“Then the gods are kind to me,” said Han Fei-tzu. Jiang-qing had never taken a step away from the Path in her life. She longed for death now, not because she hadn’t loved life, butbecause death was now unavoidable, and what cannot be shunned must be embraced. At first the words had seemed whimsical or ironic to him, but now he knew that she spoke with disappointment.

She had greeted him with these words each time she woke during the past few days. Time enough for careless noise during the long night that was to come, when there would be no hushed words from her lips. He had asked his friends and servants for stillness during the dusk of Jiang-qing’s life. But Han Fei-tzu could hear her clearly, for the house was silent. Jiang-qing, for her part, must also have detected some change in him, for she had not spoken before and now she did speak. But now he was aware of the slight change in her breathing, a change as subtle as the wind from a butterfly’s passing.

Until a moment ago he might have been sleeping he wasn’t sure. He recently began a long-term position as a professor of writing and literature at Southern Virginia University.Ĭard currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card, and their youngest child, Zina Margaret.įor further details, see the author's Wikipedia page.įor an ordered list of the author's works, see Wikipedia's List of works by Orson Scott Card.Han Fei-tzu sat in lotus position on the bare wooden floor beside his wife’s sickbed. Besides his writing, he teaches occasional classes and workshops and directs plays. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Orson Scott Card is the author of the novels Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead, which are widely read by adults and younger readers, and are increasingly used in schools.īesides these and other science fiction novels, Card writes contemporary fantasy ( Magic Street, Enchantment, Lost Boys), biblical novels ( Stone Tables, Rachel and Leah), the American frontier fantasy series The Tales of Alvin Maker (beginning with Seventh Son), poetry ( An Open Book), and many plays and scripts.Ĭard was born in Washington and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah.

Xenocide by orson scott card