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Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card

  • From the New York Times bestselling author of Enders Game comes a brand-new series following a teen who wakes up on an abandoned Earth to discover that he’s a clone!

    Laz is a side-stepper: a teen with the incredible power to jump his consciousness to alternate versions of himself in parallel worlds. All his life, there was no mistake that a little side-stepping couldn’t fix.

    Until Laz wakes up one day in a cloning facility on a seemingly abandoned Earth.

    Laz finds himself surrounded by hundreds of other clones, all dead, and quickly realizes that he too must be a clone of his original self. Laz has no idea what happened to the world he remembers as vibrant and bustling only yesterday, and he struggles to survive in the barren wasteland he’s now trapped in. But the question that haunts him isn’t why was he created, but instead, who woke him up … and why?

    There’s only a single bright spot in Laz’s new life: one other clone appears to still be alive, although she remains asleep. Deep down, Laz believes that this girl holds the key to the mysteries plaguing him, but if he wakes her up, she’ll be trapped in this hellscape with him.

    This is one problem that Laz can’t just side-step his way out of.

  • New York Times bestselling author

    Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author

    When Ryan’s crush, Bizzy Horvat, moves into the other half of his family’s duplex, he is swept up into a world of micropotents and micropowers. It becomes Ryan’s job to protect Bizzy from people who want to kill her.

    Ryan wakes up to find his contractor dad building walls to turn their big old house into a duplex. The family that moves into the other side includes Bizzy Horvat, the pretty girl he has a crush on at school. Bizzy claims her mother is a witch with the power to curse people with clumsiness or, in Bizzy’s case, astonishing beauty.

    When a bee gets caught in Bizzy’s hair, Ryan acts so quickly and radically to save her from getting stung that he attracts the attention of a group of micropotents—people with micropowers. He soon realizes that Bizzy and her mother also have such powers. It becomes Ryan’s job, with the help of the other micropotents, to protect the Horvats from a group of witch hunters from their native country, who are determined to kill Bizzy, her mother, and all the other “witches”—micropotents—who have gathered to protect them.

  • “Are you really a thief?”

    That’s the question that has haunted fourteen-year-old Ezekiel Blast all his life. But he’s not a thief, he just has a talent for finding things. Not a superpower—a micropower. Because what good is finding lost bicycles and hair scrunchies, especially when you return them to their owners and everyone thinks you must have stolen them in the first place? If only there were some way to use Ezekiel’s micropower for good, to turn a curse into a blessing. His friend Beth thinks there must be, and so does a police detective investigating the disappearance of a little girl. When tragedy strikes, it’s up to Ezekiel to use his talent to find what matters most.

    Master storyteller Orson Scott Card delivers a touching and funny, compelling and smart novel about growing up, harnessing your potential, and finding your place in the world, no matter how old you are.

  • It began with a quarrel over which newborn should be the baby Jesus in the town’s Christmas pageant. Decades later, two scientists arrive to study small-town genetic patterns, only to run up against the invisible walls that split the leading citizens into two congregations that can only be joined by love and forgiveness. And maybe a little deception, because there might be some things that people just don’t need to know.

  • The much-anticipated third installment in Card’s New York Times bestselling Mithermages series

    Danny North is the first Gate Mage to be born on Earth in nearly two thousand years, or at least the first to survive and claim his power, for families of Westil in exile on Earth have a treaty that requires the death of any suspected Gate Mage. The wars between the families had been terrible, until at last they realized it was their own survival in question. But a Gate Mage, one who could build a Great Gate back to Westil, would give his own family a terrible advantage over all the others and reignite the wars. So it was decided that they all had to die. And if the families didn’t kill them, the Gate Thief would—that mysterious mage who destroyed every Great Gate, along with the Gate Mage who created it, before it could be opened between Earth and Westil.

    But Danny survived. And Danny battled the Gate Thief—and won.

    What he didn’t know at the time was that the Gate Thief had a very good reason for closing the Great Gates—and Danny has now fallen into the power of that great enemy of both Earth and Westil.

  • Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon—these are our guides through the Wastelands.

    From the Book of Revelation to The Road Warrior, from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse.

    Gathering together the best postapocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today's most renowned authors of speculative fiction—including George R. R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King—Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world comes through nuclear war, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm, these are tales of survivors, in some cases struggling to rebuild the society that was, in others, merely surviving, scrounging for food in depopulated ruins and defending themselves against monsters, mutants, and marauders.

    Wastelands delves into this bleak landscape, uncovering the raw human emotion and heart-pounding thrills at the genre's core.

  • Too long to be a short story, too short to be a novel—welcome to the surprisingly potent world of the novelette. The award-winning magazine Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show has been an online haven for this powerful form of storytelling since 2005. Now its editors have selected their all-time favorite science fiction novelettes from the magazine's eight-year history and reprinted them together in one big book of reading pleasure. Anything that is remotely possible—futures near and far, artificial intelligence and alien encounters, alternate timelines and alternate theories about creating universes, planet-eating black holes and lunar racetracks—is all here under the big tent of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show.

    This anthology features stories by such award-winning authors as Orson Scott Card, Wayne Wightman, Aliette de Bodard, Eric James Stone, Mary Robinette Kowal, Stephen Kotowych, Jackie Gamber, Greg Siewert, Jamie Todd Rubin, Brad R. Torgersen, and Marina J. Lostetter, plus an all-new essay by Orson Scott Card about writing the character of Ender.

  • In this sequel to The Lost Gate, bestselling author Orson Scott Card continues his fantastic tale of the mages of Westil, who live in exile on Earth.

    Here on Earth, Danny North is still in high school, yet he holds in his heart and mind all the stolen outselves of thirteen centuries of gatemages. The Families still want to kill him if they can’t control him—and they can’t control him; he is far too powerful.

    On Westil, Wad is now nearly powerless—he lost everything to Danny in their struggle. Even if he can survive the revenge of his enemies, he must still somehow make peace with the Gatemage Daniel North, for when Danny took that power from Loki, he also took responsibility for the Great Gates. And when he comes face-to-face with the mages who call themselves Bel and Ishtoreth, he will understand just why Loki closed the gates all those centuries ago.

  • This is an epic of independence and devotion, of hardship and fulfillment, of a woman so strong that knowing her could change your life.

    When ten-year-old Dinah Kirkham saw her father leave their Manchester home in the middle of the night, she asked when he would be back. “Soon,” he replied. But he never came back. On that night in 1829, John Kirkham laid the foundation of his daughter’s certainty that the only person Dinah could ever really trust was herself.

    From that day forward, Dinah worked to support her family, remaining devoted to their welfare even in the face of despair and grinding poverty. Then one day she heard a new message; a new purpose ignited in her heart, and new life opened up before her.

  • Orson Scott Card’s The Lost Gate is the first book in the Mithermages series from the New York Times bestselling author of Ender’s Game.

    Danny North knew from early childhood that his family was different—and that he was different from them. While his cousins were learning how to create the things that commoners called fairies, ghosts, golems, trolls, werewolves, and other such miracles that were the heritage of the North family, Danny worried that he would never show a talent, never form an outself.

    He grew up in the rambling old house, filled with dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles, all ruled by his father. Their home was isolated in the mountains of western Virginia, far from town, far from schools, far from other people.

    There are many secrets in the House, and many rules that Danny must follow. There is a secret library with only a few dozen books, and none of them in English—but Danny and his cousins are expected to become fluent in the language of the books. While Danny’s cousins are free to create magic whenever they like, they must never do it where outsiders might see.

    Unfortunately, there are some secrets kept from Danny as well. And that will lead to disaster for the North family.

  • This fourth volume in Orson Scott Card's five-book anthology of short stories features tales with religious themes, exploring the mysteries of ritual, sacrifice, faith, and death.

    Mortal Gods
    In our mortality lies our greatness.

    Saving Grace
    A story of TV faith healers and those who follow them.

    Eye for Eye
    An abused child has the gift of creating illness and death in those he is angry with. Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1988.

