Rating: 
Summary: 4 1/2 stars? Some people are nuts.
Review: This book deserves 5. I didn't like _Ender's Game_ as much as this one--I reviewed it at Amazon with 4 stars. Why? Simply because something was missing from it. _Ender's Shadow_ has enhanced the story without changing it. Someone said that Ender was made less smart than Bean in this. Did I miss something? Jeez, I hope not. Bean & Ender depend on each other; they are different parts of the same idea. Saving the world would have been a little bit stressing for one 10 year old kid to handle on his own. And it *was*--you can see it in this book. Furthermore, Bean is a character that you can fully sympathize with...just like I could fully sympathize with Ender. Don't make this book narrow your view. Make it broaden it. I personally saw how the whole business affected the rest of the kids at Battle School (at least the ones that helped Ender at the end). Card also makes way for another one of his next books, the one about Petra. Maybe I am partial to _Shadow_ because I met Card at a signing and he read from it. Whatever. Either way, I was enjoying the book. Can't wait for the sequel.
Rating:
Summary: A master of character and plot
Review: That about sums up how I feel about this book and the author. One of the deans of science fiction. I'd also recommend Dan Simmon's HYPERION series and Robert Doherty's AREA 51 series if you haven't read them yet. All different, but interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Much more than a retelling of Ender's Game
Review: Bean's life before Battle School is a great story on its own, and also helps fill in social and political background to Ender's Game.Once Bean gets to Battle School, there are cases of overlap with Ender's Game, but not as many as you might think. Much more interesting are the cases where Bean knows things Ender doesn't -- significant knowledge and involvement with other events that add depth to the original story. Ender's Shadow ends with the door wide open to another sequel, this time with Bean on Earth after the conclusion of the Bugger War. Outstanding book, every bit as good as Ender's Game.
Rating: 
Summary: Great, but a little strained to fit the preexisting facts
Review: It's very good, and enjoyable to see another perspective (well, sort of), on Ender's Game, which I loved both as a short story and a novel. The character of Bean is rather altered from Ender's Game, and that is a little frustrating. There are conversations that Card must adhere to, and he makes them fit Bean's new character by making Bean say things that don't really fit his new character and excusing them, more or less on the grounds that Bean is nervous in the presence of his idol Ender. The light seems to go out of this book when Ender leaves Battle School, and things are more or less stretched along until the climax. OK, there has just got to be a sequel, and one event happens at the end of the book which is totally unnecessary to the plot if there was to be only one book. It sets up a sequel, which is needed anyway to resolve Bean's medical problems (which aren't too necessary to the plot, either, if there was just going to be one book, it wouldn't be necessary to have them) I welcome the sequel if it will feature Peter Wiggins in his rise to become Hegemon, and Valentine as well. But I think we all know they will. I imagine there will be a third book, perhaps ending when Ender's Game ends. Good, but perhaps better named "Only a Shadow of Ender's Game".
Rating:
Summary: Another masterpiece by OSC
Review: Ender's Shadow is an excellent book, although I feel that Ender's Game is better, and should in fact be read first. Whereas Ender's Game describes the world and events more slowly and in-depth, Ender's Shadow seems to assume that the reader has prior knowledge of some topics to a certain degree. However, even if you haven't read Ender's Game this book should still capture both your imagination and your heart!
Rating:
Summary: Awesome!
Review: Awesome! Orson Scott Card has done it again. I devoured this book in a single weekend, as I did with Ender's Game years ago. It now ranks as one of my favorite OSC novel, and even my favorite in the Ender Quartet. What a brilliant idea to develop an alternate telling of the same story instead of adding to the canon of far-in-the-future sequels. I wasn't disappointed by this book at all. I honestly feel that it lives up to the quality-and intensity-of Ender's Game. Thank you, OSC, for turning your attention again to the Ender story. I hope there are many more stories to come!
