Orson Scott Card has 57 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 53 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 4,941 ratings. The most-rated is Ender's Game.
Ender's Game
Summary
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut - young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training. Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is the winner of the 1985 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
©1977, 1985, 1991 Orson Scott Card (P)2002 Fantastic Audio, an imprint of Audio Literature
Speaker for the Dead
Summary
In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: the Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War. Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered by Portuguese colonists on the planet Lusitania. But again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth. Orson Scott Card infuses this tale with intellect by casting his characters in social, religious, and cultural contexts. This, the author's definitive edition of the sequel to Ender's Game, also includes an original postscript written and recorded by the author himself, Orson Scott Card!.
©1986, 1990 Orson Scott Card (P)2002 Fantastic Audio, an Imprint of Audio Literature
Ender's Shadow
Summary
The human race is at war with the "Buggers", an insect-like alien race. As Earth prepares to defend itself from total destruction at the hands of an inscrutable enemy, all focus is on the development of military geniuses who can fight such a war, and win. The long distances of interstellar space have given hope to the defenders of Earth, they have time to train these future commanders up from childhood, forging them into an irresistible force in the high orbital facility called the Battle School. Andrew "Ender" Wiggin was not the only child in the Battle School; he was just the best of the best. In this book, Card tells the story of another of those precocious generals, the one they called Bean, the one who became Ender's right hand, part of his team, in the final battle against the Buggers. Bean's past was a battle just to survive. His success brought him to the attention of the Battle School's recruiters, those people scouring the planet for leaders, tacticians, and generals to save Earth from the threat of alien invasion. Bean was sent into orbit, to the Battle School. And there he met Ender.
©1999 Orson Scott Card (P)2005 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC
Xenocide
Summary
Xenocide is the third installment of the Ender series. On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans and pequeninos and the Hive Queen could all live together; where three very different intelligent species could find common ground at last. Or so he thought. But Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus which kills all humans it infects, but which the pequeninos require in order to transform into adults. The Starways Congress so fears the effect of the descolada, should it escape from Lusitania, that they have ordered the destruction of the entire planet and all who live there. The Fleet is on its way and a second Xenocide seems inevitable, until the Fleet vanishes.
©1991 Orson Scott Card (P)2000 Audio Renaissance
Shadow of the Hegemon
Summary
Ender's Game told the story of the boy "Ender" Wiggin and his hard-won victory over an alien race that would have destroyed the Earth and all of humanity. But Ender was not the only child in the Battle School. He was just the best of the best. In Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card told the story of another of those precocious generals, the one they called Bean - the one who became Ender's right hand, his strategist, and his friend. And now Card continues Bean's story, and finally tells a tale long awaited by millions of fans. At last we learn what happened on Earth after the destruction of the Hive Queen's worlds, after humanity no longer had a single enemy to unify the warring nations. This is the story of how Bean turned away from his first friend, Ender, and became the tactical genius who won the Earth for Ender's brother, Peter, who became the Hegemon.
©2000 Orson Scott Card
Children of the Mind
Summary
The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: a large colony of humans; the Pequeninos; and the Hive Queen, who was brought there by Ender Wiggin. Once again, the enemy (the Starways Congress) has gathered a fleet and is threatening to destroy Lusitania. Ender's oldest friend, Jane, an evolved computer intelligence, is trying to save the three sentient species of Lusitania, but the Starways Congress is destroying the computer world she lives in. Children of the Mind is the fourth and final volume in the original Ender Saga by Orson Scott Card, winner of the Hugo and Nebula award.
©1996 Orson Scott Card (P)2004 Audio Renaissance
Shadow of the Giant
Summary
The Ender Saga continues with Shadow of the Giant, which parallels the events of Ender's Game from a different character’s point of view. Bean's past was a battle just to survive. He first appeared on the streets of Rotterdam, a tiny child with a mind leagues beyond anyone else. He knew he could not survive through strength; he used his tactical genius to gain acceptance into a children's gang, and then to help make that gang a template for success for all the others. He civilized them, and lived to grow older. Then he was discovered by the recruiters for the Battle School. For Earth was at war - a terrible war with an inscrutable alien enemy. A war that humanity was near to losing. But the long distances of interstellar space has given hope to the defenders of Earth - they had time to train military geniuses up from childhood, forging them into an irresistible force in the high-orbital facility called the Battle School. That story is told in two books, Orson Scott Card's beloved classic Ender's Game, and its parallel, Ender's Shadow. Now, in Shadow of the Giant, Bean's story continues. Bean was the smallest student at the Battle School, but he became Ender Wiggins' right hand. Since then he has grown to be a power on Earth. He served the Hegemon as strategist and general in the terrible wars that followed Ender's defeat of the alien empire attacking Earth. Now he and his wife Petra yearn for a safe place to build a family - something he has never known - but there is nowhere on Earth that does not harbor his enemies - old enemies from the days in Ender's Jeesh, new enemies from the wars on Earth. To find security, Bean and Petra must once again follow in Ender's footsteps. They must leave Earth behind, in the control of the Hegemon, and look to the stars.
