Shadow of the Hegemon

Rating:
Summary: It's all about character
Review: I love to read Orson Scott Card because regardless of the specific story, it is the shared humanity of his characters that make the stories so enjoyable to read. As in the previous books in this series, the joy for the reader comes in the development of his characters and their interaction with each other. Other reviewers have described the story, so I will limit my review to the following: I always feel like I have learned something important about the way we interact with each other after I have read a Card story. I feel like a better person. Card uses his stories to teach us a larger truth without resorting to preachiness. Shadow of the Hegemon continues in this tradition as the reader is left thinking about more than the story at hand. Highly reccomended.

Rating:
Summary: BEAN AND PETRA--WHAT A TEAM
Review: I love this new series about Bean and his role in saving the universe. Card continues the story of Bean that he began in the book Ender's Shadow, in fine fashion. There was a huge gap in time between Ender's Game and Speaker For The Dead and this series shows what happened during that time.

The Battle School kids are all sent home after the Bugger War. Someone or some Country steals all the kids from Ender's Jeesh hoping to make their country the superpower of the world. Bean and Nikolai are the only ones not captured. Bean along with Sister Carlotta and Peter Wiggin work to get the kids released from their captors. All are released but Petra.

In this novel it is up to Bean and Peter to save Petra and stop Achilles from taking over the world. This is a great book and very enjoyable. The only thing that gets me is, how many times is Achilles going to get away? He should have been dead several times over already. Well, can't have everything.

Rating:
Summary: Very different than most Ender books but still entertaining
Review: Be prepared when buying this book, it is not the usual space-opera of the 4 Ender books and Ender's Shadow. I don't even know if you could classify it as science fiction. It's more like...futuristic Tom Clancy.

After the Buggers have been destroyed, war is breaking on Earth and the gifted students from Battle School are being kidnapped to be used by different governments. The entire book is politics and military based but what wins me over is how educated Card is on this subject. One cannot deny that he knows a lot about historical leaders and military tactics, but this is good and bad. It makes for a convincing read but Card overuses the comparisons to historical figures like Stalin and Napoleon. My thought is that Card was trying to explore the reasons behind the actions of dictators and heroes and this is further confirmed in the Afterword. This works in some places and doesn't in others.

The only other thing that bothered me was the Achilles showdown at the end. I'm not sure if Bean's decisions in that battle were great character development or a contrived part to guarantee the next 2 books. Of course the story has to go on because conflicts have not been settled, but few people would've had the integrity of Bean and Petra to let him off as easily. But I guess the point is that they aren't like most people.

Rating:
Summary: nothing that couldn't be guessed from ender's shadow
Review: I enjoyed reading Hegemon, as I've enjoyed all of the Ender series. The problem, as I saw it, was that Hegemon creates a new world which doesn't capture belief the way the old ones did. A small point, but one which bothered me- all of the military references are ones which any person would know. These references to Stalin, Hitler, Mandela, etc. are all references which would be made today, not hundreds of years in the future. To me, the solution would be to simply express the situation as clearly as possible and not rely on references such which date the book. It wasn't so obvious in Ender's Game, but now all the international politics feel directly spun from what the situation today. It's as if, because of the buggers, world conditions remained exactly the same as they were today. The attempts to create international intrigue and complexity felt somewhat weak, simply because they were too understandable. The idea that Battle School children are so far beyond normal people in intelligence makes no sense if the situations are so simple that most anyone could understand them. In Ender's Game, the conditions of the battles were not dwelt on; Ender was the focus. It was taken for granted that Ender was being brilliant and that the battlefield situations were so complex that the reader couldn't begin to comprehend them. This doesn't feel like it's the case anymore.

Rating:
Summary: Make sure to read Ender's Shadow First!!
Review: This book holds up to the standard set by Card in Ender's Game with some differences. One of the most obvious is the lack of 'science' in this sci-fi, as the book focuses more on the political plot and employs less of the futuristic and 'techy' stuff. Any fan of the series will genuinely love the continuation of the saga, whereas someone reading it as an intro to the series may not like it all that much.

Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Evolution of a Simple Story Begun in 1977!!
Review: Long ago (1977) and far away (I think he may have still lived in Utah) Orson Scott Card managed to jot down one of the most captivating stories ever written. The saga continues.

Taken out of context, SHADOW OF THE HEGEMON is not Card's best work. But it does an amazing job filling a nagging gap in Earth's post-Bugger War history. We always knew Peter came to be to Earth, what Ender was to the Galaxy, but we didn't know much more than that. Card weaves a beguiling story that dovetails perfectly with the first five books.