    St. Amy's Tale
    A family destroys all technology.

    Kingsmeat
    When flesh-eating aliens take over a human colony world, one human forestalls total doom by feeding them non-essential bits of his fellow colonists.

    Holy
    A seemingly pointless mission to bring an offering to another culture's shrine takes on unexpected meaning.

    "I believe that speculative fiction—science fiction in particular—is the last American refuge of religious literature. Real religious literature, I think, explores the nature of the universe and discovers the purpose behind it."—Orson Scott Card, from his introduction

  • This final collection in Orson Scott Card's five-volume anthology of short works features the "hidden stories", including his first published piece, some tales about Mormon family life and other stylistic departures, and several stories that were later developed into acclaimed novels such asEnder's Game,Songmaster,Invasive Procedures, and the Tales of Alvin Maker series. Listen as Card crafts a paranoid thriller, a spoof of "serious" contemporary literature, an epic narrative poem, and much more. Card includes background commentaries for each story in his afterwords. Stories include:Ender's Game;Mikal's Songbird;Prentice Alvin and the No-Good Plow;Malpractice;Follower;Hitching;Damn Fine Novel;Billy's Box;The Best Family Home Evening Ever;Bicicleta;I Think Mom and Dad Are Going Crazy, Jerry; andGert Fram.

  • This second volume of Orson Scott Card's five-book anthology of short stories features seven tales exploring possible future scenarios for the human race.

    A Thousand Deaths
    In Soviet-occupied America, Jerry Crove is found guilty and convicted of knowing about the planned assassination of a Russian high official and not reporting it to the authorities. Instead of a forced confession and apology on television, he gives a speech on American freedom. His sentence is to be repeatedly put to death and brought back to life until he apologizes convincingly.

    Clap Hands and Sing
    An old man travels back in time to fall in love with a women he let get away.

    Dogwalker
    A man hacks into a government database using a system administrator's password. But getting the code right turns out to be very wrong.

    But We Try Not to Act like It
    A man complains to the television office that he cannot turn off his TV and that it—especially the soap operas—disturbs him in his attempts to read, his preferred activity. He's told that he'll be allowed to turn off the TV only if he changes his social status by making some friends or developing a sexual relationship.

    I Put My Blue Genes
    Earth, now an uninhabitable wasteland of biological warfare, is revisited by a contingent of humans who find a small band of "not-quite-human" beings still fighting an enemy that has long since been annihilated.

    In the Doghouse
    Aliens from a doomed planet relocate to Earth, having preserved only their intellectually superior minds. Forbidden by their moral code from killing another sentient being, they choose Earth's widely beloved dogs as their new vessels—but they soon find out what it means to "be in the doghouse."

    The Originist
    In this story set in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe, a brilliant scientist working on a thorny problem is referred to the Galactic Library, an indexing project of astonishing breadth.

  • From bestselling storyteller Orson Scott Card comes a collection of eleven chilling tales that provoke the dreaded dark side of the listener's imagination.

    Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory
    A sinful man finally faces his conscience in the form of a baby-like creature that haunts his waking hours.

    Quietus
    Dying can be a difficult thing to come to terms with.

    Deep Breathing Exercises
    A man realizes that people who breathe together die together.

    Fat Farm
    A wealthy, overweight man tries to escape his overeating problem by getting himself cloned and transferring his memories into the clone.

    Closing the Timelid
    Using a time travel machine, available only to the wealthy, a thrill-seeking playboy discovers a way to experience the excitement of death without actually dying.

    Freeway Games
    To pass the time, Stanley plays freeway "following" games, and each person he follows dies trying to escape him. But one day, he meets his match and the chase is on!

    A Sepulchre of Songs
    Having lost both her arms and legs in an accident, a girl begins talking with an alien from outer space.

    Prior Restraint
    If the Censorship Board takes an interest in your writing, take it as a compliment and do what they say … or face the consequences.

    The Changed Man and the King of Words
    Joe develops a computer system based on literary references that can make frighteningly accurate character interpretations, then he submits his parents to the test.

