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Summary: Ender's Shadow Book Reveiw
Review: Ender's Shadow Book Review
By Corey
Ender's Shadow is a parallel novel to Ender's Game. Ender's Shadow is about a boy named Bean. Bean was a homeless child in the city of Rotterdam and was taken off of the streets to a school where he learned what he needed to know for a school in outer space called Battle School. The school that he went to on earth was a Catholic School his teacher was a nun and her name was Sister Carlotta. Bean was taken from her to be sent to Battle School where he meets his twin brother Nickoli and bean doesn't know that Nickoli is his twin brother, but he does find out sooner or later. Sister Carlotta goes on a worldwide search for Bean's parents. Eventually she finds them. Bean believes that he will see the famous Ender Wiggin. Then in the first 3 months of Battle School Bean is transferred to Ender's Dragon Army. Then the mystery unfolds from there on and you need to read it to find out.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as the original.
Review: Unlike its predecessor, This work is not driven both by character development and plot. In fact since the plot is already mostly know it is almost evntoirely based on the character of Bean. At first it seems like this will work out very well. The first part of the book where Bean lives on the streets of Rotterdam are fascinating, but things go downhill aftre that. Amazingly despite the fact that the whole book is aimed at developing Bean as a character hhe remains remarkably flat throughout. Furthermore Ender is pushed to the back almost as if he is a nonessential character in the story.
On the up side, the plot moves along quickly. for old fans of the battle school getting caught back up in the setting will not be difficult. Overall the work is entertaining but not on the level of Ender's game.
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Summary: Makes hash of the original
Review: I thought this book was mediocre, but I thought some things didn't feel quite right. So I checked "parallel" passages from Ender's Shadow and Ender's Game. That was when I realized that this book makes the original incoherent.A great example: in Ender's Game, there are some passages written from Bean's point of view. I found these passages well-written and quite powerful. There's a serious problem: Bean's internal monologue in Ender's Game is nothing - absolutely nothing - like his internal monologue in Ender's Shadow. Consequently, this book effectively destroys one of the best and most interesting characters in his original novel. There's more in this vein, but there's no point in going on endlessly. Furthermore, Ender's Shadow is chock-full of little comments that obviously have no purpose other than to patch up little holes in the original that pedantic readers complained about.
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Summary: Amazing!
Review: It was a relief to see that Mr. Card decided to write about Andrew "Ender" Wiggin's right hand man (or boy). Telling of where Julian "Bean" Delphiki comes from and the hardships that made him who he was. In my opinion the storytelling and development of characters in this fine piece of work is by far, some of the Best Sci-Fi storytelling I have ever read. This is definately a book for Card fans and fans of the Ender Saga to have!
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Summary: Starts well but goes downhill.
Review: It is a sorry state of affairs indeed when the best portion of a Science-Fiction novel is the part that is almost completely grounded in reality. Such was the case in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow, a parallel novel to Ender's Game. The first fifty pages describe the rival criminal gangs in the ghettos of Rotterdam, and they sadly represent the pinnacle of the novel. After that...everything begins to tumble.
Ender's Shadow follows the life of "Bean," (his name is revealed in the latter part of the novel but it's fairly irrelevant) an extremely intelligent young child who, as the book opens, is on the brink of starvation in the streets of Rotterdam. He cunningly manipulates people to feed himself, and eventually gets out of the ghetto. Through the help of a nun, Sister Carlotta, he goes to Battle School (an orbital in the sky devised to train children to be officers in the 3rd Alien-Human War) and then the plot adapts to Ender's Game, Card's superior, albeit flawed 1977 entry.
Although "Shadow" was far from boring, and I would certainly reccomend it to someone on a long plane or train ride, it is too flawed to trully reccomend as a good book. For one thing, the main character is not a likeable character, and spending 400 pages with him is not an enviable sitation: he is a sullen loner bent on success, and he quickly grows irratating. Secondly, the subplot on Earth of Sister Carlotta attempting to see if Bean was a clone or a victim of genetic adaptation is irrelevant and brings the narrative to a screeching halt. The conclusion, although better than Card's attempt at profound philosophy evidenced in "Game," still leaves much to be desired. Card's biggest acheivement in "Shadow" is acheving the rare paradox of managing to alienate both people who read his other works and those who havent. He gives too little backround information on Battle School and all the peripheral settings for the novice to be entertained, and does not show much of Battle School that one who has read "Game" does not alrady know, so someone who was looking for more will not get what he or she wished. I would not reccomend to book to anyone aside from someone who needs easy entertainment...novices will likely be confused and Ender's Game fans will be dissapointed.
