安德的礼物 (2007)

A War of Gifts: An Ender Story is a 2007 science fiction novella by American writer Orson Scott Card. This book is set in Card's Ender's Game series and takes place during Ender Wiggin's time at Battle School as described in Card's novels Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow.

Characters

Morgan family

Zeck Morgan – the anti-hero protagonist.

Reverend Habit Morgan – Zeck's father

Unnamed – Zeck's mother

Unnamed – Zeck's three younger siblings

Wiggin family

Ender Wiggin

Peter Wiggin – Ender's older brother

Valentine Wiggin – Ender's older sister

John Paul Wiggin – Ender's father

Theresa Wiggin – Ender's mother

Students

Dink Meeker – Dutch boy

"Rose de Nose" Rosen

Filippus "Flip" Rietveld – Dutch boy

Bonzo Madrid

Ahmed – Pakistani (Muslim) student

International Fleet personnel

Captain Brridegan

Agnes O'Toole – IF tester

Colonel Graff – Battle School commander

Literary significance and reception

A War of Gifts was not particularly well received by genre critics. The chief complaint with the story is that although it raises the issues of faith, religious freedom and religious suppression, it does so in a very superficial manner. Some critics have also commented on the character of Ender Wiggin who is described as being too Christ-like to be believable. A Publishers Weekly review described it as "an amusing and sincere tale". Kirkus Reviews described the story as a "Little League stocking stuffer that nevertheless makes several cogent points".

Chapter 2 of the piece, "Ender's Stocking," originally appeared in electronic form as the first third of the short story "Ender's Stocking," published in the October 2007 issue of Card's webzine InterGalactic Medicine Show. This chapter has been criticized for seeming to be unrelated to the rest of the book and for detracting from the rest of the story.

In 2016, the author released an abridged form of the story titled The War of Gifts for inclusion in the anthology Decision Points.

Connection to other parts of the Ender series

In addition to being set during Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, the Islamic counter reaction to the Christmas celebrations in A War of Gifts sows the seeds for the creation of the Muslim Caliphate by Battle School graduates which plays a major role in the Shadow series.