Jul 30, 2012

"Earth Unaware" by Orson Scott Card & Aaron Johnston (ARC)


Title: Earth Unaware

Auhors: Orson Scott Card & Aaron Johnston

Series: The First Formic War #1

Publisher: Tor/Forge

Imprint: Tor Books

Publication date: July 17th, 2012

ISBN: 9780765329042

Pages: 368

(Book read from July 27th to July 29th, 2012, from an e-copy acquired through NetGalley from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.) 



My rating: 4.5 of 5 
 

Summary:


Before Ender Wiggin was born, before the Battle School was built, the aliens brought war to Earth.
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.


 

My Thoughts on the Book:



I've read only Ender's Game so far a few years ago, and I thought it was amazing & definitely one of my fav books, but since then I still haven't gotten around to reading the rest of the books in both Ender Saga & his Shadow Saga series, although I've been planning to. So, when I saw this one, I knew I had to read it.
I loved Earth Unaware. The world-building was great, with how everything works in the world of the free miners, and their society, following through 17-year old Victor on El Cavador. Two 3rds of this book was from Victor's PoV, the rest was alternating between Lem Jukes, Captain Wit O'Toole, and in the last 3rd of the book between lots of other secondary characters. That was necessary & I didn't mind, because it was necessary, because this is the first book about how the First Formic War started, and their first contact with the aliens.  
I loved Victor as a character. He's a mechanic, and quite brilliant & innovative. I actually loved all the characters on El Cavador, they were all so amazing: Mono, Edimar, Marco, Rena, etc...  
The writing of course is really good, I connected with most of the characters. I have to say that this book was also really sad, it made me cry so many times, which was so unexpected. I knew that lots of the characters will die, it's about war after all, and all the deaths made me at least teary-eyed, but I got really mad about one character especially, why did that one have to be killed? I loved this book, and I thought I'll give it 5 stars, but when that happened, I was so mad (still am) and I was planning to give it 4 stars, but in the end I decided for a rating of 4.5 - a compromise.    
I also have to say that knowing something about the aliens from Ender's Game, it made me a little sad when I met them. 
Anyway, I won't go into more details about this book, only that it's amazing, and it reminded me how much I love sci-fi, and I highly recommend it & I can't wait for the next book to be published, I'm definitely looking forward to it. In the meantime I'll have to go through the Ender Wiggin & Ender's Shadow series :) I think it's time.
   

Challenges:

3 comments:

  1. Awwwwww! >_< Too bad one of your favourite characters was killed off, but this definitely looks like an interesting read. A weepy read too... hope you feel better about that character, Aleksandra! -sigh- Sometimes books are just so emotionally merciless on us ;__;

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    1. Yeah, this is the first time I got actually really mad about the death of a character, sad sure, but never mad before, and this character was such a sweetie, and this death was so unnecessary... But it is what it is... :)

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  2. I love Orson Scott Card, although I've only read two of his books (one was Ender's Game). I think this would be interesting to start with (have always been unsure of where to go in that world/series from Ender's Game). I love the idea of a prequel. I'll have to put this one on my tbr list. Thanks!

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