Earthfall (novel)

Lore & Background

The children of Wetchik board the starship to journey from Harmony back to Earth. Rivalry between Nafai and Elemak leads to hidden plans for premature awakening from hibernation. The Oversoul directly interfaces with and transfers its consciousness into the ship's computer to monitor events. After landing, the colonists face a fragile peace masking deeper conflicts. They encounter symbiotic alien races: the Angels (giant bats) and the Diggers (giant rats), foreshadowed in dreams. The narrative shifts focus from the original generation to their children, as factions solidify. Nafai's 'Nafari' live among the Angels, while Elemak's 'Elemaki' associate with the Diggers. This dissociation breaks bonds between Nafai and Elemak, including the literal separation of Hushidh and Cheveya. Elemak's growing hatred spreads to his family and the Diggers, laying groundwork for war. After Volemak's death, the Nafari migrate north to found a new nation.

Reader's Guide

Earthfall continues the Homecoming Saga's allegorical retelling of early Book of Mormon events, blending science fiction with religious themes. The novel explores generational conflict, the consequences of factionalism, and the challenges of colonization. Card uses the alien Angels and Diggers to examine themes of symbiosis and cultural division. A 1994 Kirkus review noted the series would be more reader-friendly with fewer characters and more self-contained entries, but still found it impressive. The book's focus on the children of the original colonists highlights how inherited rivalries can perpetuate conflict. Earthfall sets the stage for the saga's conclusion by establishing the geographical and ideological split between the Nafari and Elemaki, mirroring historical divisions in the source material.

Did You Know?

• Earthfall is the fourth book of the Homecoming Saga.
• The novel features alien races called Angels (giant bats) and Diggers (giant rats).

A Vast Literary Landscape

The bibliography of Orson Scott Card stands as one of the most sprawling catalogs in speculative fiction, spanning an extraordinary range of series and standalone projects. The documented body of work includes well-known saga cycles such as Ender's Game, the Tales of Alvin Maker, the Homecoming Saga, Women of Genesis, and the Pastwatch series, alongside lesser-known sequences like Mithermages, Worthing, Empire, Pathfinder, Laddertop, Side Step, and Micropowers. Beyond these multi-volume arcs, the bibliography catalogs standalone novels, short story collections, and anthologies that Card himself edited. His output extends well into adjacent creative territories: plays, non-fiction works, books on writing craft, magazine columns, and even works adapted from other media. Publisher affiliations listed in reference materials include Macmillan and Marvel, underscoring how his reach crossed traditional genre boundaries. The sheer variety of categories—ranging from literary fiction to science fiction to religious-themed storytelling—paints a picture of a writer who refused to be confined to a single shelf or audience.

The Unfinished Mayflower Trilogy

Among the many entries in Card's extensive bibliography, the Mayflower project occupies a particularly poignant place. Conceived as a three-book trilogy, the work was a collaborative effort between Orson Scott Card and Kathryn H. Kidd, with its development beginning in 1994. The ambitious plan envisioned a complete narrative arc spanning multiple volumes, yet the project ultimately saw only a single book reach publication. The remaining two installments never materialized, leaving the trilogy permanently incomplete. The circumstances surrounding its truncation carry a somber weight: Kidd, the co-author who had helped shape the project from its earliest stages, passed away in 2015. Her death effectively closed the door on any realistic prospect of completing the remaining volumes. For readers who encountered the lone published book, the Mayflower entry in the bibliography serves as a quiet reminder of creative partnerships interrupted and stories that will never find their intended conclusions, standing as a monument to what might have been had the collaboration continued.

Seven Faces: The Pseudonym Strategy

Orson Scott Card's bibliography reveals a writer who, over the course of his career, adopted at least seven different pen names to navigate the practical constraints of publication. The reasoning behind each alias was often logistical rather than artistic. When contributing to a single magazine issue that already featured three of his pieces, he published under the name Gert Fram to avoid overcrowding his own byline. A similar situation in the July 1977 fine arts issue of Ensign magazine led him to use Brian Green for his short play The Rag Mission. For a Spring 1976 article in Sunstone magazine surveying Mormon playwrights—an article that briefly referenced his own play Stone Tables—he employed the names Frederick Bliss and P.Q. Gump. The pseudonym Byron Walley appeared in LDS periodicals like the Friend and the New Era, as well as in the short story Middle Woman within Dragons of Darkness. Finally, Noam D. Pellume was used for the short story Damn Fine Novel in the October 1989 issue of The Green Pages.

Preserving the Archive

The long-term preservation of Orson Scott Card's literary output extends well beyond the printed page into institutional and digital archives that ensure future scholars and fans can access his creative process. The L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University houses the Orson Scott Card papers, cataloged under the identifier MSS 1756. This archive contains not merely finished manuscripts but also writing notes and personal letters, offering a window into the behind-the-scenes labor that produced his published works. A snapshot of this collection was archived on the Wayback Machine on October 22, 2016, providing a permanent digital record. Beyond the physical archive, a detailed bibliography is maintained on Card's official website, complemented by a dedicated online library bearing his name. Publisher pages at Macmillan and Marvel catalog his commercial releases, while a separate reference tracks his science fiction award wins and nominations novel by novel, creating a multi-layered record of both his creative output and its critical reception.