    Memories of My Head
    A man writes a letter in his own blood shortly after blowing his head off with a shotgun.

    Lost Boys
    In the story that became the acclaimed horror novel, a child having trouble adjusting to a new town withdraws into a mysterious computer game where he meets imaginary friends.

  • This third volume of Orson Scott Card's five-book anthology of short stories features ten fantasies and fables full of princesses and giants, bears and monkeys, magic and revelation. Discover the pitfalls of paradise, how to handle a dragon, the true secret of happiness, and much more. Card offers background commentaries for each story in a series of afterwords and introductions.

    Unaccompanied Sonata
    A musical child prodigy, raised alone in a cabin so that his only influences come from nature, plays a complicated instrument capable of a wide range of sound. Against his keepers' wishes, he is introduced to the music of Bach and is ejected from his musical Eden. As he strives to make music, his nemesis strives to stop him.

    A Cross-Country Trip to Kill Richard Nixon
    A young man blames all of America's problems on former president Richard Nixon.

    The Porcelain Salamander
    A curse can be lifted only once it is complete.

    Middle Woman
    An average woman—who is a middle child, of middle income, and living mid-way between her other two sisters—meets a cruel, trickster dragon on the road who grants her three wishes. Through wisdom and compassion, she is able to outsmart his trickery.

    The Bully and the Beast
    A giant hired as the king's bully falls hopelessly for the king's daughter, the most beautiful woman in the world.

    The Princess and the Bear
    A magic bear saves a princess' life twice: once from a wolf in the forest and once from her own husband.

    Sandmagic
    A young boy who watches his parents die vows to avenge their pain. This story is set in the Mithermages universe, which includes the story "Stonefather."

    The Best Day
    A woman rejects an old peddler's explanation that happiness is a matter of taking joy in overcoming the difficulties in life. Instead, she prefers to buy a traveling medicine man's elixir of happiness which promises that your best day will be with you forever. In reliving one happy day from her past she misses out on the rest of her life.

    A Plague of Butterflies
    Selfishly choosing to save his own life by not slaying a dragon, Amasa becomes involved in evil and allows it to flourish. Since it's too late to change matters, he must suffer eternal anguish knowing what he has done.

    The Monkeys Thought 'Twas All in Fun
    Paradise can have its hidden pitfalls.

  • Lanik Mueller's birthright as heir to planet Treason's most powerful rulership will never be realized. He is a "rad"—radical regenerative—a freak who can regenerate injured flesh and trade extra body parts to the Offworld oppressors for iron. On a planet without hard metals, or the means of escape, iron offers the promise of freedom through the chance to build a spacecraft. But it is a promise that may never be fulfilled, as Lanik uncovers a treacherous conspiracy beyond his imagination. Now charged with a mission of conquest—and exile—Lanik devises a bold and dangerous plan to break the vicious chain of rivalry and bloodshed that enslaves the people of Treason as the Offworld never could.

    This compelling, suspenseful work of science fiction is set in a fantastical world that could only come from the brilliant imagination of Orson Scott Card.

  • In a not-too-distant future that is not quite ours, there has been a major scientific breakthrough, a way to open windows into the past, permitting historical researchers to view, but not participate in, the events of the past.

    A small group of scientists and historians, carefully trained, spend their days viewing the human past through a machine, the TruSiteII. It takes a particular talent to search the past for moments of significance, to focus the machines and track individuals through the depths of time, but a woman named Tagiri is more than just talented—she has a knack for finding interesting lives.

    But the world Tagiri lives in is a tragic place, the human race reduced to a population of less than one billion after a century of war and plague, of drought and flood and famine. There have been too many extinctions; too much land has been poisoned. The remaining people strive to renew the Earth while they search the past for the causes of their plight.

    Then one day, while watching the slaughter of the Caribe tribes by the Spanish led to Hispaniola by Christopher Columbus, Tagiri makes a discovery that will change everything; she discovers that the woman she is watching is seeing her, too, as a vision sent by her gods.

