Ender's Shadow

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: A great book, and one that is hard to put down one you have started. I loved the character Bean in "Ender's Game", who now becomes the main character of his own novel. To see where he comes from and what he had to go through to get to the Battle School is great. The fact that Orson Scott Card was able to work the story around already writen parts of Bean from "Ender's Game" is wonderfull, and makes you relive Ender's story in the same time.

My only problem of this book however is that Card makes Bean look better the Ender. In "Ender's Game" he makes us beleive with our hearts that there is no better person/warrior/child/tactician/leader then Andrew "Ender" Wiggin. But now, Bean is supposedly smarter then Ender and only because of the lack of leadership skill did Bean not get the job done instead of Ender. If that was the case, then why did they spend so much time in re-aquiring Ender when he went back to Earth when they had wonderfull Bean there to bail them out?

But, apart from that, this is a must read for anyone who enjoyed "Ender's Game".

Rating:
Summary: A great companion to "Ender's Game"
Review: This book, more than "Speaker for the Dead" is the companion book to "Ender's Game". The biggest reason that I read it is because it was in the same world as "Ender's Game", but I wasn't expecting much from the book. Writers who go back to old material after leaving them for years tend to have flops, just look at the 3rd book in the Ender series.

Still, I had to read it, since I love the original so much. I wasn't disapointed at all, I couldn't put the book down, it was fantastic!

There were problems with the book, the main reason that the book fails in certain sections is because almost all the characters in the book are geniuses, especially Bean, the main character. He's so smart that he make Ender look a little slow. How do you write the deepest thoughts from a character who by definition is much smarter than you? Orson Scott Card has managed to do it, but just barely. The inability to write a character as smart as Bean leaks out in certain places where Card is just at a loss to say what such a genius might say. Still, he does as good a job as I've seen since reading "Odd John" where the main character is the next step in human evolution.

All in all I heartily recommend this book. If you've read and loved "Ender's Game" and "Speaker fo the Dead" and been disapointed in "Xenocide", try this book, it's so great to come back to Ender's world.

Rating:
Summary: Ender's Shadow Book Review
Review: Ender's Shadow
By: Orson Scott Card
Science Fiction

This book is the parallel novel to Ender's Game. Although it is a parallel novel, one would not have to read Ender's Game first to read this book. It follows the same timeline as the character Ender, but in the point of view of Bean. The story first starts off by showing a character named Bean at a very young age in a run down neighborhood in the distant future. Bean, not being just another normal child, survives the harsh life of living on the streets. His intelligence is way above any others and after a while is noticed by a nun who works for the battle school which is where all the extremely intelligent students go to train and fight against the Buggers, which are an insect-like alien race that has attacked the planet Earth twice already. When he is tested to go into battle school, the administrators there think he is cheating because his scores are so perfect. When he is accepted, Bean is even unsure to go himself until he sees this is his only way of living because he has already made enemies on the streets. Bean thinks that his only reason for living is for surviving. When he is in battle school, the administrators make sure he is following up to their expectations and also following in Ender's footsteps. Throughout the story he learns that he is not just a normal human and strives to find out what he exactly is, but in the process he does end up becoming a little more human. Bean also runs through many obstacles, including a long encounter with his arch enemy Achilles whom he was running from before on the streets.

This book is very interesting to read and I even read it myself in a matter of days. It is so interesting because the writing style Card wrote this book in is detailed but also gives you room for creatively to think of everything in your head. The issues the book raises about human feelings are one of the main things the character Bean doesn't realize he is getting, but is slowly realizing he has feelings just like everyone else although he is not fully human. Although he is a genius he still does not realize this until the end of the story. I thought that this book was very well written as well as Ender's Game and although the storyline and timeline were the same, it is actually a whole different story.

This book showed me that anyone can be anything they want to be if they strive hard for it. The feelings that Bean encountered throughout the novel are all a part of being human, in the good times and bad and that there is more to living then just surviving.

