Ender's Shadow

Rating:
Summary: Incoherent story, lacks insight into human nature
Review: Publisher: Shake that moneymaker! Woo hoo!
Orson Scott Card: Uhmm, ok...

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Ender's shadow is a retelling of the original Ender's game story, but from Bean's perspective. I really liked the original, but it is simply impossible to get into Shadow because the main character is completely unrealistic. Bean is portrayed as a super genius who(as a 4 year old) actually ends up making the most important decisions in Battle School. The justification for this is something along the lines of "Bean is so intelligent that he doesn't need real-world experience to make the right decisions". Such a hopelessly naive idea of what intelligence is simply makes me feel sorry for the author who, as an adult, should know better. To be fair this was a problem with Ender's game as well, but not to the same degree.
When Card made Bean second guess the army's overall strategy after reading a book on 15th century fortifications I completely lost interest in the story(although I forced myself to finish it). Such actions have nothing to do with intelligence. Rather, they are poor attempts at patching up a truly sad plot.

What makes it worse is that there is no gradual development of the story. It just takes huge leaps whenever Bean has his revelation-style insights.

2 stars, because some parts of the book are actually quite good if you manage to forget Bean the impossible genius.

If you want good novels where children are the heroes, try Vernor Vinge's "Across Realtime"(sf), "A fire upon the deep"(sf) or Raymond E.Feist's Magician saga(fantasy). Orson Scott Card has many good novels as well, but this isn't one of them.

Rating:
Summary: awesome
Review: Coming from someone who owns, and loves, Ender's Shadow, I would strongly recommend reading it. It has an awesome story line and, even though they are kids, great characters. It is hard for me to tell you about this book because there is so much stuff that happens and so much emotion behind it all. Throughout the novel, if there was someone sneaking around through vents, hacking in to the schools computer to find out information on other students or confronting his superiors, it would be Bean. He was always trying to get, and keep when he could, a step ahead of his fellow classmates. Bean was extremely young when he entered battleschool, about 6-years-old, but by far the smartest student. He could be smart because he just is, or because his DNA was altered by a mad-scientist before he was born. This novel was extremely entertaining because I loved to watch how bean would acknowledge his opposition (being they are in the battle room or on the streets), analyze their behavior, and expose their weakness. He did this to anyone, from enemies to allies. Bean was sneaky and cunning. His main problem, or greatest feature, was his size. He was picked on by other kids and was not thought of first when the time came because the kids at the school assumed small=not useful/dumb. This book shows beans life, starting on the streets to his intense years at battleschool. I suggest that everyone reads Ender's Shadow.

Rating:
Summary: a must-read if you liked Ender's Game
Review: What a novel idea. write a second book, telling the same story as the first but in a different person's perspective. how many pairs of books like this are in existence? Card was amazing in that he made the events that happened in Ender's Game just as suspenceful and exciting in this book. you never feel bored just because you already know what happened (from Ender's perspective). plus, it was so refreshing to know Bean's background.
I was so happy when this book came out, because I was so disappointed after reaching the end of Ender's story at Children of the Mind.
This book was a lighter read than Ender's Game, less anxious and on-edge; but more outrageous than any of this other books, a bit less realistic in my opinion. But still a great one!

Rating:
Summary: No great contribution to the series
Review: If you're going to skip one of the books in the Ender series, this is probably the one. Granted, it's meant to set up a backdrop for the two other "Shadow" books, but Bean's character isn't very difficult to figure out. It simply retells Ender's Game from Bean's perspective, and frankly, Bean is not nearly as interesting a character. As unbelievable as Ender's brilliance is, Bean's genius is completely overdone even despite Card's attempt to explain why Bean is so extraordinary. Still, it's not a horrible story by any means. As in his other novels, Card's prose and character development certainly need work, but once you get past that, you're left with a very entertaining story.

Rating:
Summary: A whole new perspective
Review: I loved Ender's Game, and when Xenocide got slower than ever, I left it for Ender's Shadow. I was not disappointed. OSC gives us a new character with a whole new perspective. Ender was the commander, but Bean was the behind-the-scenes guy in on all the secrets. Bean's story starts on the streets of Rotterdam with many other children, homeless and fighting to survive. It later brings you to the Battle School, where Bean quickly became one of the true genuises, and the rest is history. Or is it? Bean's story gives us exciting new characters, and a much better understanding of the events in Ender's Shadow. It can be read on it's own, like Ender's Game, but Game & Shadow complement eachother perfectly. A wonderful story!

