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Earth Afire (The First Formic War #2)

Orson Scott Card

Hardcover | Pages: 399 pages

Rating: 4.05 | 12555 Users | 828 Reviews

Details Of Books Earth Afire (The First Formic War #2)

Title	:	Earth Afire (The First Formic War #2)
Author	:	Orson Scott Card
Book Format	:	Hardcover
Book Edition	:	1st edition
Pages	:	Pages: 399 pages
Published	:	June 4th 2013 by Tor Books, New York
Categories	:	Science Fiction. Fiction

Interpretation During Books Earth Afire (The First Formic War #2)

Earth Afire
By Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston

A Review by Eric Allen


In my review of Earth Unaware, the first book in this prequel series, I stated that I have waited more than twenty years to get the story of the First Bugger Invasion from Ender’s Game. It was a part of the backstory that highly intrigued me. I was rather disappointed that the first book, with the subtitle “The First Formic War” was not that book. It was a great book, and highly entertaining in its own way, but it was not the book it promised to be. HOWEVER, Earth Afire is. It is the book I have waited the majority of my life to read, and it was everything I could ever have hoped it would be.

Leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, the Formic ship plows through the Solar System toward Earth, disrupting communications so that little word can be sent ahead of it to warn the people of Earth of the danger. With little effort, the Formics shrug off every attack thrown against them upon reaching Earth and send down landers to southern China, where they begin killing everything in sight and stripping the land bare.

Disobeying orders, Mazer Rackham, future hero of the Second Invasion races to one of the landing sites to help with the evacuation and finds himself alone, behind enemy lines, unarmed, against an entire army of aliens, whilst special forces try to sneak into China against the wishes of the Chinese government to help.

Meanwhile Victor has a plan to take out the Formic Mothership in orbit, and must ally himself with the man who murdered his uncle in order to accomplish it.

The Good? The characters are all very likeable, and well written. Card understands how people think, act and interact with one another. He’s always been very good at creating relatable, realistic characters with real moral dilemmas that pull you in and are every bit as exciting as his action scenes.

There are a lot of nods to books that happen later in the Enderverse timeline that fans of the series will likely find highly enjoyable. Normally such things are rather distracting, but Card was able to incorporate subtle winks at his readers throughout the book without it being oppressive or distracting.

Card has really captured the horror of invasion by an utterly alien species that has no understanding of humanity, or care for it. The way the Buggers, a.k.a. Formics, act is consistent with their behavior in later books, and believably alien. Their motivations make sense once the characters sit down and think about them, but on the surface they’re completely nonsensical and utterly alien. This is something that Science Fiction writers rarely get right. Aliens are usually either beasts, or so close to human in behavior that they might as well be human. Card realizes that an alien race is going to be alien and does a very good job of conveying it.

The Bad? In Ender’s Game, the First Invasion is portrayed as a primarily space based conflict, with a few mentions of landers in China. In this book, it’s pretty much the other way around. It’s just a nitpick, but it doesn’t fit with pre-established continuity. Nor does Mazer Rackham’s role in this book. He was the hero of the Second Invasion, an unspecified number of years after the First Invasion, but the implication in Ender’s Game is that it was several decades later, especially with the advancements in technology as described in Ender’s Game when talking about the Second Invasion, which was definitively a space conflict. There’s just a lot of continuity issues with the original source material. It’s nothing that anyone but the most avid of fans will really notice or care about, and it probably won’t take away from anyone’s enjoyment. But, while I was reading it, I was constantly thinking about how a lot of things didn’t fit with pre-established continuity.

The Chinese are not portrayed very well. I believe that Card was going for showing how proud a people they are. However, it does come off as subtly racist. I'll leave you to decide for yourself whether he's calling China as he sees it, or whether he's being quietly racist. It's a pretty fine line to walk.