I found SHADOW OF THE HEGEMON facinating from the continuing perspective of "gifted youth who are forced into greatness." In the most powerful fiction, it's difficult to imagine how the human race could have placed its future entirely in the hands of youngsters, but 25 years ago, only Card guessed the prowess of youth against the Game (the video game). Today, I know precious few adults who can whip the average 10 year-old on PlayStation2. If and when war comes to full-scale computer-driven battle, is it such a stretch to think Earth would turn toward youth?

And in HEGEMON, only Card could build a plausible sceario which effectively answers how youngsters could be so important to the future of Earth even when the computer-driven Game is not the overarching center piece. Card says it in his end notes "A giant game of Risk."

For years (bordering on 2 centuries) Earth pulled together as one people against the Formics, the Buggers. Political infighting remained civil--words not arms. With the war over the great powers are back to their old games and desires to control Earth.

Card, shows as no one else could, how and why children (Battle School graduates)make the differnce. And for his female fans, I think he does a fantastic job developing two very powerful female characters. We can all use more of that.

If there was an overarching disappointment, it's that Card supposes human nature won't change, even after Earth was one against an alien race. The seed that spelled doom for the Buggers, is deeply planted in the human psyche. I prefer more uplifting themes. Who needs reality?

So, good book? Yes. Great book? No. But Card says there are 2 more to come. Let's consider this a new base from which to launch the next great chapter in this saga.

Rating:
Summary: Fails to measure up
Review: The Ender Quartet was great stuff. Ender's Shadow was awesome. But something happened between the last Shadow and this one... whatever it was, Card failed to come through with his normal grandeur.

The story itself is somewhat hard to buy, granted we suspend disbelief for fantastical works, but it was still a little much. Kidnapping the kids to force them to command your armies? Even a mediocre commander is going to give you better results than an enemy held at gunpoint. I simply couldn't buy it.

The endless amount of Bean being compared to a Christian ideal is exceptionally irritating. Card can only bring it up so many times until you want to scream "Ok, I get the point, not get on with the story!"

The whole thing left me with a feeling of dissatisfaction. My advice to you is just to quit with Ender's Shadow and guess as to what else happens... certainly much more fun than wading through this.

Rating:
Summary: Orson Scott Card, Master author
Review: I've been reading Orson Scott Card's books for 7 years. I've watched him mature from a great writer to a sensational one. I'm going to give an example from bean; Card talks about his emotional reactions being stilted, because he didn't learn them from an early age, and yet none of his actions are truly stilted. He feels awkward, and yet at the same time Card conveys his actual actions as completely, believably, human. In other words, he displays Bean as feeling emotionally stunted, but at the same time his actions show maturity. I wonder how may of his readers see how deeply he writes. I wonder if I truly see how deeply he writes.

Rating:
Summary: One of Card's best novels
Review: Maybe I'm just the biggest Ender sentimentalist out there, but I loved this book for every reason that I loved "Ender's Game," "Speaker for the Dead," and "Ender's Shadow": It's fantastic in every way, outlining its characters with the kind of precision and mastery that I could only hope to accomplish in all my days as an author and, one day, a screenwriter. "Shadow of the Hegemon" picks up one year after "Ender's Shadow" left off and moves on for another two or three years throughout the course of the book. The plot is quite ingeniously conceived and executed, and it finally answered a lot of the questions I had been asking myself ever since I finished "Ender's Game" for the first time, the main one being: How did Peter Wiggin become Hegemon? This book answers the main question of how it happened, but it left off in a spot that left me with a new question: How in the name of God and sonny Jesus are Bean and Peter going to pull of this imminent victory that they are prophesized to achieve, as is foretold by the last three "Ender" books? I was content to not have the answers. On the other hand, I can barely handle this feeling in my stomach that I call anticipation. Anticipation for the final two installments in Bean's saga, which is every bit as gripping and well thought out as Ender's. I just hope Card doesn't take a wrong turn after "Hegemon" like he did after "Speaker." I mean, don't get me wrong, I still loved "Xenocide" and "Children of the Mind," but they seriously lack in the kind of pace and brilliance that are evident in "Game," "Speaker," "Shadow," and here in "Hegemon." Nevertheless, despite any doubts I might be harboring, I do not presume that Mr. Card will let me down. I have every confidence in him. But in the meantime, I'm eagerly awaiting the fifth installment of Harry Potter. Godspeed, Orson.

Rating:
Summary: For the soul
Review: This book gripped me and broke through my reading dry spell. Read it all in one day, and wished there were more. Not a master work like SONGMASTER or ENDER'S GAME, but a stirring read relating to what it means to be human in this universe.

Small brains natter about details and unimportant errors. But as usual, Mr. Card, for all his intellectual prowess, is speaking to the soul of his reader. Too many zomboid americans who think they are cultured because they learned to read will not connect with this material. They will be unable to relate to the spiritual, emotional basis of this book.