Cheater (short story)

"Cheater"
	Cover for the short story
Author	Orson Scott Card
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Ender's Game series
Genre(s)	Science fiction
Published in	Intergalactic Medicine Show
Publisher	Hatrack River Enterprises
Media type	Electronic (HTML)
Publication date	2006

"Cheater" is a science fiction story by American writer Orson Scott Card, set in his Ender's Game universe. It tells the story of how "Hot Soup" Han Tzu got into Battle School. It appears in Card's Webzine InterGalactic Medicine Show.

Plot summary

"Cheater" is the story of Han Tzu as a child. Han Tzu was born in Nanyang, China and was a descendant of Yuan Shikai, a great Chinese general. From a very young age, Han Tzu's father would play with him every day. It was his wish that Han Tzu would become a great general and bring glory back to China. When he got a little older, tutors began to come to his house to play games with him. After a while, Han Tzu discovered that the games were actually to prepare him for a test. One day, his tutor began teaching Han Tzu games from a list that his father had provided. When the testers from the International Fleet showed up to give Han Tzu the test, he figured out that his father was cheating. Han Tzu didn't want to pretend to be the best so he answered all the questions wrong. The next day, the people from the International Fleet showed up at Han Tzu's house and arrested his father for cheating but decided to test Han Tzu again, thus discovering how smart he really is.

Characters

Han Tzu
Han Tzu's father – unnamed
Han Tzu's mama – unnamed
Tutors – mostly unnamed
Wei Dun-nuan – language tutor
Shen Guo-rong – testing tutor
Boys to play with – unnamed
Girls to play with – unnamed
Mu-ren – household cook
Pei-Tian – father's driver
International Fleet testers – unnamed
Soldier – unnamed

Audio

In addition to the text version of the story, "Cheater" is also available from InterGalactic Medicine Show as an audio download. The story was read by Orson Scott Card himself.

Publication history

"Cheater" was published in the October 2006 issue of Intergalactic Medicine Show.[1] It also appears in the anthology Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show.

gollark: What? That's very low.

gollark: Or longer.

gollark: The timeline is probably a few hundred years to run out of uranium.

gollark: *Technically* with a finite amount you'll eventually run out, but advancing technology should mean it would be easy to replace it anyway.

gollark: You don't need to. There's enough uranium.

References

Orson Scott Card, "Cheater" Intergalactic Medicine Show, October 2006.

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[Note1-1] The events of Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow and A War of Gifts take place in roughly the same time period.
The events of A War of Gifts only take place during the time at Battle School).

[Note2-2] The events of Ender in Exile and the Shadow Trilogy take place in roughly the same time period.
- First part of Ender in Exile (2/3) takes place during the Shadow Trilogy.
- Last part of Ender in Exile (1/3) takes places after Shadow of the Giant.

[Note3-3] Note on the following (maybe not yet so common) Trilogies:
"Speaker Trilogy": Original set of sequels to Ender's Game, also referred to as:
- "Ender Quartet" (Ender's Game combined with "Speaker Trilogy"), also referred to as:
- "Ender Quintet" ("Ender Quartet" combined with Ender in Exile).
"Shadow Trilogy": Original set of sequels to Ender's Shadow, also referred to as:
- "Bean Quartet"/"Shadow Quartet" (Ender's Shadow combined with "Shadow Trilogy"), also referred to as:
- "Bean Quintet"/"Shadow Quintet" ("Bean Quartet" combined with Shadows in Flight), to be (?) referred to as:
- "Bean Sextet"/"Shadow Sextet" ("Bean Quintet" combined with Shadows Alive)

[Note4-4] Title is also mentioned in regard to a possible sequel for the film.

[cheater-5] Orson Scott Card, "Cheater" Intergalactic Medicine Show, October 2006.