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Summary: Great complement to the Ender series
Review: Orson Scott Card continues to impress me. With the masterful novel of Ender's Game he follows with this great story. I would recommend reading Ender's Game first, however. This story is a great complement to the original story. I thought Bean was a fascinating character in Ender's Game. Bean is a very likeable character, very entertaining. I thought it most interesting to see Battle School from another perspective as well. After reading Ender's Game it is fascinating to see how Bean viewed Ender and what he was doing at Battle School. At first I avoided this book because I thought it was an attempt to squeeze more out of a classic novel, but I was dead wrong. This book I thought was almost equal to Ender's Game, and I have since read every book in this series, Shadow of the Hegemon, and Shadow Puppets. What a great franchise, full of action and very thought provoking. I highly recommend this book and this series to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: I really really liked Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card. It is hard to say if I like it better than Ender's Game, also by Orson Scott Card. Ender's Shadow is more of a tag along to the first book, it really just shows another point of view in the same situation. In this book it tells of Bean's struggles when he lived in Rotterdam, and because Bean was so little he had to use tactics, which caught the eyes of the battle school recruits. Bean was eyed by the recruits and then was brought up to battle school where he first met Ender. He and Ender became good friends and Bean was Ender's's right hand. It was different from the first book, this book seemed, to me, to have more feeling, deepness, and more realness to it. Ender's seemed to not know how to feel and Bean wore his emotions more on his sleeve, that's why I think I liked Bean better than Ender's sometimes. Bean was a little boy who packed a big punch, so to speak, and he was a little ruffian and I really enjoyed reading this book.
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Summary: Why Won't They Make It Unabridged?
Review: Ender's Game is my favorite book and Ender's Shadow is one of my favorites. I was real excited to see this audio book and picked it up the first chance I had. The reader does a fantastic job, but there are so many key elements of the novell that are missing. If you haven't read Ender's Shadow, or even worst... haven't read or listened to Ender's Game (the novel, not the short story) then there will be a lot of things you don't understand. I picked this because I loved the novel and thought I might listen to it from time to time (I've read Ender's Game twice and loved listening to the audio book as well) but I wish that they would produce an unabridged version as well. Other than that, I just love this adaption and am glad I've added the audio version to my collection (I spend a lot of time in my car). If you've loved the book, this is a great listen. If you haven't read the book, I would suggest doing so over listening to this abridgement.
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Summary: A Wonderful Retelling of My Favorite Story
Review: Ender's Game is my favorite book of all time and I was very excited when this book came out. I would have been happy if this novel were half as good as Ender's Game... and it was more than that. This was fantastic, a real page turner that you can't put down. If you loved Ender's Game, you'll love Ender's Shadow. This is a parallel novel (not a sequel) to Ender's Game. It is the same story only told from the perspective of Ender's right-hand-man, Bean. Only it isn't the same story because there is a lot about Bean that Ender (and therefore us) don't know about. Where did Bean come from? Who is he? Why is he so smart? These questions and even more are answered in this story as we find out that Bean had more influence that we had thought by only reading Ender's Game. If you have not read Ender's Game I would suggest reading it first. The real story is about Ender, and while Bean is just as interesting a story, the story is best seen through the eyes of Ender Wiggin first. But if you love Ender's Game, pick this one up and read it. This only adds more life to the story. Orson Scott Card, the master at creating loveable, believable, and fantastic characters, does an incredible job of bringing Bean to life.
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Summary: A great book, but not out of the shadow's yet.
Review: This was a very good book, but not quite as good as Ender's Game. This follows the same story, and takes place during the same time period, but it is told from the perspective of Bean, the best soldier in Ender's Dragon Army. It tells of his childhood in a place called Rotterdam, and reveals his true origins. Pick this one up if you can.
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