Earth Unaware (The First Formic War 1)

Creating comics is much like filmmaking in that's it a highly collaborative process. Ideas can come from anywhere, and the contributions of each individual shape the outcome for everyone. The character of Victor Delgado, for example, will always exist in my head exactly as Giancarlo drew him. And the muted earth tones that Jim gave El Cavador are the colors I see whenever I think of the ship.

There were other people involved in the comics, of course, but the person who deserves the most credit and a lifelong standing ovation is Jordan D. White, our editor at Marvel, who had a hand in every aspect of the comics and who may be the nicest person working in the industry today. (You should follow him on Twitter at @cracksh0t. That's a zero, not the letter O.)

Additional thanks go to Jake Black, Billy Tan, Guru-eFX, Cory Petit, Jenny Frison, Salvador Larroca, Aron Lusen, Bryan Hitch, Paul Mounts, Arune Singh, John Paretti, Joe Quesada, and everyone else at Marvel.

As Scott and I continued to develop the stories for each issue, we continued to create story elements that simply wouldn't fit in the comics. To give you a sense of what I mean, this novel only includes the story contained in the first three issues of the comics. And not even the complete story of those issues; there are bits of issues two and three that won't exist in novel form until a subsequent book.

So Scott and I had to make some concessions and exclude people and events from the comics that we knew would only exist in the novels. If you've read the comics as well as this book, you've likely noticed some of the changes. Scott and I think of it this way: The comics are an adaptation of the novels even though the comics existed before the novels. Or perhaps it might be more accurate to say: The comics are an expansion of the backstory of Ender's Game and an adaptation of the novels that followed them. Hmm. Think about that too much and you might get dizzy. Of course, this practice of evolving a story is nothing new to the Ender universe. Remember, Ender's Game began as a novelette.

As for this novel, thanks goes to everyone at Tor, especially our editor, Beth Meacham, whose wise counsel was critical in bringing the novel to life. Additional thanks go to Kathleen Bellamy, Kristine Card, and my wife, Lauren Johnston, for their careful reading of the manuscript and constant encouragement. Thanks also to the children still living in the Card and Johnston homes, for their patience as Scott and I closed ourselves in our respective offices to make this novel happen. Thank you, Zina, Luke, Jake, Layne, and little Meg. We couldn't have done it without you.