Maps In a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card is an internationally acclaimed, New York Times bestselling master of speculative fiction. He holds a permanent place in science fiction history as the only author to claim both the Hugo and Nebula awards in consecutive years for his masterpieces Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead. Highly regarded for his profound insight into the psychological and moral development of his characters, Card specializes in high-stakes space opera, urban fantasy, and philosophical thought experiments. Over a career spanning several decades, his deeply human approach to systemic socio-politics, religious subtext, and institutional systems has earned him a devoted global fanbase and established his works as essential cornerstones of contemporary literature.

Winner of the prestigious Locus Award for Best Collection, this massive, 675-page omnibus serves as the definitive retrospective of Card’s short fiction career. Bringing together forty-six stories written between 1977 and 1990, the volume spans five distinct, thematic sub-sections covering dread, fables, and theological speculation. Crucially for collectors, the anthology preserves the original, unexpanded magazine versions of short stories that famously seeded his later universes—including the 1977 Analog novelette version of "Ender’s Game" and "Mikal's Songbird," which grew into Songmaster. Interspersed with ten deeply candid autobiographical essays and afterwords explaining his creative motivations. 

Navy cloth binding with silver lettering to spine. Original pictorial dustwrapper. Foxing to edges. Fine condition.