In conclusion, this book was pretty enjoyable. It does have some continuity issues with later books in the Ender Saga, but they don’t really detract too much from enjoyment. The characters are well written and interesting, and the aliens are sufficiently alien. The horrors of war are very well described, and things come to a very good climax, followed by an excellent lead-in to the next book.

Check out my other reviews.



***Edit*** Removed rant about Card from the review. I felt that it was too political, and have actually received several death threats over it. At the time that I wrote this review I was working for a local newspaper as an editor and columnist. I wrote the review to be published in that paper, and word came down from above that I was to include a condemnation of Card's views in the review, as the paper had taken the opposite stance as Card on the issue, and I shared their views on the matter. Looking back, I feel that it was somewhat inappropriate to repost here on Goodreads, and have removed all traces of it from the review. I apologize to anyone who may have been offended by what I had to say, but at the time that I said it, I felt that it was something that needed to be said. The wonderful thing about mistakes, though, is that, even though you can't always remove them with a few clicks, you can always strive never to make the same mistake again in the future. I have also wiped the comments section, as there was some rather heated, and not very civil discussion on the matter.

Describe Books Conducive To Earth Afire (The First Formic War #2)

Original Title:	Earth Afire
ISBN:	0765329050 (ISBN13: 9780765329059)
Edition Language:	English
Series:	The First Formic War #2, The Enderverse #2, Enderverse: Publication Order #15 , more
Literary Awards:	Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Science Fiction (2013)

Rating Of Books Earth Afire (The First Formic War #2)

Ratings: 4.05 From 12555 Users | 828 Reviews

Appraise Of Books Earth Afire (The First Formic War #2)

This is the middle book in the First Formic War trilogy, the prequel to Ender's Game. I read the first book, Earth Unaware, when it was first published, almost four years ago. It was good - lots of excitement - but it left us hanging for the second book. Now that I've finished the second book, I see that this is really a very long novel divided into three parts. If you read it, I recommend that you read all three in fairly close succession. I've immediately started the third book. It continues

Do yourself a favor - if you're interested in this series, get all the books at the same time and read straight through them. I haven't, and I think it suffers for it. Book two picks up almost immediately after Book one, and doesn't spend much time reintroducing the characters, so if you haven't recently read Earth Unaware, you're likely to be lost. And it includes several Card trademarks - the overly brilliant child that talks like an adult, long-winded conversations that methodically build out

Earth AfireBy Orson Scott Card and Aaron JohnstonA Review by Eric AllenIn my review of Earth Unaware, the first book in this prequel series, I stated that I have waited more than twenty years to get the story of the First Bugger Invasion from Enders Game. It was a part of the backstory that highly intrigued me. I was rather disappointed that the first book, with the subtitle The First Formic War was not that book. It was a great book, and highly entertaining in its own way, but it was not the

This is the second book in the novelization series of the prequel "Formic Wars" era to the Ender Quartet. Pacing is good and characterization's *not bad*. But the reason I can only give it three stars is perhaps personal preference: Unlike the Ender books, which offered a sense of closure at the end of each of the books of that series, the first two books of the Formic Wars series is not really serial in nature but rather episodic, with cliffhangers setting up each installment of the subsequent

Not until after I finished did I realize I read book 2 of a 3 part mini series. Doh! Being an Ender's Game slut, I will of course read the other two now. This was a good book, but not to the quality of the original Ender books nor the Shadow series. SPOILER'S BELOW.The book's main failure was the unrealistic nature of most of the characters. It just wasn't believable to me that they would all be so petty in light of the Earth being attacked by aliens.I thought the book was worth reading for two

This book is excellent all the way through. I've been waiting for this release after reading the Ender's books, the Shadow series books, and the book before this one "Earth Unaware". It's really interesting to experience the events leading up to Ender's Game and to delve further into the backstories of characters like Mazer Rackim. I also really loved the way the author always paints a picture of the world politics surrounding an event such as an alien invasion. OSC always weaves an amazing

Excellent book. Just as good as Earth Unaware, and it picks up right where the first Formic War book ended. I look forward to reading the third in this series.