Earth Unaware

By: Orson Scott Card, Aaron Johnston

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Stephen Hoye, Arthur Morey, Vikas Adam, Emily Janice Card, Gabrielle de Cuir, Roxanne Hernandez

Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

A hundred years before Ender's Game, humans thought they were alone in the galaxy. Humanity was slowly making their way out from Earth to the planets and asteroids of the Solar System, exploring and mining and founding colonies.

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.

But the ship has other problems. Their systems are old and failing. The family is getting too big. There are claim-jumping corporates 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. This is humanity's first contact with an alien race. The First Formic War is about to begin.
Earth Unaware is the first novel in The First Formic War series by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston.

©2012 Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston (P)2012 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“The somber basso voice of Stefan Rudnicki and two well-chosen players march through the story, with a young man's voice particularly effective in segments featuring the angst-ridden teenager. This is an outstanding job, with more to come.” —AudioFile Magazine

“As the narration passes from character to character, the talented cast... easily keeps listeners intrigued with skillful characterizations that feature unique voices, accents, and dialects. And by the time the huge alien ship arrives and the story kicks into high gear, listeners will be utterly captivated by this exciting adventure.” —Publishers Weekly

Excellent first half of a book.

Where does Earth Unaware rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

One of the best.

What did you like best about this story?

I've been working my way through the Ender series, starting at Ender's Game and moving forward. After finishing all the Bean tales, I figured I'd jump back and listen to these later written books but come before chronologically before Ender's Game. I was pleasantly surprised. Why the later books in the Ender series get kind of slow, this book was fast and exciting all the way through. I never got board. It was a very fun read, and a wonderful first half of a story.

Any additional comments?

The only issue I had with this book is that it's really just the first half of a book. It's not that it's short of feels rushed, it's just that the story basically stops. You can't just read this single book and fully enjoy it. You have to continue in the series. That's fine with me, because I intend to read them all. But, a buyer should be aware. You can't just buy this one book, you have to read the entire Earth Unaware series to really appreciate the story.

Orson Scott Card at the top of his game!

Earth Unaware is the first in a series of prequels to the Ender Series that take us back to the first human encounter with aliens, the "buggers" made famous by Card's Ender's Game. If you are an Ender fan (and who isn't!) you're going to love Earth Unaware. The characters are solid and well developed, as is the asteroid mining culture in which the story develops. There's plenty of action, too, both before and after the alien encounter. The use of multiple performers for this audiobook edition works well, and the performers are uniformly good. (Note that one of the performers, Emily Janice Card, has a remarkably familiar name!) I unhesitatingly recommend this book to Ender fans. In addition, if you've never read Ender's Game, then Earth Unaware is a good way to get some backstory on the aliens. I've already preordered the next in this series.

Worthy 'sequel' to ender's game

Extremely well written. I am particularly interested in the MOP operations. Looking forward to listening to earth afire.

very engaging

loved it. ..like all of the enderverse books...fantastic narrators, it is my preferred way to read the books.

Great story

The story was incredibly engaging, one of my favorite books from Card to date (I've listened to all of the Ender series books, save these prequels). Only complaint was that some of the characters sounded very similar when voiced by one narrator, but those characters only appeared in one chapter.

Great Book, Equally Great Audio

It's a great book, and I've read it before. Some of the voice changes surprised me, but it was neat to see a different voice covering chapters from different characters points of view, and helped with identify what part of the story we were jumping to.

brilliant alien encounter

it's a typical Alien Encounter story, but all the story happens in space. all the characters are brilliantly fleshed-out in Orson Scott card's masterful Style. as is typical with Scott's work, there are several stories happening independently that seemed to tie together at the end, but leaves the reader hungry for more.

love it

I'm a huge fan of this universe and after the enderverse and shadow series I jumped here. afraid to give spoilers but it did not disappoint

Filling in the gaps by an expert craftsman

I have read everything in the Ender and Shadow series, and to be fair, I haven't totally loved all of it. I do love the setting and the arching story. I have come to appreciate Card's storytelling, while not simple, and not for everyone, I love the way he does it.
This story does not have a lot of action even though there is much going on, discoveries being made, and pieces of a chess board being moved into place by Card and Johnston.
For fans on the Ender stories, this is a great book, for those not initiated with Ender and the Formic Wars, I suggest starting with Ender's Game, and go from there. I don't think this story would make much sense unless you knew what happens in Ender's Game, like a good prequel should be. Keep in mind, the book ends in a somewhat abrupt manner (although not as bad as some people have made it out to be) but it sets ups the next book nicely (due in June 2013).
The narration is once again wonderful. Using Card and Jonston's text, Rudnicki and cast use a different approach than most audio recordings and it breathes wonderful life and perspective into the story. The narrators take turns reading the chapters or sections to give a unique voice to the perspective of whomever the focus character is for that section, it works well and I wish more audio books did this, but it may take a special literary approach to make it work in the first place (Card writes with performance in mind).

Once again as an extra bonus, Orson Scott Card has a short interview at the end of the book. I love these "Bonus features" and honestly wish there were more!

Great book/story, great performances, and a great setup for a trilogy filling in some gaps in one of my favorite book series of all time.

loved it

long time reader of Orson Scott Card. Loved this book, the ending made me want to pick up the next book right away