    Can the past be changed? Can the Earth be restored? Can it be right for a small group of people to take action that, if it succeeds, will wipe out the entire time line in which they live, even if the death of an entire planet will be averted?

    And even if the answer is yes, where do they begin?

    In one of the most powerful and thought-provoking novels of his remarkable career, Orson Scott Card interweaves a compelling portrait of Christopher Columbus with the story of a future scientist who believes she can alter human history from a tragedy of bloodshed and brutality to a world filled with hope and healing.

  • High above Earth orbits the starship Basilica. On board the huge vessel are a sleeping woman and an artificial intelligence, the Oversoul of Harmony. Of those who made the journey from the planet Harmony, Shedemai alone has survived the hundreds of years since the Children of Wetchik returned to Earth.

    She now wears the Cloak of the Starmaster, given to her by Nafai when he chose to live out his life on Earth. The Oversoul sometimes wakes her from her hibernation chamber to watch over her descendants on the planet below. The population has grown rapidly—there are cities and nations now, whole peoples descended from those who followed Nafai or Elemak. Shedemei watches with sorrow as the war between those two brothers lives on in the enmity of their descendants.

    Shedemei and the Oversoul have recorded much of the history of Earth since they came, but in all the long years of watching and searching, the Oversoul has not found the thing it sought. It has not found the Keeper of the Earth, the central intelligence that alone can repair the Oversoul’s damaged programming and allow it to return to Harmony.

    But on the planet below, among the people there, Shedemei and the Oversoul can see the influence of the Keeper. And now, in Shedemei’s dreams, the Keeper speaks to her again, sending powerful warnings. She is needed on the surface, with her knowledge and the power of the Starmaster’s Cloak. And so at last she determines to go. The last living child of Harmony will return to Earth and search for the Keeper as she once searched for the Oversoul—by being its servant until at last they come face to face. 

  • When war broke out on the planet Harmony, the Oversoul of that colonized world selected the family of Wetchik to carry it back to long-lost Earth. Now the tribe is ready at last to take a ship to the stars, but from the beginning there has been bitter dispute between Wetchik’s sons, Nafai and Elemak. On board the starship Basilica, the children of the tribe will become pawns in the struggle for control of reclaimed Earth. Each faction is making secret plans to awaken the children early from the cold-sleep capsules in which they will pass the decades-long journey, hoping to gain years of influence on their minds and win their loyalty. But the Oversoul is truly in control of this journey, and only the son who wears the cloak of the starmaster really understands what this will mean to all their plans for the future.

  • When Runnel, a friendless peasant from a village so humble that money is a new concept, leaves his mountain valley, he is completely unaware of his magical talents. Seeking his fortune, he stumbles into a centuries-old feud when he travels to Mitherhome, the city of the water mages. He accepts a servant’s position in the household of the sole stone mage permitted within the city walls, and there his untapped magical talents and his fascination with his master’s abilities are a predictably dangerous combination. Soon, without meaning to, he complicates and endangers the lives of everyone he has come to know and care about, for when it comes to magic, there are rules and laws, and the untrained mage-to-be must be careful not to tap into deep forces and ancient enmities. Otherwise, other people might end up paying the price for his mistakes.

  • The City of Basilica has fallen. With the continuing failure of the Oversoul, the artificially intelligent guardian computer of the planet Harmony, the human colonists have begun to repeat the devastations of war and conquest wrought on Earth. To repair itself and avert disaster, the Oversoul has called a group of sixteen refugees from the fallen city of Basilica to a hidden, abandoned spaceport where the ancient starships lie. Now Wetchik, Nafai, and all their family must brave the desert wastes and cross the wide continents, guided by the voice of the Oversoul, to await the command to prepare the great interstellar ships for flight again. But among this group, not all have chosen their exile, and the angry resentment of those who were forced to join will make the difficult journey harder.

  • For millennia, the planet Harmony has been protected by the Oversoul, an artificial intelligence programmed to prevent thoughts of war and conquest from threatening the fragile remnant of Earth’s peoples. But as the Oversoul’s systems have begun to fail, a great warrior has arisen to challenge its bans. Using forbidden technology, the ambitious and ruthless General Moozh has won control of an army and is aiming it at the city of Basilica.

