From Marvel.com’s Ender’s Game pages:

Source: http://marvel.com/catalog/?id=9935

From the Amazon.com product description for Ender in Exile:

Orson Scott Card returns to his best-selling series with a new Ender novel.

At the close of Ender’s Game, Andrew Wiggin – called Ender by everyone – is told that he can no longer live on Earth, and he realizes that this is the truth. He has become far more than just a boy who won a game: he is the Savior of Earth, a hero, a military genius whose allegiance is sought by every nation of the newly shattered Earth Hegemony. He is offered the choice of living in isolation on Eros, at one of the Hegemony’s training facilities, but instead the twelve-year-old chooses to leave his home world and begin the long relativistic journey out to the colonies. With him went his sister Valentine, and the core of the artificial intelligence that would become Jane.

The story of those years has never been told… until now.

Cool.  I’m going to pre-order my copy at Amazon here.

Matt Blum @ Wired dealt with OSC’s position on same-sex marriage, asserting that “We need a way to gauge the quality of a person’s work against whatever repugnant thing(s) they’ve done.”

I’ll let you be the judge on that one; make your own analysis on the arguments outlined in either of these articles.  Is his analysis on OSC’s arguments correct or fair?  Are OSC’s outlined implications for democracy just a thinly veiled disguise for an ideological attack on gay rights activists? Perhaps it’s a bit of both.  But regardless of the truth of this particular argument, even if OSC were a gay-bashing religious zealot that only used language to manipulate his readers with red herrings to further his agenda, would that mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater?

I think it’s a fair question.  Can we judge a work out of the context in which it was created; or can we reinterpret the work in it’s more modern context, apart from the author’s evolving policial ideas?  If the story stands alone as a work that can be applied to the world we live in, shouldn’t we take all the other stuff with a grain of salt? Or are we better off seeing the whole picture, even if it’s distorted by the layered lenses of perception?  After all, the real power of storytelling, whether it come from a bible or a science fiction eipc, is in it’s osmosis-like ability to help us learn about and navigate the world around us.

So if Ender’s Game teaches us about the world we live in, what are the lessons?

A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader. He trains other kids in unauthorized extra sessions, which enrages his enemies, who attack him with the intention of killing him; but he is protected by his loyal, brilliant friends and gains strength from the love of some of his family members. He is given special guidance by an older man of legendary accomplishments who previously kept the enemy at bay. He goes on to become the crucial figure in a struggle against an unseen enemy who threatens the whole world.

Sure sounds familiar. But is that a fair assessment?  Leave your comments below.

6:00-7:00 Impact University: How to Write and Draw Comics and Graphic Novels— Some of the biggest names in comics are on hand to teach you what it takes to make it in comics and graphic novels. The star-studded faculty includes Peter David (Dark Tower, X-Factor), Orson Scott Card Ender’s Game, Wyrms), Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil, Sandman), Brian Miller (Hi-Fi Color Design), and Comics Buyer’s Guide senior editor Maggie Thompson. Find out the best way to submit your work, learn the dos and don’ts of the business, and participate in a Q&A session. Room 7AB

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As reported on Wired.com’s Underwire Blog:

The third episode should please Futurama and sci-fi fans alike: Bender’s Game is ripe with nerd references and tributes to geek lore.

In addition to the telltale title riff on Orson Scott Card’s 1985 sci-fi novel Ender’s Game, Star Trek’s George Takei guest stars as himself in the new movie. Multiple homages to Dungeons & Dragons and The Lord of the Rings also can be seen in the preview (above).