Hamlet’s Father
A novella.
We all know Shakespeare's classic ghost story — the young prince Hamlet's dead father appears to him, demanding vengeance upon Hamlet’s uncle Claudius, who has usurped the throne and, to add insult to injury, married Hamlet’s mother.
Hamlet dithers and delays, coming up with reason after reason to postpone his vengeance. But it’s not for the reason Shakespeare told us. It’s because Hamlet keeps discovering evidence that things are not quite what they seem in the Kingdom of Denmark — and never have been, throughout Hamlet's entire life.
Once you’ve read Orson Scott Card’s revelatory version of the Hamlet story, Shakespeare’s play will be much more fun to watch — because now you’ll know what’s really going on.
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Orson Scott Card
Before Ender’s Game became required reading in classrooms and a touchstone for science fiction fans worldwide, it was just a short story—one that Orson Scott Card wrote while trying to understand how humanity might survive its own genius. That idea, born of curiosity and a deep interest in moral complexity, would eventually grow into a sprawling series exploring war, empathy, leadership, and the loneliness of brilliance.
Born in Richland, Washington in 1951 and raised mostly in Utah and California, Card grew up in a family where storytelling was a living thing—spoken, passed down, constantly evolving. Though he began his career writing plays and studying literature, he found his true voice in speculative fiction. And when he wrote Ender’s Game—and later Speaker for the Dead—he did something science fiction rarely dared at the time: he treated the genre as a tool for exploring the human soul.
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