©2005 Orson Scott Card (P)2005 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC
Shadow Puppets
Summary
Best selling SF author Orson Scott Card brings to life a new chapter in the saga of Ender's Earth. Earth and its society have been changed irrevocably in the aftermath of Ender Wiggin's victory over the Formics. The unity forced upon the warring nations by an alien enemy has shattered. Nations are rising again, seeking territory and influence, and most of all, seeking to control the skills and loyalty of the children from the Battle School. But one person has a better idea. Peter Wiggin, Ender's older, more ruthless brother, sees that any hope for the future of Earth lies in restoring a sense of unity and purpose. And he has an irresistible call on the loyalty of Earth's young warriors. With Bean at his side, he will reshape our future. Here is the continuing saga of Bean and Petra, and the rest of Ender's Dragon Army, as they take their places in the new government of Earth.
©2002 Orson Scott Card (P)2002 Fantastic Audio
The Swarm
Summary
Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston return to their Ender's Game prequel series with this first volume of an all-new trilogy about the Second Formic War in The Swarm. The first invasion of Earth was beaten back by a coalition of corporate and international military forces and the Chinese army. China has been devastated by the Formic's initial efforts to eradicate Earth life forms and prepare the ground for their own settlement. The Scouring of China struck fear into the other nations of the planet; that fear blossomed into drastic action when scientists determined that the single ship that wreaked such damage was merely a scout ship. There is a mothership out beyond the solar system's Kuiper Belt, and it's heading into the system, unstoppable by any weapons that Earth can muster. Earth has been reorganized for defense. There is now a Hegemon, a planetary official responsible for keeping all the formerly warring nations in line. There's a Polemarch, responsible for organizing all the military forces of the planet into the new International Fleet. But there is an enemy within, an enemy as old as human warfare: ambition and politics. Greed and self-interest. Will Bingwen, Mazer Rackam, Victor Delgado, and Lem Juke be able to divert those very human enemies in time to create a weapon that can effectively defend humanity in the inexorable Second Formic War? Full cast of narrators includes Susan Hanfield, Emily Rankin, Orson Scott Card, and Aaron Johnston.
©2016 Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston (P)2016 Macmillan Audio
Earth Awakens
Summary
The story of The First Formic War continues in Earth Awakens. Nearly 100 years before the events of Orson Scott Card’s best-selling novel Ender’s Game, humans were just beginning to step off Earth and out into the Solar System. A thin web of ships in both asteroid belts; a few stations; a corporate settlement on Luna. No one had seen any sign of other space-faring races; everyone expected that First Contact, if it came, would happen in the future, in the empty reaches between the stars. Then a young navigator on a distant mining ship saw something moving too fast, heading directly for our sun. When the alien ship screamed through the solar system, it disrupted communications between the far-flung human mining ships and supply stations, and between them and Earth. So Earth and Luna were unaware that they had been invaded until the ship pulled into Earth orbit, and began landing terra-forming crews in China. Politics and pride slowed the response on Earth, and on Luna, corporate power struggles seemed more urgent than distant deaths. But there are a few men and women who see that if Earth doesn’t wake up and pull together, the planet could be lost. THE ENDER UNIVERSE Ender series: Ender’s Game Speaker for the Dead Xenocide Children of the Mind Ender in Exile Children of the Fleet Ender’s Shadow series: Ender’s Shadow Shadow of the Hegemon Shadow Puppets Shadow of the Giant Shadows in Flight The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston) Earth Unaware Earth Afire Earth Awakens The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston) The Swarm The Hive Ender novellas: A War of Gifts First Meetings
©2014 Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston (P)2014 Macmillan Audio
The Hive
Summary
New York Times best-selling authors Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston return to the prequels to Ender's Game following The Swarm with The Hive, the second audiobook in the Second Formic War. Card and Johnston continue the fast-paced hard science-fiction history of the Formic Wars - the alien invasions of Earth’s solar system that ultimately led to Ender Wiggin’s total victory in Ender's Game. A coalition of Earth’s nations barely fought off the Formics’ first scout ship. Now, it’s clear there’s a mothership out on edge of the system and that the aliens are prepared to take Earth by force. Can Earth’s warring nations and corporations put aside their differences and mount an effective defense? Ender's Game is one of the most popular and best-selling science-fiction titles of all time. The Formic War series (The First Formic War and The Second Formic War) are the prequels to Ender’s story. The Ender Universe: Ender series: Ender’s Game Speaker for the Dead Xenocide Children of the Mind Ender in Exile Children of the Fleet Ender’s Shadow series: Ender’s Shadow Shadow of the Hegemon Shadow Puppets Shadow of the Giant Shadows in Flight The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston): Earth Unaware Earth Afire Earth Awakens The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston): The Swarm The Hive Ender novellas: A War of Gifts First Meetings This program is read by Orson Scott Card, Vikas Adam, Paul Boehmer, Susan Hanfield, Arthur Morey, Emily Rankin, Stefan Rudnicki, Rob Dean, and Gabrielle de Cuir.
