Quote:
Originally Posted by WhiteWolf  Has anyone here read FIRST MEETINGS? |
Yes, and it is very good. Although, keep in mind that there are two editions. One has the stories you mention, while the other also contains a fourth story in which we get to see Ender's first meeting with Jane...and that one is my favorite of the collection.
It is interesting to see where
Ender's Game came from, but the novel is...in my opinion...far superior to the original novella. Maybe that is just because I read the novel first and I like it so much, but I really think Card made some important improvements when he expanded it to novel length.
Ender's first meeting with Graff makes an interesting story, and it is fun to read as a curiosity, but I don't think it really adds anything essential to the canon. I suspect that it served as sort of a template for the section of
Ender's Shadow when Bean goes through testing, but that just might be my perception.
The weakest story, I think, is the first meeting of Ender's parents. It has its charms, but it just seemed to me that something was missing. I couldn't quite put my finger on what that was, but it just wasn't
right in my view.