Books like Earth Afire

Earth AfireBy Orson Scott Card and Aaron JohnstonA Review by Eric AllenIn my review of Earth Unaware, the first book in this prequel series, I stated that I have waited more than twenty years to get the story of the First Bugger Invasion from Ender’s Game. It was a part of the backstory that highly intrigued me. I was rather disappointed that the first book, with the subtitle “The First Formic War” was not that book. It was a great book, and highly entertaining in its own way, but it was not the book it promised to be. HOWEVER, Earth Afire is. It is the book I have waited the majority of my life to read, and it was everything I could ever have hoped it would be.Leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, the Formic ship plows through the Solar System toward Earth, disrupting communications so that little word can be sent ahead of it to warn the people of Earth of the danger. With little effort, the Formics shrug off every attack thrown against them upon reaching Earth and send down landers to southern China, where they begin killing everything in sight and stripping the land bare.Disobeying orders, Mazer Rackham, future hero of the Second Invasion races to one of the landing sites to help with the evacuation and finds himself alone, behind enemy lines, unarmed, against an entire army of aliens, whilst special forces try to sneak into China against the wishes of the Chinese government to help. Meanwhile Victor has a plan to take out the Formic Mothership in orbit, and must ally himself with the man who murdered his uncle in order to accomplish it.The Good? The characters are all very likeable, and well written. Card understands how people think, act and interact with one another. He’s always been very good at creating relatable, realistic characters with real moral dilemmas that pull you in and are every bit as exciting as his action scenes. There are a lot of nods to books that happen later in the Enderverse timeline that fans of the series will likely find highly enjoyable. Normally such things are rather distracting, but Card was able to incorporate subtle winks at his readers throughout the book without it being oppressive or distracting.Card has really captured the horror of invasion by an utterly alien species that has no understanding of humanity, or care for it. The way the Buggers, a.k.a. Formics, act is consistent with their behavior in later books, and believably alien. Their motivations make sense once the characters sit down and think about them, but on the surface they’re completely nonsensical and utterly alien. This is something that Science Fiction writers rarely get right. Aliens are usually either beasts, or so close to human in behavior that they might as well be human. Card realizes that an alien race is going to be alien and does a very good job of conveying it.The Bad? In Ender’s Game, the First Invasion is portrayed as a primarily space based conflict, with a few mentions of landers in China. In this book, it’s pretty much the other way around. It’s just a nitpick, but it doesn’t fit with pre-established continuity. Nor does Mazer Rackham’s role in this book. He was the hero of the Second Invasion, an unspecified number of years after the First Invasion, but the implication in Ender’s Game is that it was several decades later, especially with the advancements in technology as described in Ender’s Game when talking about the Second Invasion, which was definitively a space conflict. There’s just a lot of continuity issues with the original source material. It’s nothing that anyone but the most avid of fans will really notice or care about, and it probably won’t take away from anyone’s enjoyment. But, while I was reading it, I was constantly thinking about how a lot of things didn’t fit with pre-established continuity.The Chinese are not portrayed very well. I believe that Card was going for showing how proud a people they are. However, it does come off as subtly racist. I'll leave you to decide for yourself whether he's calling China as he sees it, or whether he's being quietly racist. It's a pretty fine line to walk. In conclusion, this book was pretty enjoyable. It does have some continuity issues with later books in the Ender Saga, but they don’t really detract too much from enjoyment. The characters are well written and interesting, and the aliens are sufficiently alien. The horrors of war are very well described, and things come to a very good climax, followed by an excellent lead-in to the next book. Check out my other reviews.***Edit*** Removed rant about Card from the review. I felt that it was too political, and have actually received several death threats over it. At the time that I wrote this review I was working for a local newspaper as an editor and columnist. I wrote the review to be published in that paper, and word came down from above that I was to include a condemnation of Card's views in the review, as the paper had taken the opposite stance as Card on the issue, and I shared their views on the matter. Looking back, I feel that it was somewhat inappropriate to repost here on Goodreads, and have removed all traces of it from the review. I apologize to anyone who may have been offended by what I had to say, but at the time that I said it, I felt that it was something that needed to be said. The wonderful thing about mistakes, though, is that, even though you can't always remove them with a few clicks, you can always strive never to make the same mistake again in the future. I have also wiped the comments section, as there was some rather heated, and not very civil discussion on the matter.