©2019 Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston (P)2019 Macmillan Audio
Earth Unaware
Summary
The mining ship El Cavador is far out from Earth, in the deeps of the Kuiper Belt, beyond Pluto. Other mining ships, and the families that live on them, are few and far between this far out. So when El Cavador’s telescopes pick up a fast-moving object coming in-system, it’s hard to know what to make of it. It’s massive and moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light. El Cavador has other problems. Their systems are old and failing. The family is getting too big for the ship. There are claim-jumping corporate ships bringing Asteroid Belt tactics to the Kuiper Belt. Worrying about a distant object that might or might not be an alien ship seems…not important. They're wrong. It's the most important thing that has happened to the human race in a million years. The first Formic War is about to begin.
©2012 Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston (P)2012 Macmillan Audio
Earth Afire
Summary
One hundred years before Ender's Game, the aliens arrived on Earth with fire and death. Earth Afire by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston is the story of the First Formic War. Victor Delgado beat the alien ship to Earth, but just barely. Not soon enough to convince skeptical governments that there was a threat. They didn’t believe that until space stations and ships and colonies went up in sudden flame. And when that happened, only Mazer Rackham and the Mobile Operations Police could move fast enough to meet the threat.
©2013 Orson Scott Card (P)2013 Macmillan Audio
Ender in Exile
Summary
Orson Scott Card returns to his best-selling series with a new Ender novel, Ender in Exile. At the close of Ender's Game, Andrew Wiggin - called Ender by everyone - is told that he can no longer live on Earth, and he realizes that this is the truth. He has become far more than just a boy who won a game: he is the Savior of Earth, a hero, a military genius whose allegiance is sought by every nation of the newly shattered Earth Hegemony. He is offered the choice of living in isolation on Eros, at one of the Hegemony's training facilities, but instead the 12-year-old chooses to leave his home world and begin the long relativistic journey out to the colonies. With him went his sister Valentine, and the core of the artificial intelligence that would become Jane. The story of those years has never been told...until now.
©2008 Orson Scott Card (P)2008 Macmillan Audio
Ender's Game Alive: The Full Cast Audioplay
Summary
Audie Award Finalist, Multi-Voiced Performance, 2014 Audie Award Finalist, Original Work, 2014 Experience Ender's Game as you've never heard it before! With an all-new, original script written by Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game Alive is a full cast audio drama that reimagines the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning classic. Ender’s Game Alive puts you into Battle School with young Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, as he trains to become the general who will lead Earth against the Formics, the alien "buggers". Removed from his family at the age of six, Ender must prove his strength and his leadership, even as he fights his own doubts. The stakes are nothing less than the fate of humankind. Ender's Game Alive is performed by Kirby Heyborne, Stefan Rudnicki, Theodore Bikel, Scott Brick, Samantha Eggar, Harlan Ellison, Susan Hanfield, Roxanne Hernandez, Janis Ian, Rex Linn, Richard McGonagle, Jim Meskimen, Emily Rankin, John Rubinstein, Christian Rummel, and a full cast. Directed by Gabrielle de Cuir Original Score by John Rubinstein Valentine's Theme by Janis Ian Additional music and arrangements by Mark Mitchell
©2013 Orson Scott Card (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Shadows in Flight
Summary
Ender’s Shadow explores the stars in this all-new novel.... At the end of Shadow of the Giant, Bean flees to the stars with three of his children - the three who share the engineered genes that gave him both hyper-intelligence and a short, cruel physical life. The time dilation granted by the speed of their travel gives Earth’s scientists generations to seek a cure, to no avail. In time, they are forgotten - a fading ansible signal speaking of events lost to Earth’s history. But the Delphikis are about to make a discovery that will let them save themselves, and perhaps all of humanity in days to come. For there in space before them lies a derelict Formic colony ship. Aboard it, they will find both death and wonders - the life support that is failing on their own ship, room to grow, and labs in which to explore their own genetic anomaly and the mysterious disease that killed the ship’s colony.
