Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

At a recent conference I attended where Orson Scott Card spoke, he talked about the inception of this set of prequels to the Ender’s Game universe. I was so impressed that I had to go buy them. I also thought the co-author, Aaron Johnston, was awesome and did a great job in several presentations I attended where he presented.

This book, and the next one I read, are about the first Formic War. This is way before Ender or battle school or anything. It is definitely future to our current world (there are space miners out by the asteroid belt and people living on the moon and such), but it still feels like this could be a near future for us. I suppose it is because of the “real-ness” with which the authors (Scott Card said that Aaron did most of the groundwork and wrote it better than he would have, so I’ll just say Aaron) presented the people and activities.

This first book starts out in the far reaches of our solar system where miners are trying to make a living. We get to know a mining family and several members of the family very well, especially the boy, Victor. He is relatively young, but he is wise and mature beyond his years (one of Card’s hallmarks). He is also courageous and brave.

After some conflict with a corporate mining operation, and the loss of some lives because of it, the family struggles with the loss. But soon, they discover that something is coming their way, and it looks like it could be an alien spaceship.

They discover that the ship is destroying everything in its path – but why? And how can they stop it?

Victor is sent on a dangerous mission to warn earth of the impending disaster. Will he get there in time? And will anyone believe him?

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