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

Great Book, Acting pretty good

Couldnt stand the military narrator and some of the female characters seemed a bit off.

Loved Victor's voice actor, but he sometimes went over the top too early in parts leading up to the main and micro climaxes

Not sure why this was in my box of misfit books

I ran out of credits this month and there is no good sale on, so here I am going through my box of misfit books. I've had this book for some time and I know I started listening to it at one time and stopped. I'm not sure why I stopped listening. As with most of Orson Scott Card's books, it was a solid story, good characters, good pace, etc. I listened to the whole thing fairly quickly and it kept me interested. I guess it was a bit slowish at points, and some of the harping on shipboard internal taboos gets a bit stale, and he seems to love killing off characters, but a 14 hour book will have slow points, and all of the classic authors love to harp on one thing or another. Don't get my started on Farenheit 451, 1984, or the hand maids tale. :) Well worth a listen, and I just added book 2 to my wish list.

Addictive

picked it up for a 9 hr drive that turned into a 13hr one and had to immediately get the next one.

I really enjoyed this prequel.

The Endersverse audiobooks have captivated me and I have blown through 13 in about 3 weeks. I wasnt sure what to expect from these prequel books. I've found that these three are among my favorites. Listening to the story of Mazer Rackim has actually change my perspective of his character in the original books. They are definitely worth listening to.

Best book I read in a while!

The narrators were all really great and the story was gripping and well-written and had a fantastic ending. Can't wait to finish the rest of this series!

Great book

If you could sum up Earth Unaware in three words, what would they be?

A Great story

What was one of the most memorable moments of Earth Unaware?

the arrival of the buggers

Any additional comments?

Always good writing by Orson scott card. A great pre-quel to the ender series.

Gripping

What made the experience of listening to Earth Unaware the most enjoyable?

Some of Card's best work. Love the full cast plays with sound effects. Somehow more real and memorable than a movie.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Earth Unaware?

A long book with a lot of good parts.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

Top shelf narration

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Solders sacrificing themselves for their buddies and the mission.

Any additional comments?

The book just kind of ended. There should be another book between this one and Ender's Game.

Gripping

Orson Scott Card really has the best characters. And, not to be too edgy, but I want to frame this book as the story of a final character: The Message. The traditional characters are spelled out, and they are great as always. You have a plucky young hero trying to find his sense of self amid overwhelming adversity, a quasi-villain legitimately seeking redemption, and so on, but E.U. is really the story of The Message - the fact that technologically superior extraterrestrials are coming, and fast, with the ability to end life as we know it - trying to reach Earth from the distant reaches of the solar system, in the face of a series of catastrophic events, any one of which could easily destroy it. Earth is, as the title suggests, initially Unaware, and the success or failure of The Message will determine if that changes. I won't tell you how it ends.. and it almost doesn't matter when it comes to the amazing events along the way. Read the story!

A bit slow for me

I thought this was a one off book so that may have made for a bit of a slower listen. I did enjoy the story although I thought it was a bit clunky and felt like some of the backstory could’ve been eliminate. Not sure I’ll finish this trilogy.

Multiple narrators are not good like this.

This is probably the worst way to incorporate multiple narrators. It's too easy to lose track of characters. Just have one person do each voice, and then have a dedicated narrator for the background and all non-dialogue words. It's worked quite well for other series.