Bio of a Space Tyrant
science fiction
Series · science fiction
Ender's Game
The Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card has 6 known books (6 published) and is best read in publication order, starting with Ender's Game (1985). The latest book with a fully recorded publication date is Ender in Exile.
- Books
- 6 known books (5 novels + 1 novella)
- Published
- 6
- First published
- 1985
- Status
- completed
- Shelved under
- Science Fiction
- Last checked
Start here: Ender's Game (1985) — then read straight through in publication order.
Reading order
The date order of published books and any announced future entries — the default way to read the series.
- Book 1:
Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card opened Ender's Game on January 15, 1985, a 330-page debut in which six-year-old Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is recruited into Battle School, an orbiting academy built to find and train the child who can save humanity from a third alien invasion. Its final twist recontextualizes everything before it and remains one of science fiction's most famous.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Ender's Game - Book 2:
Speaker for the Dead
Speaker for the Dead followed in March 1986, the second book at 415 pages, jumping the timeline forward to find an adult Ender, now travelling under a different name, investigating the death of an alien species on a distant colony world.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Speaker for the Dead - Book 3:
Xenocide
At 569 pages, Xenocide is the longest book in the core series; Card published it in 1991 as the third entry, deepening the moral crisis Speaker for the Dead set in motion around Ender and the alien species he's come to know.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Xenocide - Book 4:
Children of the Mind
Children of the Mind, from 1996, is the fourth numbered book in the core Ender's Game saga, running 384 pages and continuing directly from Xenocide as the concluding volume of the original quartet.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Children of the Mind - Book 5:
A War of Gifts: An Ender Story
A War of Gifts is a 128-page novella Card published October 30, 2007, following Children of the Mind and preceding Ender in Exile -- a side story set during Ender's original Battle School years rather than a continuation of the main saga's later timeline.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of A War of Gifts: An Ender Story - Book 6:
Ender in Exile
Ender in Exile, from November 11, 2008, runs 400 pages and follows A War of Gifts as this collection's most recent entry, filling in the gap between Ender's Game and the years that follow, before he becomes the wandering Speaker of the later books.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Ender in Exile
The order the story's events happen in, novellas slotted where they belong.
- Book 1:
Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card opened Ender's Game on January 15, 1985, a 330-page debut in which six-year-old Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is recruited into Battle School, an orbiting academy built to find and train the child who can save humanity from a third alien invasion. Its final twist recontextualizes everything before it and remains one of science fiction's most famous.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Ender's Game - Book 2:
A War of Gifts: An Ender Story
A War of Gifts is a 128-page novella Card published October 30, 2007, following Children of the Mind and preceding Ender in Exile -- a side story set during Ender's original Battle School years rather than a continuation of the main saga's later timeline.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of A War of Gifts: An Ender Story - Book 3:
Ender in Exile
Ender in Exile, from November 11, 2008, runs 400 pages and follows A War of Gifts as this collection's most recent entry, filling in the gap between Ender's Game and the years that follow, before he becomes the wandering Speaker of the later books.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Ender in Exile - Book 4:
Speaker for the Dead
Speaker for the Dead followed in March 1986, the second book at 415 pages, jumping the timeline forward to find an adult Ender, now travelling under a different name, investigating the death of an alien species on a distant colony world.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Speaker for the Dead - Book 5:
Xenocide
At 569 pages, Xenocide is the longest book in the core series; Card published it in 1991 as the third entry, deepening the moral crisis Speaker for the Dead set in motion around Ender and the alien species he's come to know.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Xenocide - Book 6:
Children of the Mind
Children of the Mind, from 1996, is the fourth numbered book in the core Ender's Game saga, running 384 pages and continuing directly from Xenocide as the concluding volume of the original quartet.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Children of the Mind
About the Ender's Game series
Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is six years old when he's recruited into Battle School, an orbiting military academy built to find and train the child who can save humanity from a third invasion by the alien "Buggers." Ender is a prodigy the adults running the program are willing to isolate, manipulate and break in order to shape into a commander — and the story is as much about what that does to a brilliant, lonely child as it is about the tactical war games he keeps winning. The final twist of Ender's Game recontextualizes everything that came before it and is one of science fiction's most famous gut-punches.
The sequels take a hard left turn from military SF into something slower and more philosophical: Speaker for the Dead jumps decades ahead to Ender, now an adult carrying the guilt of what he did as a child, acting as a truth-telling "speaker" at the funeral of a murdered scientist on a world with its own first-contact crisis. Xenocide and Children of the Mind continue that arc into questions of personhood, philosophy of mind, and genocide's aftermath. Ender in Exile, written decades later, is a direct sequel to Ender's Game that fills the gap before Speaker for the Dead begins. It's a series for readers who want SF that starts as a gripping child-genius war story and keeps getting stranger and more morally serious with every book.
Frequently asked questions
How many books are in the Ender's Game series?
The core Ender Saga is four novels — Ender's Game (1985), Speaker for the Dead (1986), Xenocide (1991) and Children of the Mind (1996) — plus two later side stories, A War of Gifts (2007) and Ender in Exile (2008), for six books total. A separate parallel Shadow series follows Bean and isn't counted here.
What order should I read Ender's Game in?
Start with Ender's Game, then Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Children of the Mind in publication order. Fit in Ender in Exile right after Ender's Game if you want story chronology, since it's set in the gap before Speaker for the Dead; A War of Gifts can be read alongside Ender's Game any time.
Do I need to read the Shadow series too?
No. The Shadow series (Ender's Shadow and its sequels) retells and continues the story from the perspective of Ender's classmate Bean rather than Ender himself. It runs in parallel to this series and can be read independently, in either order relative to it.
Is the Ender's Game series finished?
The core four-book arc has been complete since 1996, and no new mainline Ender novel has been announced since Ender in Exile (2008). Orson Scott Card has continued to write in the wider Enderverse via the Shadow series and short fiction.
Is Ender's Game a standalone book?
Yes — it was written to work as a complete, self-contained novel, and many readers stop there. The sequels shift genre and tone significantly, from military SF to a slower philosophical story, so it's fine to treat Ender's Game as standalone if that's not what you're looking for.
If you like the Ender's Game series
Reading order last verified .