    Basilica remains in turmoil. Wetchik and his sons are not strong enough to stop an army. As Lady Rasa, through whom the Oversoul speaks, attempts to defeat Moozh through intrigue, Naifeh and his family prepare to voyage to the stars in search of the planet called Earth.

  • The sphere is alien in origin but has been controlled by man for millennia. A legend as old as the stars rules this constructed world: when the seventh seventh seventh human Heptarch is crowned, he will be the Kristos and will bring salvation—or eternal destruction of the cosmos.

    Patience is the only daughter of the rightful Heptarch, but she, like her father, serves the usurper who has destroyed her family; for she believes that duty to one's race is more important than duty to one's self. But the time for prudence has passed, and Patience must journey to the heartsoul of the planet with a small band of companions to confront her destiny—and the destiny of her world.

    Wyrms is a science fiction epic with mythological style that is sure to enchant listeners with its unique world and premise.

  • High above the planet Harmony, the Oversoul watches. Its task, programmed so many millennia ago, is to guard the human settlement on this planet, to protect this fragile remnant of Earth from all threats. To protect them, most of all, from themselves.

    The Oversoul has done its job well. There is no war on Harmony. There are no weapons of mass destruction. There is no technology that could lead to weapons of war. By control of the data banks, and subtle interference in the very thoughts of the people, the artificial intelligence has fulfilled its mission.

    But now there is a problem. In orbit, the Oversoul realizes that it has lost access to some of its memory banks, and some of its power systems are failing. And on the planet, men are beginning to think about power, wealth, and conquest.

  • The moment ten-year-old Ivan stumbled upon the clearing in the Carpathian forest, his life was forever changed. Atop a pedestal encircled by fallen leaves, a beautiful princess lay still as death, but a malevolent presence nearby sent Ivan scrambling for safety.

    Years later, Ivan is an American graduate student, engaged to be married. Yet he cannot forget that long-ago day in the forest nor convince himself it was merely a frightened boy’s fantasy. Compelled to return to his native land, Ivan finds the clearing just as he left it. This time he does not run. This time he awakens the beauty with a kiss—and steps into a world that vanished a thousand years ago.

    A rich tapestry of clashing worlds, Enchantment is an original novel of a love and destiny that transcends centuries and the dark force that stalks them across the ages.

  • George Galen is a brilliant scientist, a pioneer in gene therapy. But Galen is dangerously insane. He has created a method to alter human DNA, not just to heal diseases but also to "improve people": make them stronger, make them able to heal more quickly…and make them compliant to his will.

    Frank Hartman is also a brilliant virologist, working for the government's ultra-secret biohazard agency. He has discovered how to neutralize Galen's DNA-changing virus. Now he is the one man who stands in the way of Galen's plan to "improve" the entire human race.

    This taut thriller takes the listener a few years into the future and shows the promise and danger of new genetic medicine techniques.

  • Kidnapped at an early age, Ansset has been raised in isolation at a mystical retreat called the Songhouse. His life is filled with music, and having only songs for companions, he develops a voice that is unlike any other.

    But Ansset's voice is both a blessing and a curse—for it reflects all the hopes and fears of his audience, and, by magnifying their emotions, can be used either to heal or to destroy.

    When it is discovered that his is the voice that the Emperor has waited decades for, Ansset is summoned to the Imperial Palace on Old Earth. Many fates rest in Ansset's hands, and his songs will soon be put to the test: either to salve the troubled conscience of a conqueror or drive him, and the universe, into mad chaos.

    Songmaster is a haunting story of power and love—the tale of a man who would destroy everything he loves to preserve humanity's peace, and a boy who might just sing the world away.

