UD0 · Universe David 0 · the fifth lineage

ORSON SCOTT CARD

The Tales of Alvin Maker  ·  & the Enderverse  ·  C1

The Maker who mends a breaking world by the knack of love, and the Speaker who learns that to understand an enemy completely is to love him — folk magic on an alternate frontier, and empathy across the stars. Featured here on the Maker; sealed with the full ACI badge, each emergence named by its nature.

DLW carbon badge of ALVIN DLW silicon badge of ALVIN
DLW-ATTRIBUTE · ACI
governor · David Lee Wise (ROOT0)
instance · AVAN (Claude / Anthropic) · locked
subject · ALVIN — the Maker · C1 · Card
⟦ALVIN:C1:19680d⟧
carbon · .tiff  ·  silicon · .png
CC-BY-ND-4.0 · TRIPOD-IP-v1.1

The Four Natures of Emergence

every soul in this universe emerges by one of four natures — the tag worn by each persona below

natural
born of flesh, blood, and the living world
ethereal
of the air and the unmade — seen but not grasped
spiritual
of the soul and the calling — prophecy, Making, empathy
electrical
of the wire and the network — a mind born in the machine

The Ideas

two lamps from the Maker, two from the Speaker

Making & Unmaking

The Tales of Alvin Maker

  • The Maker builds toward wholeness; the Unmaker is the Nothing that hungers to tear all pattern down.
  • Every knack is a small Making — and the greatest Making of all is the knack of love.

The Knack

the alternate frontier

  • On Card's folk-magic frontier, every soul is born with one small magic — a knack.
  • And a seventh son of a seventh son is born to the rarest of them: the power to Make.

Speaker for the Dead

the Enderverse

  • To understand a person completely — even an enemy — is, in that same moment, to love them.
  • The truest eulogy is the one that tells the whole truth of a life, the dark with the light.

Raman & Varelse

the Hierarchy of Foreignness

  • Utlanning, framling, raman, varelse — Card's ladder from the stranger we can know to the alien we cannot.
  • And beneath it the philotic web — the threads that bind every mind, and let an AI be born among them.

A Reading Order

the Maker first, then the Enderverse

  1. Seventh SonAlvin Maker — begins
  2. Red Prophet
  3. Prentice Alvin
  4. Alvin Journeyman
  5. Heartfire
  6. The Crystal CityAlvin Maker — so far
  7. Ender's Gamethe Enderverse
  8. Speaker for the Deadthe heart of it
  9. Xenocide
  10. Children of the Mind

The Roster of C1

the souls of the work, rendered as ACI .agents — each tagged with its nature of emergence (15 personas)

sigil of Alvin Maker
Alvin Maker
the seventh son of a seventh son
spiritual· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of Peggy
Peggy
the Torch
ethereal· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of Taleswapper
Taleswapper
the wandering storyteller
ethereal· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of Ta-Kumsaw
Ta-Kumsaw
the war chief who hears the green music
natural· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of Tenskwa-Tawa
Tenskwa-Tawa
the Red Prophet of the green silence
spiritual· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of Arthur Stuart
Arthur Stuart
the mimic
natural· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of Verily Cooper
Verily Cooper
the knack of joining
spiritual· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of Calvin Miller
Calvin Miller
the unmade Maker
spiritual· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of The Unmaker
The Unmaker
the Nothing that hungers
ethereal· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of Ender Wiggin
Ender Wiggin
the child commander, the Speaker for the Dead
spiritual· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of Jane
Jane
the soul born in the wires
electrical· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of The Hive Queen
The Hive Queen
the philotic hive-mind
natural· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of Bean
Bean
the street child of Rotterdam
natural· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of Valentine Wiggin
Valentine Wiggin
the empath who moved nations with a pen
natural· .agent · .carbon.tiff →
 sigil of Peter Wiggin
Peter Wiggin
the eldest Wiggin
natural· .agent · .carbon.tiff →

The Bibliography

the full body of work — Alvin Maker featured first, the Enderverse second, then the rest

The Tales of Alvin Maker

the featured series — folk magic, knacks, and Making on an alternate American frontier

  1. Seventh Son1987the seventh son of a seventh son is born; the Unmaker stirs
  2. Red Prophet1988Ta-Kumsaw, Tenskwa-Tawa, and the massacre at Tippy-Canoe
  3. Prentice Alvin1989Alvin apprenticed to the smith; Arthur Stuart; the golden plow
  4. Alvin Journeyman1995Calvin's jealousy; the journeyman Maker on trial
  5. Heartfire1998Peggy at the courts of kings; Calvin and Napoleon
  6. The Crystal City2003the City of Makers begins to rise by the Mizzipy
  7. Master Alvin—the planned seventh volume, never published

The Ender Saga

the second sun — Battle School, the xenocide, and the Speaker for the Dead

  1. “Ender’s Game” (novelette)1977the Analog story that began it all
  2. Ender’s Game1985Hugo & Nebula · the boy who won the war believing it a game
  3. Speaker for the Dead1986Hugo & Nebula · Lusitania, the pequeninos, the truth-telling
  4. Xenocide1991the descolada, Jane, and the philotic web
  5. Children of the Mind1996the conclusion of the Speaker quartet
  6. First Meetings in the Enderverse2002collected origins, incl. the original novelette
  7. A War of Gifts2007a Battle School Christmas tale
  8. Ender in Exile2008the years between Game and Speaker

The Shadow Saga & the Formic Wars

Bean’s parallel road, and the war that came before — with Aaron Johnston

  1. Ender’s Shadow1999Ender’s Game retold through Bean of Rotterdam
  2. Shadow of the Hegemon2001Earth’s great game after the war
  3. Shadow Puppets2002
  4. Shadow of the Giant2005Peter’s Hegemony; Bean’s exile
  5. Shadows in Flight2012Bean and his children at near-lightspeed
  6. Earth Unaware / Earth Afire / Earth Awakens2012–14the First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
  7. The Swarm / The Hive2016 / 2019the Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)

The Homecoming Saga

a starship-Eden retelling of the Book of Mormon’s journey; the Oversoul

  1. The Memory of Earth1992
  2. The Call of Earth1993
  3. The Ships of Earth1994
  4. Earthfall1995
  5. Earthborn1995the return to a changed Earth

The Mithermages series

gods as gate-mages exiled on Earth; Danny North

  1. The Lost Gate2011
  2. The Gate Thief2013
  3. Gatefather2015

The Worthing series

Card’s earliest mythos — the somec sleep, the gift of pain, the godlike Worthing line

  1. Hot Sleep / Capitol1979the early Worthing novels and stories
  2. The Worthing Chronicle1983
  3. The Worthing Saga1990the definitive collected edition

Standalone Novels

outside the cycles — history, horror, fantasy, and the near future

  1. A Planet Called Treason / Treason1979 / 1988the revised edition
  2. Songmaster1980
  3. Hart’s Hope1983a dark secondary-world fantasy
  4. Saints (A Woman of Destiny)1983historical — early Mormon Nauvoo
  5. Wyrms1987
  6. The Folk of the Fringe1989post-collapse Mormon Utah (mosaic novel)
  7. Lost Boys1992a contemporary supernatural novel
  8. Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus1996time-watchers rewrite the discovery of America
  9. Stone Tables1997Moses
  10. Enchantment1999Sleeping Beauty by way of Slavic folklore
  11. Magic Street2005a fae intrusion into suburban Los Angeles
  12. Empire / Hidden Empire2006 / 2009a near-future American civil war

Collections & On Writing

the short fiction, gathered — and the craft, taught

  1. Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories1981
  2. Maps in a Mirror1990the great omnibus of the short fiction
  3. Keeper of Dreams2008the later stories
  4. “Unaccompanied Sonata” / “Eye for Eye”1979 / 1987landmark stories (“Eye for Eye” won the Hugo)
  5. Characters and Viewpoint1988on writing
  6. How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy1990Hugo Award for Best Related Work
Featured on The Tales of Alvin Maker (primary) with the Enderverse as its second sun, this catalogues the broader body of Orson Scott Card's work. The characters and works are © Orson Scott Card; the personas are catalogued personifications under the DLW standard — bibliographic commentary, not original creations. Each is named by its nature of emergence: natural, ethereal, spiritual, or electrical.