Rating:
Summary: Without killing the myth
Review: It goes without saying, that it is better to read this book after reading 'Ender's Game'.
'Ender's Shadow' shows different sides of the story, making you question the all the glory of Ender from the first book, almost to a point where you think it is rediculous... but just almost...
although the story is told from a different view, in the end, Ender's greatness remains almost untouched - True, some of the great things related to him in the first book are lost, but still, in the end - he is still the hero.

Rating:
Summary: A successful experiment
Review: The story of Bean, a genetically engineered super-genius, which dramatically expands the role he played in the events that were depicted in Orson Scott Card's previous book, "Ender's Game." Earth is preparing for invasion by the alien Buggers by collecting children who show strong aptitudes for leadership so that they can be specially trained for a secret mission that won't be secret for anyone who has read the previous books.

When I first heard that Card had written this companion volume, I didn't think much of the idea. However, he has demonstrated that there really is a story to tell here, not just a chance to cash in on earlier success. He has also set the stage to tell the story of what happened on Earth between "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the Dead." I'm looking forward to the next novel in this cycle.

Rating:
Summary: This book is GREAT!
Review: I just finished reading this book. It is a great book. I read it for a school book report, it ended up i could not stop reading it. It is full of dialogue and emotion. It shows how observation can be one or your best tools for surviving. That is all this book is about, SURVIVING.

Rating:
Summary: Best book I ever read!
Review: This is the best book I ever read! If you haven't read it, you should, especially if you're a fan of Ender's Game.

Rating:
Summary: NOT Ender's Shadow
Review: I'm one of those people who waits until the last minute to go see a movie sequel, if I see it at all that is. When I was a kid and had the choice between going to see "The Empire Strikes Back" or "Clash of the Titans," I chose "Clash," because, even as a 12 year old, I new sequels were usually worse than the originals. In this case, "The Empire Strikes Back" was worse than the original, but much, much better than "Clash of the Titans" (which, for some strange reason looks great on the small screen, but not on the big one.)

Now, Orson Scott Card comes out with not only a few sequels to "Ender's Game", but a COMPANION PIECE, too. What the heck is that? "Ender's Game" is such a great novel; it doesn't need a companion novel to go with it. It's genius all buy itself. Leave it alone!

*Sigh* I can admit to being wrong. I should have had a little more faith. "Ender's Shadow" is great. Really great. It's so fantastic, I can't believe Card is able to tell the same story from a different angle and still make it worth reading. This novel is not a shadow of "Ender's Game." It shines with it's own brilliance to the end.

Ender's shadow is Bean who was introduced in "Ender's Game." You do not have to read "Ender's Game" to understand "Ender's Shadow," but I can't imagine doing it that way.

Bean is a small, but brilliant strategist, just like Ender Wiggins. We are given the pleasure of viewing Bean's life from his early days on the poor, refugee inundated streets of Rotterdam through his years as a child soldier-in-training in the intergalactic Battle School. Bean is chosen to be one of the soldiers who will one day fight Earth's enemys, the Buggers. The Buggers are an insect-like race that attacked Earth twice and left it destitute. By traveling into space to meet their enemy, it is hoped that Earth will have a little more time to defend itself it it's fleet loses the battle in space.

Just like in "Ender's Game," we are able to see a master strategist at work. Bean, at the ripe age of four, has to survive in a street gang. He has to make himself a part of them while at the same time make his gang feared by the other street thugs. In the process of doing all of this, Bean and Achilles, the leader of the gang bring some peace to the streets of Rotterdam. That's a lot of work for your average toddler, but it's just the beginning of Bean's adventures.

Along with surviving on the street and becoming a leader at the Battle School, Bean is trying to discover who he is and where he came from. He knows he escaped from a "bad place", but he knows nothing about his origins beyond that. Does he have actual parents? Is he a clone of someone brilliant?

Bean is also learning to be a little more human. He is so used to manipulating people that he has difficulty feeling friendship or love.