  • Using the lore and the folk magic of the men and women who settled a continent, and the beliefs of the tribes who were here before them, Card has created an alternate frontier America; a world where a particular kind of magic really works and where that magic has colored the entire history of the colonies. Charms and beseechings, hexes and potions, all have a place in the lives of the people of this world. "Knacks" abound: dowsers find water, sparks set fires, blacksmiths speak to their iron, the second sight warns of dangers to come, and a torch can read the heart-fire of anyone within reach. It is into this world, in a roadhouse on the track westward, amid the deep wood where the Red man still holds sway, that a very special child is born.

    Young Alvin is the seventh son of a seventh son, born while his six brothers all still lived. Such a birth is a powerful magic; such a boy is destined to become something great—perhaps even a Maker. But no Maker has been born for many a century, and there is no lore to tell how the Maker's knack works. At the age of six Alvin doesn't seem to have any special talent at all, unless it's the knack he has of working with stone and wood, crafting tools and ornaments; unless it's his ability to paint a hex just right; unless it's the way he has with animals…

    Yes, Alvin is something special; and even in the loving safety of his home, dark forces reach out to destroy him. Something will do anything to keep Alvin from growing up.

  • In the first tale of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son, Orson Scott Card introduced his readers to a very familiar—but just slightly different—pioneer America where magic works. Hex signs are powerful, good and evil presences roam the land, and many people have special talents. In this thrilling sequel, Alvin Maker is awakening to many mysteries: his own strange powers, the magic of the American frontier, and the special virtues of its chosen people, the Native Americans.

    Young Alvin Maker, the seventh son of a seventh son, has extraordinary talents for a white boy—he can cause stone to split smoothly under his hands, his knots never untie, he can knit bones, and he can call small animals to do his bidding. Stranger still his talents are imperceptible to the Indians, who usually hear the fire-setting of the sparks and the water-finding of the dowsers as an interruption in their music but who cannot hear Alvin at all.

    Lolla-Wossiky is an Indian whose fate is closely linked with Alvin’s. He’s been an undignified drunk since he was eleven, when he watched white men murder his father. The black noise in his head since the death shot rang out has drowned out the green music he needs to live well, and his life is a constant search for the right balance of alcohol to still the black noise without silencing the green music—until he meets Alvin.

    Soon Alvin must summon all his powers to prevent a tragic war between Native Americans and the white settlers of North America.

  • Orson Scott Card’s Tales of Alvin Maker have created a moving fantasy world from the dream of America and the simple magics of the people who settled her. Here is a world where folk magic is as much a part of life as hard work and religion, and where the red man and the white still have hope for living in peace with the land and each other. It is a fantasy unique to literature, yet as inevitable as breathing. It is a work that will live forever in your heart. 

    Alvin’s mortal enemy, the Unmaker, has found hearts and hands willing to do its bidding, while Alvin and the Prophet’s people were making their last stand. Now young Alvin returns to the town of his birth and begins his apprenticeship with Makepeace Smith, committing seven years of his life in exchange for the skills and knowledge of a blacksmith. But Alvin must also learn to control and use his own talent, that of a Maker, or else his destiny will be unfulfilled.

  • Alvin is a Maker, the first to be born in a century. Now a grown man and a journeyman smith, Alvin has returned to his family in the town of Vigor Church. He will share in their isolation, work as a blacksmith, and try to teach anyone who wishes to learn the knack of being a Maker. For Alvin has had a vision of the Crystal City he will build, and he knows that he cannot build it alone. But he has left behind in Hatrack River enemies as well as true friends. His ancient foe, the Unmaker, whose cruel whispers and deadly plots have threatened Alvin’s life at every turn, has found new hands to do his work of destruction.

    If that spirit of destruction cannot stop him by magic, or war and devastation, then it will try to crush the young Maker by simpler means—more human means. By lies and innuendo, and by false accusations, Alvin is driven from his home back to Hatrack River, only to find that the Unmaker has been there before him, and that he must now stand trial for his life.

  • Is it space travel that children dream of or merely visiting other worlds? Todd had always set his heart on being an astronaut, but when he meets an alien and travels to another world, he doesn’t use a spaceship; he just hangs out in his own backyard.

