Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card (born August 24 1951) is a prolific and best-selling author of numerous genres. His initial launch in the publishing industry was with science fiction (Hot Sleep and Capitol) and later fantasy (Songmaster). He became much more widely known with the publication of the seminal Ender's Game in 1985, for which he was awarded both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award (a feat he repeated with the sequel Speaker for the Dead the next year, being the first ever to win both awards twice in a row). However, he has not limited himself to those genres. Stories of horror and suspense such as Lost Boys and Treasure Box demonstrate his versatility.
His writing is dominated by detailed characterization and moral issues. As Card says, "We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction."
Some of his novels, for example Stone Tables, a novel about the life of Biblical Moses, have explicit religious themes. In his other writings, the influence of his Mormon beliefs is less obvious.
Card was born in Richland, Washington and raised in Utah. He lives now in Greensboro, North Carolina with his wife Kristine. They have four children: Geoffrey (a published author in his own right), Emily, Zina Margaret, and Erin Louisa. A fifth child, Charlie Ben, died at the age of 17. A victim of severe cerebral palsy, he inspired Card's story Lost Boys and the fannish Charlie Card Fund that raised money for CP research.
Quotations
- "I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration." (from the introduction to the story collection Future on Fire, where he discusses writers he considers to be hacks.)
- "If it isn't a wonderful story first, who cares how "important" it is?" (Ibid.)
Bibliography (incomplete)
Pre-Ender's Game
- Listen, Mom and Dad (non-fiction) (1978)
- Capitol (1978)
- Hot Sleep (1978)
- A Planet Called Treason (1978)
- Songmaster (1979)
- Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories (1980)
- Ainge (non-fiction) (1982)
- Saintspeak (non-fiction) (1982)
- Hart's Hope (1983)
- The Worthing Chronicle (reworking of Hot Sleep) (1983)
- Saints (1983)
The Ender Series
The Shadow series
- Ender's Shadow (companion novel to Ender's Game) (1999)
- Shadow of the Hegemon (2001)
- Shadow Puppets (2002)
- Shadow of the Giant (not yet released)
Tales of Alvin Maker
- Seventh Son (1987)
- Red Prophet (1988)
- Prentice Alvin (1989)
- Alvin Journeyman (1995)
- Heartfire (1998)
- The Crystal City (2003)
- Master Alvin (forthcoming)
The Homecoming Saga
- The Memory of Earth (1992)
- The Call of Earth (1992)
- The Ships of Earth (1994)
- Earthfall (1995)
- Earthborn (1995)
The "Women of Genesis" Trilogy
- Sarah (2000)
- Rebekah (2001)
- Rachel and Leah (forthcoming)
Post-Ender's Game, others
- Cardography (1987)
- Wyrms (1987)
- Treason (revised edition of A Planet Called Treason) (1988)
- The Folk Of The Fringe (1989)
- The Abyss (1989) (with James Cameron)
- Maps in a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card (1990)
- Eye For Eye / Tunesmith (Tor double novel) (1990) (Eye For Eye is by Card; Tunesmith is by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.)
- The Worthing Saga (1990)
- Lost Boys (1992)
- A Storyteller in Zion (non-fiction) (1993)
- Lovelock (1994) (with Kathryn H. Kidd)
- Pastwatch: The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus (1996)
- Treasure Box (1996)
- Stone Tables (1997)
- Homebody (1998)
- Enchantment (1999)
- Magic Mirror (1999)
Books on writing
- Character and Viewpoint
- How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy