Book Review | Earth Afire by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston (The First Formic War #2)

One of the most interesting things about the First Formic War trilogy is that if you’ve read Ender’s Game, then you already have some idea of what’s going to happen. Most of the references to this war in that book hint at a desperate struggle with horrifying losses. Earth Unaware begins that story out in the periphery of the Solar System. In Earth Afire, the war arrives at Earth.

The story picks up almost immediately after the end of Earth Unaware, with characters from the Kuiper Belt desperately trying to get word of the Formic invasion back to Earth. At the outset, only one person has arrived at the inner Solar System, but very few people believe his story. To me, the first several chapters feel like an odd extension of the end of the previous book. I feel like this portion of the story might have fit better there, where the title refers to Earth’s ignorance. I hate to sound like I enjoy reading about suffering, but each time I read Earth Afire I get impatient for the aliens to arrive at Earth and create their inevitable carnage.

Of course, once the invasion starts in earnest, the action really picks up. On the ground, we primarily follow the exploits of a young elite soldier who doesn’t like following orders named Mazer Rackham. (If this name doesn’t mean anything to you, go read Ender’s Game right now.) While Mazer has shown up in tangential roles in other books in the series, here he is front and center as the hero. Other boots on the ground include the international peace-keeping force from the previous book, as well as a resourceful young boy and his grandpa who have the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the aliens arrive.

In near reaches of space, we continue to follow many of the main characters from Earth Unaware as they try to figure out some way to take the fight directly to the enemy mothership. Much of the conflict here stems from the fact that only the corporate miners have enough resources to mount any significant attack, but the character with the best ideas for defeating the mothership has a deep distrust of corporate miners because of the events of the previous book.

Further out in the Asteroid Belt, another group from the previous book works to make a living as scavengers. This part of the story feels completely unrelated to the rest of the novel and features some very unlikable characters. While it does continue a plotline that was left hanging and gives a sense of scope to how the events on and around Earth are affecting the further out regions of space, I just had a hard time enjoying this part of the book. One chapter of this storyline interrupts the core story at a rather intense place, and it feels more of a nuisance than a necessary component of the plot.

Despite the somewhat muddled nature of the narrative, a key theme ties everything together. At the core, every major plotline revolves around characters trying to put themselves in the best position to help repel the alien invasion. In each case, it feels that the biggest obstacles arise from human self-interest. Often, bureaucrats and egoists feel more like the enemy than the actual human-killing aliens do. And in every portion of the story, characters are put into positions where they must make incredibly difficult decisions and sacrifices for the greater good. The theme of suspending personal interests and sacrificing for the good of humanity is very compelling and ultimately what saves the narrative for me.

As seems to be the rule in trilogies, the second part of the First Formic War trilogy feels very hopeless. There are few victories and most of these are minor or pyrrhic. In some series, I find this middle part of the story the most compelling, but that just wasn’t the case with Earth Afire. Rather than feeling like a core period of personal growth as the protagonists face defeat after defeat, it feels like an odd jumble of events to fill the space between the introduction and the conclusion. The novel also follows the long-running cliché in alien invasions where the military and other authorities prove woefully inept, and ragtag bands of misfits have all of the answers. At times it rises above these tropes, but at times I feel like it’s the same story I’ve seen in so many movies. In fact, one scene reminded me so much of Independence Day that I wondered if it might constitute plagiarism.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy Earth Afire a lot, but I don’t enjoy it as much other books in the Ender’s Game series, it’s direct prequel. Where the preceding book took a novel approach to the classic alien invasion plotline, this one feels jumbled together at times and cliché at others. A good read, but it could have been better.

Title: Earth Afire
Series: The First Formic War
Author: Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston
Genre: Science Fiction
Publisher: Tor Science Fiction
Release Date: April 29, 2014
Pages: 544

One hundred years before Ender's Game, the aliens arrived on Earth with fire and death. This is the story of the First Formic War.

Victor Delgado beat the alien ship to Earth, but just barely. Not soon enough to convince skeptical governments that there was a threat. They didn't believe that until space stations and ships and colonies went up in sudden flame.

And when that happened, only Mazer Rackham and the Mobile Operations Police could move fast enough to meet the threat.