Shadows in Flight is a science fiction novella by American writer Orson Scott Card. When released in 2012, it became the twelfth book published in the Ender's Game series. The story follows on from where the original four "Shadow series" books left off. It is about Bean and his children discovering an ancient Formic "ark" during their journey in space.[1] It was released in January of 2012.[1] It was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for science fiction.[2]
In 2210, the starship Herodotus left Earth. On board were Julian "Bean" Delphiki and his three infant children – Ender, Carlotta, and Cincinnatus – all of whom have Anton's Key turned. This genetic alteration, which Bean passed to his children, grants them all extremely high intelligence, but causes their bodies to grow uncontrollably, which is likely to kill them by the age of 20. Subjectively, they have been flying near light-speed for five years, but relativistic effects mean that 421 years have passed on Earth – the year is now 2631. When the family left, scientists were actively trying to find a cure for their giantism which would not diminish their intelligence. Several generations have passed, they have been forgotten, and their mother and "normal" siblings have died centuries ago. The children have only been alive for six subjective years. Bean's life has been extended by the low gravity on board the Herodotus, which allows his heart to keep beating despite his increasingly gigantic size. At 4.5 meters (15ft) tall, Bean must remain prone in the cargo bay so as not to overexert himself. He controls and watches everything on the ship through his holo-top terminal, often prompting the children to have secret meetings they believe the Giant cannot hear. Bean and Ender continue to study their genetic condition in the hope of finding a cure.
In one of these meetings, the militarily-minded Cincinnatus (nicknamed "Sergeant") tries to enlist the aid of his siblings in killing their father, saying he is a drain on resources. The sensitive Carlotta (whose specialty is engineering) is unwilling to take a stance, but Ender (an expert biologist) punches Sergeant and breaks his nose for proposing such an idea, thus ending his brother's domination over the family. Ender and Carlotta tell Bean about Sergeant's plans, and Bean puts all three children in their place, reminding them they are each as intelligent as the other. Sergeant has been imagining threats to their security where there are none, because he believes the Giant means to pass his soldier role onto him. So he studies the Formic war vids, learning his father's strategy while training himself with weaponry. Ender takes on the bulk of the genetic studies by monitoring the advances made by the scientists on Earth. Carlotta, who feels slightly left behind with the genetic studies serves the family by taking care of every aspect of the spacecraft, since Bean himself is stuck in the cargo hold.
After despairing at the condition of their lives, and in the light of the discovery that their condition cannot be cured, Carlotta notices an unknown spacecraft in geosync orbit around an uncharted planet in the Goldilocks zone. Bean and his children deliberate courses of action. If they alter their course, they must slow down to turn, possibly killing Bean with the increased gravity. However, they cannot anticipate who or what is in the spacecraft; it may attack them, or they may be detrimental to the survival and progression of the human race. This hypothesis is solidified when Sergeant deduces that the ship is a Formic Ark, a colony ship that has been in flight for centuries.
1 2 Note on the following (maybe not yet so common) Trilogies: "Speaker Trilogy": Original set of sequels to Ender's Game, also referred to as: - "Ender Quartet" (Ender's Game combined with "Speaker Trilogy"), also referred to as: - "Ender Quintet"("Ender Quartet" combined with Ender in Exile). "Shadow Trilogy": Original set of sequels to Ender's Shadow, also referred to as: - "Bean Quartet"/"Shadow Quartet" (Ender's Shadow combined with "Shadow Trilogy"), also referred to as: - "Bean Quintet"/"Shadow Quintet" ("Bean Quartet" combined with Shadows in Flight), could be referred to as: - "Bean Sextet"/"Shadow Sextet" ("Bean Quintet" combined with The Last Shadow)
↑ Title is also mentioned in regard to a possible sequel for the film.
Bean sends Sergeant alone to investigate the ship, and he escapes an attack by small Formic-like animals they call "rabs" (rats+crabs). After this initial encounter, Bean reveals his full plan to his children. They must find out who is piloting this ship and attempting to terraform the planet it orbits. It was Bean's intention all along to have his children live on this planet and found their new species in safety as soon as he picked it up on radar as lying within the Goldilocks zone. Armed with Sergeant's weapons and a sedative fog spray Ender devised, Sergeant commands defenses as Carlotta leads their group to the helm with Bean in contact the whole time. The spray proves effective, and they soon find the Hive Queen's chamber, finding her, and many workers, dead. Eventually they find living male Formics in one of the piloting helms.
In an attempt to communicate, Ender surrenders himself by drifting close to them in zero gravity. The male drones come close and communicate with Ender via mental images. The group learns that the Ark was sent long before Ender Wiggin, whom Bean's son is named for, wiped out the buggers. After the Queen on their ship died, the workers died without her link, yet the males lived and tried to survive and keep the ship running, despite losing numbers to the feral rabs. The group strikes a deal that if the children can wipe out the rabs, they can stay with the Formics and help cultivate the planet. When Bean learns from the male drones that Ender Wiggin is carrying a queen's cocoon looking for a home, and that Formic workers do have minds of their own contrary to popular belief, he demands to speak with the Formics in order to warn Ender, despite risking his life in the journey.
Accepting that his children have achieved beyond his wildest expectations, Bean risks his life by docking with the ark's cargo hold to float down into the ecotat. Lying in the grass and basking in the artificial sunlight, Bean communes for three days with the formic males. Though the Formics think it is silly to believe the Queen would hide anything from them, Bean learns that workers could rebel against a Queen and regain their free will. After Bean has slept for a while, his children wake him, informing him that by studying how the Hive Queen suppresses her workers, Ender has devised and administered a virus that will develop an organelle to shut off their growth genome, leaving their intelligence intact but saving them from the giantism half of Anton's Key.
