First Meetings: In the Enderverse [Audiobook] [Unabridged] (Audio CD)

The other thing about the paperback is that unless I'm much mistaken, it's actually missing text - in story 1 someone is supposed to hit someone else, and it never happens in the paperback version (at least the one that came to Singapore). The text doesn't show any blank paper, but the rest of the plot does refer back to it just like in the hardback version, so I think it's a glaring printers' error.

I enjoyed all the stories, but I didn't feel like I was reading anything all that new. Card did a good job in the original books of giving you an idea of the history of everything, so these stories just seemed to give me more detail about the specifics. I really enjoyed reading the original Ender's Game story again, it makes me want to re-read the book.

All four of the stories were good, so if you are a fan of the Ender series, I would recommend this book, but don't expect anything exceptional.

The most memorable, I think, is "The Polish Boy". Concerning duels between a 5-year-old and various administrative figures, it recalls some of the best of "Ender's Shadow": the illustration of how a very young child can, with sufficient wit and preternatural maturity, overcome adult opposition.

"Teacher's Pest" is the least of the three. It concerns cleverness used in the furtherance of adolescent romance. While this might be as excitingly done as the first story, it would have to be on a higher level of wittiness to succeed as well. But it doesn't reach that level, and it seems a bit pedestrian.

"Investment Counsellor" is set in Ender's "quiet" stage--after he's overcome the trauma of "Ender's Game" and before he's set out upon his Speaker of the Dead life. The fireworks of his passion are missing here--neither his command skills nor his personal interaction livelihood are generating the sparks that provide much of the interest in the books. It's a connector piece, showing some origins of things to come. These are good things, and it's good to have their origins, but it's not very exciting story-telling.

The illustrations do nothing for the book but take up page-space, adding 10 or 12 pages to the total. Without them, the book would be under 200 pages in length--and better, in my estimation. (When are illustrators going to stop putting airplane wings, rudders, and elevators on spacecraft??)

Having the original "Ender's Game" included is rather interesting, allowing for comparison with the novel it spawned. Bean is there, in all his arrogance, but essentially none of the other characters that have made the continuing saga so memorable: no Valentine, no Peter, none of Ender's other sub-commanders, nor his tormentors. The Hive Queen has not yet been imagined, and Buggers are entirely faceless. But all the pathos of the child used as a soldier--that essential kernel is there in boldface.