Children of the Mind

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Children of the Mind
Children mind cover.jpg
Author Orson Scott Card
Cover artist John Harris
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Series Ender's Game series
Genre Science fiction
Publisher Tor Books
Publication date
August 1996
Media typePrint (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages349
ISBN 0-312-85395-5
OCLC 33971186
813/.54 20
LC Class PS3553.A655 C48 1996
Preceded by Xenocide  
Followed by A War of Gifts  

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. [1] [2]

Contents

Plot summary

At the start of Children of the Mind, Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, is using her newly discovered abilities to take the races of buggers, humans and pequeninos outside the universe and back instantaneously. She uses these powers to move them to distant habitable planets for colonization. She is losing her memory and concentration as the vast computer network connected to the ansible is being shut down. If she is to survive, she must find a way to transfer her aiúa (or soul) to a human body.

Peter Wiggin and Si Wang-Mu travel to the worlds of Divine Wind and Pacifica to persuade the Japanese-led swing group of the Starways Congress to revoke their order to destroy Lusitania. By tracing the decision-making trail backwards, they are able to show a philosopher his influence on the Starways Congress. After several complications, the philosopher persuades the Tsutsumi clan to exert their influence with the Necessarian faction in the Starways Congress to stop the Lusitania fleet. The admiral at the head of the Lusitania fleet, however, disobeys the Congress's order and does what he believes Ender Wiggin, the perpetrator of the first Xenocide, would have done and fires a missile containing the Molecular Disruption Device (MDD).

Upon Ender Wiggin's death, Jane guides his aiúa to Peter's body, while she is granted possession of Young Val's body, and thus is not destroyed when the ansible shuts down. She is then able to continue transporting starships instantaneously by borrowing the vast mental capacity of the simple-minded Pequenino mother-trees. She transports a ship with Peter and Wang-Mu around the missile, then transports the missile and them to inside of the Lusitania fleet, where it is then disarmed and disabled. Peter and Wang-Mu's efforts finally come to fruition, and the destruction of Lusitania is averted.

Jane falls in love with Miro, and Peter with Wang-mu. Both couples are married under one of the mother-trees of the pequeninos on the same day as Ender's funeral.

See also

Related Research Articles

An ansible is a category of fictional devices or technology capable of near-instantaneous or faster-than-light communication. It can send and receive messages to and from a corresponding device over any distance or obstacle whatsoever with no delay, even between star systems. As a name for such a device, the word "ansible" first appeared in a 1966 novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. Since that time, the term has been broadly used in the works of numerous science fiction authors, across a variety of settings and continuities. A related term is ultrawave.

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<i>Xenocide</i> 1991 novel by Orson Scott Card

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.

<i>Shadow of the Hegemon</i> 2000 novel by Orson Scott Card

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<i>Shadow of the Giant</i> 2005 novel by Orson Scott Card

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Jane is a fictional character in Orson Scott Card's Ender series. She is an energy based 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.

<i>Enders Game</i> (film) 2013 American military science-fiction action film by Gavin Hood

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.

<i>Ender in Exile</i> 2008 novel by Orson Scott Card

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orson Scott Card</span> American science fiction novelist (born 1951)

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Ender's Game is a series of comic book adaptations of a series of science fiction novels of the same name written by Orson Scott Card and published by Marvel Comics that began in October 2008. However, some have new content not included in the novels. The series, like the novels they are based on, are set in a future where mankind is facing annihilation by an aggressive alien society, an insect-like race known colloquially as "Buggers" but more formally as "Formics". The central character, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, is one of the child soldiers trained at Battle School to be the future leaders of the protection of Earth. The year is never specified, although the ages of the Wiggin children are bound to change throughout space, taking in the relativity of space and time.

"Gloriously Bright" is a science fiction short story by American writer Orson Scott Card, set in his Ender's Game universe. It tells the story of Han Qing-jao and Si Wang-mu as they interact with Jane, the gods of Path, the Starways Congress, and the knowledge of OCD. It appears in the January 1991 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.

References