Happy fourth of July to everyone! I hope you all enjoy a great BBQ with the family and an awesome display of fireworks today.

On some Ender’s Game news, this month there are two great releases of some Ender’s Game stories. The first, Earth Unaware co-written by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston will be released on July 17. This is the first book of a prequel trilogy.

Summary: 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.

El Cavador has other problems. Their systems are old and failing. The family is getting too big for the ship. There are claim-jumping corporate ships 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. The first Formic War is about to begin.

Check out Ender’s Ansible for a great audio preview of the book. You can pre-order the book here.

Secondly, on July 25 Marvel will release the graphic novel Formic Wars: Silent Strike written by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston and illustrated by  Giancarlo Caracuzzo. They are a set of five comics that are prequels to Ender’s Game. The first comic was distributed on December 21, 2011, but now they are featuring all new content. Ender’s Ansible has a great list of the five issues and a brief summary. You can pre-order the comic at Amazon or B&N for $14.12.

In this time of wait for any news upon the Ender’s Game film, get your fill with some great reading and comics. There is definitely more where these came from and certainly more to come. Have a great Fourth of July to all.