©2011 Orson Scott Card (P)2012 Macmillan Audio
Pathfinder
Summary
Rigg is well trained at keeping secrets. Only his father knows the truth about Rigg’s strange talent for seeing the paths of people’s pasts. But when his father dies, Rigg is stunned to learn just how many secrets Father had kept from him - secrets about Rigg’s own past, his identity, and his destiny. And when Rigg discovers that he has the power not only to see the past, but also to change it, his future suddenly becomes anything but certain. Rigg’s birthright sets him on a path that leaves him caught between two factions, one that wants him crowned and one that wants him dead. He will be forced to question everything he thinks he knows, choose who to trust, and push the limits of his talent... or forfeit control of his destiny.
©2010 Orson Scott Card (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Lost Gate
Summary
Danny North knew from early childhood that his family was different - and that he was different from them. While his cousins were learning how to create the things that commoners called fairies, ghosts, golems, trolls, werewolves, and other such miracles that were the heritage of the North family, Danny worried that he would never show a talent, never form an "outself". He grew up in the rambling old house, filled with dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles, all ruled by his father. Their home was isolated in the mountains of western Virginia, far from town, far from schools, far from other people. There are many secrets in the House, and many rules that Danny must follow. There is a secret library with only a few dozen books, and none of them in English - but Danny and his cousins are expected to become fluent in the language of the books. While Danny’s cousins are free to create magic whenever they like, they must never do it where outsiders might see. Unfortunately, there are some secrets kept from Danny as well. And that will lead to disaster for the North family. Orson Scott Card, a New York Times best-selling author, has won several Hugo and Nebula Awards for his works of speculative fiction. He lives with his family in Greensboro, North Carolina.
©2011 Orson Scott Card (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Children of the Fleet
Summary
"The ideal presentation of any book of mine is to have excellent actors perform it in audio-only format." - Orson Scott Card This program is read by Stefan Rudnicki and a full cast including Emily Rankin, Kirby Heyborne, Orson Scott Card, P.J. Ochlan, Gabrielle de Cuir, Richard Gilliland, Kristoffer Tabori, and Judy Young. From Orson Scott Card, award-winning and Best-selling author of Ender's Game, his first solo Enderverse audiobook in years. Children of the Fleet is a new angle on Card's Best-selling series, telling the story of the Fleet in space, parallel to the story on Earth told in the Ender's Shadow series. Ender Wiggin won the Third Formic war, ending the alien threat to Earth. Afterwards, all the terraformed Formic worlds were open to settlement by humans, and the International Fleet became the arm of the Ministry of Colonization, run by Hirum Graff. MinCol now runs Fleet School on the old Battle School station, and still recruits very smart kids to train as leaders of colony ships, and colonies. Dabeet Ochoa is a very smart kid. Top of his class in every school. But he doesn't think he has a chance at Fleet School, because he has no connections to the Fleet. That he knows of. At least until the day that Colonel Graff arrives at his school for an interview. Other Series by Orson Scott Card Ender #1 Ender's Game / #2 Ender in Exile / #3 Speaker for the Dead / #4 Xenocide / #5 Children of the Mind Ender's Shadow #1 Ender's Shadow / #2 Shadow of the Hegemon / #3 Shadow Puppets / #4 Shadow of the Giant / #5 Shadows in Flight The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston) #1 Earth Unaware / #2 Earth Afire / #3 Earth Awakens
©2017 Orson Scott Card (P)2017 Macmillan Audio
Gatefather
Summary
The much-anticipated third installment in Card's New York Times best-selling Mithermages series Danny North is the first Gate Mage to be born on Earth in nearly 2,000 years, or at least the first to survive and claim his power, for families of Westil in exile on Earth have a treaty that requires the death of any suspected Gate Mage. The wars between the families had been terrible until at last they realized it was their own survival in question. But a Gate Mage, one who could build a Great Gate back to Westil, would give his own family a terrible advantage over all the others and reignite the wars. So it was decided that they all had to die. And if the families didn't kill them, the Gate Thief would - that mysterious mage who destroyed every Great Gate, along with the Gate Mage who created it, before it could be opened between Earth and Westil. But Danny survived. And Danny battled the Gate Thief - and won. What he didn't know at the time was that the Gate Thief had a very good reason for closing the Great Gates - and Danny has now fallen into the power of that great enemy of both Earth and Westil.
©2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2015 Blackstone Audiobooks