This is another masterpiece from Card. If you didn't think he could create another "Ender's Game," pick up "Ender's Shadow." You will love it.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent story of leadership and survival
Review: Ender's Shadow was, like Ender's Game, an excellent book portraying the lives of gifted children who would rise to become commanders of humanities armies. Ender's Shadow presents what I consider to be a realistic portrayal of how leadership and survival work in real life, even though the story itself is fiction. It incorporates some of the nasty details associated with rising to power and becoming a leader, and a survivor.
Bean's struggle to survive in Rotterdam is not unlike the struggle of most animals in nature, always fighting to stay alive and come out a winner. One of the things I liked particularly was Bean's attitude when he's living on the streets. There is no room to feel bad or sorry about himself or other people, the only thing that matters is survival. This attitude is probably what kept Bean alive. In addition, Bean thought out his plans clearly and logically, taking into account a certain set of circumstances, forming a hypothesis based on what he knew, formed a conclusion, and then acted on that conclusion. Bean's other key to survival was his genetically altered intelligence, which is a shining example of how intelligence often prevails over brute strength. This is not to say, however, that brute force is not always necessary. The example of this point is Ender's killing Bonzo Madrid. That was one of the great things about this book, it demonstrated how a combination of intelligence and strength is required to become both a survivor and a leader.
The ability to become a leader is also a main topic of this book. Bean realizes that the reason he is not as good a commander as Ender Wiggin, at first, is because all Bean had was his intelligence. He nearly panicked and gave up before his first battle. Later on in the book, he incorporates other vital abilities to becoming a leader, like his ability to motivate groups of people, as was clearly shown in his speeches to the different armies, their toon leaders, and latter their commanders. Another thing he learned was that to be an effective leader he had to assert his own superiority over others or he would become a weak ruler.
What is great about these ideas in the novel is that these ideas of leadership and power are fully applicable to real life situations. For example, if a bully pushes a person, it is almost certainly within the best interests of that person to get back at the bully, whether by pushing back immediately or waiting until the time is right. Furthermore, if that person is to strike back they need to strike back so the bully gets a clear message sent into his head that he better not bully this person anymore, or else. Otherwise, the bully will never stop tormenting his victim.
Ender's Shadow was a great book to read, I would highly recommend reading it. Not only is it a fun story to read, but is also an almost educational story from which a lot can be learned.
Casserly, Pd. 1 English

Rating:
Summary: Possibly Better Than the Original
Review: This book is an interesting idea: take a popular book like Ender's Game and then retell the entire story through the point of view of another character, Bean. It seems odd because we never did learn anything about Bean in Ender's Game (except that he was small and kind of mouthy), but that does make everything seem fresh.

Ender's Shadow follows Bean's story from the toilet of an organ farm to the streets of Rotterdam to the final apocalyptic battle to defeat the Buggers. Bean, in my mind, is actually a better character than Ender Wiggin. Ender was always seeming to whine about his fortune in life: his brother, leaving his family, the constant grinding of the Battle School. Bean, on the other hand, because he was hardened on the mean streets, pretty much takes life as it is, without moping around. Bean ends up as the second-stringer to Ender, solely because his small size and obvious youth make it hard for him to get respect (a Rodney Dangerfield complex) to be able to lead fleets in battle.

The largest problem with this book, which I noticed in Ender's Game, is that Bean is not Ender's friend or right-hand man, in fact he's largely ignored by Ender. The issue with that is that in Ender's Game, Bean does almost nothing, but now in Ender's Shadow, he's this important supergenius who is behind a lot of the events of Ender's Game, including the creation of Ender's army at Battle School. It seems to me like Card is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and while I largely didn't mind that since the point of view of Ender's Game was mostly Ender Wiggin, which inhibited finding out about other characters, it does make me think that a lot of Ender's Shadow is just forced.

Another problem is that like Ender's Game, the ending of Ender's Shadow is also rushed. As soon as Ender leaves the Battle School, we get very little detail about what happens to Bean the final 8 days he spends at the school, and his experiences at Tactical/Command school are similarly rushed. After there is so much detail about Bean's early days, it's disappointing that the conclusion is so quickly brought to a close.

I'm sure there's probably a big debate somewhere about which book is better, Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow. I preferred Shadow, because I liked Bean better than Ender, not just because he seemed less whiny, but also that he didn't become some weird mystic at the end. I'd recommend reading both and see which you prefer.