Reggie said: > Or did LeGuin first talk about an FTL communication system called an > ansible, and Card just used it instead of creating one of his own?
Yes, this one. The ansible was the FTL communicator in her Hainish books. I've only read _The Left Hand of Darkness_ and _The Dispossessed_ from that series but both were very good. (It's often said that LeGuin chose "ansible" because it's an anagram of "lesbian" and that Card may not have been aware of this.) Rich, who isn't sure what the significance of that common observation might be.