Rating:
Summary: Ender's Shadow Review
Review: Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card was one of the best books I ever read. The characters were very well developed; they acted as if they were real people. The stroy followed a young boy named Bean, who was the shadow of a genious named Ender. It starts off with bean as a young boy struggling to survive in the streets of the city. There a nun finds hiim and realizes he is a genious needed in space to train for a war that is going on between the human race and aliens called buggers. Bean is admitted to a special school in space where young kids are trained to fight, problem solve, and use startegy to defeat the other kids in their class, working their way to the top. Bean does a lot of snooping around at the school and finds out that they are not really training at all; they are really fighting the battles against the buggers. Bean follows Ender all the way to the top of the class, living in his shadow, just one step behind. I really enjoyed reading this book; i kept you guessing all the way till the end. There are a lot of surprises though out the story that made it very interesting. I would reccomend this book to all readers because it is a very good book. The story will appeal to everyone because it is an all around good book, it is not just a science fiction because it goes deeper in to the human mind and analyzing problems. Ender's Game is one of my favorites and i think many other people will enjoy it to.

Rating:
Summary: Ender's Shadow
Review: Ender's shadow is about a small boy called Bean (who you may remember from Ender's Game) who has to save one of his friends from being killed by his arch enemy while saving himself. It is a very captivating book and I reccomend it to anyone who likes science fiction books. I enjoyed it at 13 years old (this year)

Rating:
Summary: Ender's Shadow Review
Review: Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card, I liked the transformation with Crazy Tom. I think that only Bean saw that he wasn't insubordinate, but all of the incompetent soldiers. Ender told Tom what the goal was and let him figure out how to achieve it by using his own ideas with some help from Bean. He also had a temper for actions that he didn't think were smart and he dealt with it his own way. Sending messages to everyone in his reach about how stupid his commander was and making the barracks look like a tornado hit. I believe that this was curved because he got to make his own decisions.
The theme of the book as I see it is how man can try to deceive its self, but in recognizing their weaknesses only makes man even more powerful. When Graff denied Bean access to the supply room, bean told him that it was unacceptable because what if Ender needed supplies from a certain country, would they deny him because they needed it. I think that this would relate to my life because I know as many people experience, many downfalls in my life. When my grandmother died, I experienced a very deep grief that I could hardly deal with. Then I realized that everyone dies and that I had to deal with it. So this experience made me stronger in how I deal with death in my life.
I believe that this book is great for people who like the Bean series. This book is also good for people who like sci-fi. When going to the moon is like working away from home for a couple of weeks and the Battle School is like boarding school for life. If you also like warfare in space and how children take warfare seriously and will kill for the sake of their pride, this is the book for you.

Damien
-319 words.

Rating:
Summary: Ender's shadow, an awesome book
Review: Bean's world is very different than the world we know today. The world has stopped warring against each other and is united for a single cause; to defeat the aliens in the "second invasion." Earth was attacked by the formics and almost defeated. Since then Earth has started a Battle School Program to train the brightest young minds in our world to defend the home planet.
Bean gets rescued from the streets and a murderous madman by a nun, Sister Carlotta. While taking Battle School admissions tests Bean and Sister Carlotta learn that he's incredibly brilliant. After being launched into space to live in a giant revolving wheel, Battle School, Bean learns that being incredibly smart and incredibly young is not a good recipe for making friends. In battle school Bean learns that a great responsibility is put on his shoulders. The life of the street urchin known only as "Bean" is fun and exciting life to read about. If you liked Ender's Game you will love Ender's Shadow.

Rating:
Summary: Ender's Shadow Review
Review: I think that Ender's Shadow is a great book. It is exciting and full of intrigue. This book also has many twists and turns. I highly recommend it to people familiar with the Ender's series, to people new to it, or to people who've never even heard of it. This book starts off at a fast pace, so you don't have to read boring background information or narrative. This book is great from the beginning till the end, and it'll leave you wanting to read the next of the series.
Ender's Shadow is about a kid named Bean. Bean is about 3 or 4 years old. He lives on the streets of a city called Rotterdam. Bean is a very smart kid because he is the outcome of a genetic experiment. He escapes from the lab and lives on the streets. Eventually a nun named Sister Carlotta comes and finds that Bean is a genius, so she takes him up to battle school.