Maps in a Mirror brings together nearly all of Orson Scott Card's short fiction written between 1977 and 1990. For those readers who have followed this remarkable talent since the beginning, here are all those amazing stories gathered together in one place, with some extra surprises as well. For the hundreds of thousands who are newly come to Card, here is chance to experience the wonder of a writer so versatile that he can handle everything from traditional narrative poetry to modern experimental fiction with equal ease and grace. The brilliant story-telling of the Alvin Maker books is no accident; the breathless excitement evoked by the Ender books is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In this enormous volume are forty-six stories, plus ten long, intensely personal essays, unique to this volume. In them the author reveals some of his reasons and motivations for writing, with a good deal of autobiography into the bargain. Twelve of these stories, which have been superceded by later versions, rarely appear elsewhere. Included here are the story Mikal's Songbird, which grew into the novel Songmaster; the novella-length Ender's Game, which became the award-winning novel of the same name; and the epic poem Prentice Alvin and the No-Good Plow, which was the seed for Card's acclaimed Tales of Alvin Maker series. One of the genre's most convincing storytellers. An important volume.--Library Journal