Rating: 
Summary: Mixed Emotions
Review: I have been an avid OSC fan for many years. I first read Ender's Game in sixth grade and over the years I have worn the book literally to pieces. When I learned Ender's Shadow was to be released I was very excited. However, the book did not live up to my understandably high expectations. In EG, Ender was presented as a heroic, brilliant, and tragic young boy. It seemed to me that by making Bean even more brilliant than Ender, OSC made Bean the REAL hero. I read Ender's Shadow in two grueling days. In the end, I felt duped, and I felt that Ender had been cheated. The book is worth reading, but read Ender's Game first, it is by far the superior novel.
Rating:
Summary: Another genre-bending masterpiece from Card
Review: A previous reviewer claims that Ender's Shadow overpowers, rather than compliments Ender's Game. To some extent this is true. Remember, Card turned the short story EG into a novel for the sole purpose of setting up Ender to be the main character of Speaker for the Dead. This time, he knows the story is powerful on its own, not just as a prelude to Speaker, so he cares more about what he's writing. Furthermore, Card has grown as a person and as a writer since he novelized EG. At the time, he was merely very good, now he is certain to be remembered as one of the best the 20th century has to offer. So naturally ES is more powerful than EG. While his work falls loosely into the science fiction/fantasy category, the science in Card's sci-fi refers to *social* science, not natural science. The five Ender books illustrate that. They're the closest thing to hard SF Card has ever done. Ender's Game is an epic in an SF setting, Speaker is an anthropological novel in an SF setting, Xenocide and Children of the Mind are metaphysical speculations on the nature of the universe in an SF setting, and ES is in many ways a psychological thriller in an SF setting. Card really gets into the characters' heads much better in ES than in EG, because that's what he was trying to do. EG is more concerned with events and less wich characters, because that's what Card tried to do then. A novel combining the two approaches would be overly long, confusing, and directionless. My one complaint about ES, and the reason I give it only four stars, is that it has very little of the subplotting and parallelism between subplots and the main plot that Card's other books do so well. There is a small amount of it, but little enough that I'm not even sure it was intentional and what there is is very undeveloped. Four stars when compared to Card's other work, but an easy five compared to everything else.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but only if you read Ender's Game
Review: Although this rates as the best book I've read this year, it can't hold a candle to the original. I would suggest that anyone who wants to get this read "Ender's Game" first. In this book, Orson Scott Card doesn't do a very good job of introducing why they're at war, what the battle room is like, etc. Moreover, many of the best parts of this book only make sense if you're familiar with Ender's Game. The character Bean seems to be a lot like Lovelock. His very intellectual, but often guilt-full view of the events are a nice contrast to Ender's, Peter's, and Val's views. The first 50 pages are incredible. After that, the book is rather slow and philosophical until he meets Ender. A lot of his time with Ender is the exact same scenes as are in Ender's Game. After that, the book really picks up again. Even with those flaws, it's one of the best books I've read in a long time. I'm eagerly awaiting any future sequels. BTW, is it just me, or does it seem like one of OSC's main points in this book was to make Ender look bad? This might not be a good book for someone who considers Ender a role model.
Rating: 
Summary: Been there, done that - still a pretty good read.
Review: Like others, I was captivated by the concept of Ender's Shadow - a "parallel novel" to Ender's Game. Also like others I read the first four chapters online and pre-ordered the book right away. I wondered how Card would handle the times when Bean and Ender were together and the dialog and plot outcomes were already known. Unfortunately even Card could not really pull off a totally new experience. The best parts of this book were when Bean and Ender were not together and their parallel development was happening - most of the best was the free four chapters online. When they got together it was as if Card was "filling in the blanks" from Ender's Game when there really weren't any blanks that needed filling. So what if Bean was smart too? So what if he was a helper to Ender? Just how much more stupid could the teachers look anyway? If you loved Ender's Game you will definately like Ender's Shadow - it is great just to be reminded of the original classic. However, Ender's Shadow doesn't really do well at all on its own and adds nothing important to the original.
| 