    In Space Boy, Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game, takes listeners into a strange and wonderful future, where people from another world regularly visit Earth, usually without being noticed. And when humans travel to their world, they find themselves dangerously weak and powerless, until Todd finds a way to set both worlds to rights.

    By turns funny and painful, Space Boy is Card at his best, exploring human nature for the entertainment of readers young and old.

  • Peggy is a Torch, able to see the fire burning in each person’s heart. She can follow the paths of each person’s future, and know each person’s most intimate secrets. From the moment of Alvin Maker’s birth, when the Unmaker first strove to kill him, she has protected him. Now they are married, and Peggy is a part of Alvin’s heart as well as his life. But Alvin’s destiny has taken them on separate journeys. Alvin has gone north into New England, where knacks are considered witchcraft and their use is punished with death. Peggy has been drawn south, to the British Crown Colonies and the court of King Arthur Stuart in exile. For she has seen a terrible future bloom in the heartfires of every person in America, a future of war and destruction. One slender path exists that leads through the bloodshed, and it is Peggy’s quest to set the world on the path to peace.

  • In a peaceful, prosperous African American neighborhood in Los Angeles lives Mack Street, a mystery child. Abandoned by his birth mother and raised by a blunt-speaking single woman, Mack passes from family to family, a boy surrounded by people yet deeply alone.

    Mack realizes how different he is from others the day he sees, in a thin slice of space, a narrow house. Passing through the magic house that no one else can see, Mack is plunged into a realm where time and reality are skewed. Inside, what Mack does has strange effects on the “real world” of concrete, cars, commerce, and conflict.

    Growing into a tall, powerful young man and pursuing a forbidden relationship, Mack becomes a player in an epic drama. Understanding this drama is Mack’s challenge. His reward, if he can survive the trip, is discovering who he really is and why he exists.

    Both a novel of constantly surprising entertainment and a tale of breathtaking literary power, Magic Street is a masterwork from a supremely gifted, utterly original American writer—a novel that uses realism and fantasy to delight, challenge, and satisfy on the most profound levels.

  • Enter the city of Hart's Hope in the realm of Burland, ruled by gods both powerful and indifferent, riddled with sorcery and revenge. The city was captured by a rebellious lord, Palicrovol, who overthrew the cruel king, Nasilee, hated by his people. And Palicrovol, too, was cruel, as befitted a king. He took the mantle of kinghood by forcing Asineth, now queen by her father's death, to marry him, raping her to consummate the marriage.

    But by letting her live after her humiliation, he proved he was not cruel enough to rule. She lived to bear a daughter, to return from exile, and to retake the throne of Hart's Hope. Then she, in turn, sent Palicrovol into exile to breed a son who would, in the name of the gods, take back the kingdom from its cruel queen.

  • It was a miracle of science that permitted human beings to live, if not forever then for a long, long time. Some people, anyway. The rich, the powerful, they lived their lives at the rate of one year every ten. Somec created two societies: that of people who lived out their normal span and died, and those who slept away the decades, skipping over the intervening years and events. It allowed great plans to be put into motion. It allowed interstellar empires to be built. It came near to destroying humanity.

    After eons of decadence and stagnation, a few seed ships were sent out to save our species. Each carried human embryos, supplies, teaching robots, and one man. The Worthing Saga is the story of one of these men, Jason Worthing, and the world he found for the seed he carried.

    This is a full cast recording, with an afterword read by Orson Scott Card.

  • From the bestselling storyteller Orson Scott Card comes a gripping story of terror within a small town.

    Step Fletcher, his pregnant wife DeAnne, and their three children move to Steuben, North Carolina, with high hopes. But Step’s new job with a software company turns out to be a snake pit, and eight-year-old Stevie’s school is worse, an unending parade of misery and disaster. As Stevie retreats into himself, focusing more and more on a mysterious computer game and a growing troop of imaginary friends, the Fletchers’ concern turns to terror. There is something eerie about his loyal, invisible new playmates: each shares the name of a child who has recently vanished from the sleepy Southern town. And as evil strikes out from the most trusted corners, it’s suddenly clear that Stevie is next on the list.