s clear Lem is sharp-witted, it’s still unclear to me whether Lem is simply blinded by his rocky relationship with his father or if everything he perceives is truly how things stand. Because his desire for control of Juke Limited seems like such an important endeavor, it’s also a bit muddled as to how sincere his motivations are when it comes to the Formics. Perhaps this is simply how he must be as he deals with two major events in the present all while looking to the future.

The El Cavador storyline continues through Rena Delgado, who has recently lost her husband on the explosion of the El Cavador and has said goodbye to her only son Victor as she sent him off on a long and dangerous mission to Earth. She struggles to keep the women of the ship together in the aftermath of the failed attack on the Formic ship.

With six storylines, the book does struggle a bit with pacing, ending with interesting cliffhanger chapters that don’t pick back up for many pages. The six do converge into three again after the Formics land in China and begin razing surrounding civilization to the ground.

That being said, Bingwen was a delightful addition to the storyline, and one gets the sense that this young child will be one of or possibly the sole reason why Battle School is eventually formed.

I am still very confused by Card and Johnston’s choice of focus on Wit O’Toole instead of Mazer’s team in the first novel Earth Unaware. I thought it would be made more apparent why they chose to do this but Wit’s MOP storyline doesn’t appear until around halfway through the book and even then it didn’t seem to merit the attention they were given. You just get dropped straight into Mazer’s storyline without notice, leaving you unfamiliar with and therefore not really caring much about his intimate NZSAS team. In my opinion, these characters would have benefited a lot more from background storytelling while the MOPs journey into China could have appeared without the pages dedicated to them in book 1.

VAGUE SPOILERS AHEAD

Overall, Earth Afire was just as good as Earth Unaware, with added action when the Formics land in China and the fight for our planet begins. My main fault with the book lies in the cliffhanger ending, something that as a reader drives me completely up the wall.

It should be noted that I feel there is a very big difference between an open ending and a cliffhanger ending. With Ender’s Game, we’re given a grand finale and then a sense of closure, yet another door is opened. Harry Potter was very clearly a series of books, but Jo Rowling carefully compartmentalized her novels making sure the reader knew more was to come.

Earth Afire simply cuts you off just as what you perceive to be the climax is about to begin. It would be like Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince ending just as Harry and Dumbledore set off across the lake full of Inferi. It’s like The Empire Strikes Back fading to black as Luke walks into the dark room to face Vader.

As a reader, I find this very jarring and frustrating. For that reason I’m almost inclined to recommend that people who haven’t yet picked up this trilogy wait until Earth Awakens is released next year. The books have not disappointed in character and content, but the point at which this book ends leaves a whole lot to be desired.

Earth Afire will be released on June 4, 2013. Watch the book trailer here.

This book was sent to me by Tor Books. I was not paid to write this review. The opinions expressed above are my own.

May 28, 2013
Review: Earth Unaware: The First Formic War

Orson Scott Card’s latest Ender novel Earth Unaware: The First Formic War, co-authored by Aaron Johnston, was released last week on July 17 and my review copy came in the mail just a couple of days later.

A hardcover book of 364 pages (excluding the Afterword), Earth Unaware is an official Ender’s Game prequel that brings us the story of humanity’s very first encounter with the Formics. Earth Unaware has interesting and well fleshed out characters, a steady pace, and great foreshadowing for Ender’s Game. The book is split into three separate storylines and two of them eventually intertwine to provide you with a thrilling and terrifying ride through the Kuniper Belt.

First there’s the El Cavador storyline, told mostly from the perspective of Victor Delgado, a brilliant 17 year-old free miner mechanic on his Venezuelan family’s mining ship, the El Cavador. You start off meeting Victor at a time of painful loss, as his closest cousin and best friend Alejandra, nicknamed Janda, is “zogged” or married off to another clan early to an Italian clan the Delgados have been trading with for the past week because they sense that the two cousins are falling in love. (this chapter can be read as a sample on Tor.com) For her sake, Victor chooses not to say goodbye and instead immerses himself into his work.

That’s soon interrupted when Janda’s younger sister Edimar, an apprentice in the ship’s crow’s nest called The Eye, spots something in the distance that by her calculations is decelerating. The conclusion they both come to is that it’s an alien starship headed for Earth. They notify the ship’s captain immediately and with only the departed Italian ships and one corporate mining ship within communication distance, they send off messages in the hopes that they reach them.

The second storyline follows that of the Makarhu, a corporate space mining ship led by Lem Jukes, son of Ukko Jukes, who is the wealthiest man in the galaxy and president of Earth’s largest corporate mining company Juke Limited. Lem is on a mission for Juke Limited’s R&D division to test the outrageously expensive prototype “glaser” or gravity laser to hopefully provide them with a revolutionary way to mine minerals out of asteroids. The Makarhu is the corporate ship nearest to the El Cavador.

Impatient and eager to return home with good news, Lem is plagued by delays and an overcautious lead scientist and after their first test on a “pebble” or small asteroid, he makes the call to head to a much larger asteroid nearby. The problem is that it’s being mined by the Delgado clan. Not to be discouraged, Lem suggests the unethical practice of “bumping” the El Cavador from the rock and taking it for themselves. This begins a terrible conflict between the two ships, with what’s presumably a Formic ship quickly approaching.

Back on Earth, we follow Captain Wit O’Toole, head of the elite peacekeeping force known as the Mobile Operations Police or MOPs for short. Recruiting from the most elite military forces on the planet, Wit’s visit to the New Zealand SAS base is where we get our first glimpse of young Mazer Rackham. The downside is that while Wit’s story is interesting and entertaining, he parts ways with Mazer early on in the book and his story fails to tie into the meat of the story in a relevant manner and in the end Wit only serves as backstory for what’s obviously another book to come.

Victor makes for a fascinating young adult character with admirable qualities and a deeply rooted loyalty to his family and a “home” he’s never even seen in Earth, since he is space-born. Lem could have been a typical rich kid character, but thankfully, he’s a reluctant non-hero with ethics and the yoke of his father muzzling his full potential. This makes him a much more complicated and therefore interesting man.

You see shades of Ender’s Game throughout, but most notably with the glaser, which is obviously the prototype for what eventually becomes the Little Doctor. Wit O’Toole’s elite force leads one to believe that he’ll eventually help form the International Fleet, since his MOPs are a global force that do not answer to individual governments and strive to keep harm from coming to civilians. The climax of the novel brings you thrills similar to the Battle Room and you can’t help but think that this influenced how they trained the students in the school.

I’d been struggling through Children of the Mind when Earth Unaware landed on my desk and I finished the book in a quick three days, being a bit slow to start since I’d already read most of the first chapter online. Once I got a bit deeper in, however, the story and characters pulled me in until I couldn’t put it down. It’s a very strong novel for what I presume will be a set of prequel books. My only wish was that Captain Wit had tied in better with the main storyline.

If you’ve been waiting to buy the book until you read reviews, consider this review one that urges you to pick up the book immediately. While decidedly different from Ender’s Game, Earth Unaware is a quality novel and overall a highly entertaining read.

Earth Unaware was provided to me by Tor Books. I was not paid to write this review. All opinions expressed above are my own.

July 24, 2012