With renewed hope for the future, Bean looks at the beauty around him and remembers all those whom he loved and who loved him in his life. With his children's help, he stands at four and a half meters for the first time in years, and walks with labored breathing in the sunlight. Happy for his children and for his own short but brilliant life, Bean lies down and dies in peace.
Speaker for the Dead is a 1986 science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card, an indirect sequel to the 1985 novel Ender's Game. The book takes place around the year 5270, some 3,000 years after the events in Ender's Game. However because of relativistic space travel at near-light speed Ender himself is only about 35 years old.
Shadow Puppets is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card, published in 2002. It is the sequel to Shadow of the Hegemon and the third book in the Ender's Shadow series. It was originally to be called Shadow of Death.
Children of the Mind (1996) is a novel by American author Orson Scott Card, the fourth in his successful Ender's Game series of science fiction novels that focus on the character Ender Wiggin. This book was originally the second half of Xenocide, before it was split into two novels.
Ender's Shadow (1999) is a parallel science fiction novel by the American author Orson Scott Card, taking place at the same time as the novel Ender's Game and depicting some of the same events from the point of view of Bean, a supporting character in the original novel. It was originally to be titled Urchin, but it was retitled Ender's Shadow prior to release. Ender's Shadow was shortlisted for a Locus Award in 2000.
Xenocide (1991) is a science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card, the third book in the Ender's Game series. It was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards for Best Novel in 1992. The title is a combination of 'xeno-', meaning alien, and '-cide', referring to the act of killing, together meaning the act of killing populations of aliens; comparable to genocide.
Shadow of the Hegemon (2000) is a science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card, the second novel in the Ender's Shadow series. It is also the sixth novel in the Ender's Game series. It is told mostly from the point of view of Bean, a largely peripheral character in the original novel Ender's Game but the central protagonist of the parallel narrative Ender's Shadow.Shadow of the Hegemon was nominated for a Locus Award in 2002.
Shadow of the Giant (2005) is a science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card, the fourth novel in his Ender's Shadow series, also called the Bean Quartet.
Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is a fictional character from Orson Scott Card's 1985 science fiction novel Ender's Game and its sequels, as well as in the first part of the spin-off series, Ender's Shadow. The book series itself is an expansion, with some changes to detail, of Card's 1977 short story "Ender's Game."
The Ender's Game series is a series of science fiction books written by American author Orson Scott Card. The series started with the novelette Ender's Game, which was later expanded into the novel of the same title. It currently consists of sixteen novels, thirteen short stories, 47 comic issues, an audioplay, and a film. The first two novels in the series, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, each won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
Earthfall (1995) is a science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card. It is the fourth book of the Homecoming Saga, a fictionalization of the first few hundred years recorded in the Book of Mormon.
Jane is a fictional character in Orson Scott Card's Ender series. She is an energy based non-artificial sentient creature called an Aiúa that was placed within the ansible network by which spaceships and planets communicate instantly across galactic distances. She has appeared in the novels Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind, and in a short story "Investment Counselor". Her 'face', a computer-generated hologram that she uses to talk to Ender, is described as plain and young, and it is illustrated in First Meetings as having a bun.
Ender's Game is a 2013 American military science-fiction action film based on Orson Scott Card's 1985 novel of the same name. Written and directed by Gavin Hood, the film stars Asa Butterfield as Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, an unusually gifted child who is sent to an advanced military academy in space to prepare for a future alien invasion. The supporting cast includes Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, and Viola Davis, with Abigail Breslin and Ben Kingsley.
Lovelock is a 1994 science fiction novel by American writers Orson Scott Card and Kathryn H. Kidd. The novel's eponymous narrator, a sentient monkey, takes his name from James Lovelock, the scientist-inventor who formulated the Gaia hypothesis, which figures heavily in the book.
Ender in Exile is a science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card, part of the Ender's Game series, published on November 11, 2008. It takes place between the two award-winning novels Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. It could also be considered a parallel novel to the first three sequels in the Shadow Saga, since the entirety of this trilogy takes place in the span of Ender in Exile. The novel concludes a dangling story line of the Shadow Saga, while it makes several references to events that take place during the Shadow Saga. From yet another perspective, the novel expands the last chapter of the original novel Ender's Game. On the one hand, it fills the gap right before the last chapter, and on the other hand, it fills the gap between the last chapter and the original (first) sequel. Ender in Exile begins one year after Ender has won the bugger war, and begins with the short story "Ender's Homecoming" from Card's webzine Intergalactic Medicine Show. Other short stories that were published elsewhere are included as chapters of the novel.
Pathfinder (2010) is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. The novel tells the story of Rigg and his unusual ability to perceive the "paths" of living things throughout time. It is the first book in the completed Pathfinder series, and is followed by Ruins and Visitors.
Earth Afire is a science fiction novel by American writers Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston, and the second book of the Formic Wars novels in the Ender's Game series. It was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for science fiction.
Earth Awakens is a science fiction novel by American writers Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston, and the third book of the First Formic Wars trilogy of novels in the Ender's Game series. It was released on June 10, 2014. It was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for science fiction.
Visitors is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card, who is best known for his novels, Ender's Game (1985) and Speaker for the Dead (1986). This novel continues the story of Rigg and his evolving ability to see and travel to the past, in an attempt to save the future. It is the third and final book of the Pathfinder series, preceded by Ruins and Pathfinder.
The Swarm is a 2016 science fiction novel by American writers Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston, and the first book of the Second Formic Wars trilogy of novels in the Ender's Game series. It was released on August 2, 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
