Ender's Shadow

Rating:
Summary: Excellent! Read it in one night!
Review: First the critique then the intense praise! In the original book Orson Scott Card had made a point of religion being somewhat (socially unacceptable)- please recall Ender's Parents renouncing their faith. However in this book "Ender's Shadow", one of the main characters is a nun. I found this somewhat inconsistant. Now I'm not saying this book is bad, as a matter of fact if you read "Ender's Game" you MUST read this book. Since the original motivations of the character "Bean" are not known (Ender's Game), the (after the fact)explainations in Card's newest release fills in many Gaps. In the preface, the author says this is a stand alone book. I happen to disagree. The plot in the original book is far to complicated to be only glanced through in this companion novel - leaving far too many holes. To get the whole picture, you MUST read the original. If you want serious Sci-fi that packs an enormous punch - by all means read "Ender's Shadow", but read "Ender's Game" first. Ender's Game is presently available in paperback and has been revised by Orson Scott Card to include many extra insights not included in the first edition. If you read anything this year, this pair of books are the ones you should consider.

Rating:
Summary: Card's best book in years!!!!
Review: This is Orson Scott Card's best book in years. I am 11, planning to graduate from high school in 2000, and I always empathized with Ender more than any other character. I liked Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind, but they look at the world through an adult's eyes, instead of the growing, changing child prodigy I knew in Ender's Game. I always thought that Ender grew up too fast, and I wanted more books featuring him as a child. While Ender's Shadow and Bean can neeer fill Ender's shoes in my heart, they can take their place next to him. I think this is Card's best book, other than Ender's Game, and I can't wait to read the full novel.

Rating:
Summary: OSC pulls off the improbable
Review: Friend from Tor Books gave me an advance reading copy of "Ender's Shadow" a couple of weeks ago. I didn't think it could live up to the praise the editors there were heaping on it, but it did, and it pulled off the remarkable feat not only of bringing a new perspective to the Bugger War but of redefining the entire situation and spinning a narrative thread that was intertwined with the original but wholly independent in another sense. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

"Ender's Shadow" also occasioned something of a remarkable afternoon for my girlfriend and I. We sat in Prospect Park in Brooklyn last week, me reading "Shadow" and her reading "Ender's Game" for the first time, and on more than one occasion she would tell me where she was in her book, and it would be very close to where I was in mine. We both felt something startlingly intimate reading about the same events at the same time, as if we were each viewing the action simultaneously through separate windows. Thank God for the indispensible Orson Scott Card.

Rating:
Summary: Wishes and Hopes
Review: I've always wished that Ender's Game were twice or three times as long. When I recommend it to others, I tell them that they'll finish it at one sitting, and I'm usually right. The book is "perfect" for lack of a better word. When I read a book for the second time, I notice the flaws. The third time I see the flaws coming and dread it. After a while, I vow not to read a book again because I start seeing only the flaws.

Not so with Ender's Game. It's a work of art. I've read it over twenty times and each time I'm sucked into the story as if it were the first. I can't point to any one thing that warrants such a strong pull. It's just "perfect".

Upon hearing that OSC was writing Ender's Shadow, I felt dread. He was going to "meddle" with perfection. Of course, it's his story to do with as he pleases, but after living, eating, and breathing with Ender for so long, I felt a certain possessiveness.

Having just read the first four chapters of Ender's Shadow, I have laid those fears to rest. Not only has Card recaptured the spirit of Ender's Game, but he has managed to improve upon it. I was enthralled from the first page and wept at the last.

Anxiously awaiting the rest.

Jason Brodman

Rating:
Summary: Ender's Game gets even better
Review: I never thought Orson Scott Card could write a book in the same setting as Ender's Game and make it half as interesting. I was wrong, and I can't wait to read the rest of Ender's Shadow.

Rating:
Summary: Orson Scott Card has matched Ender's Game!
Review: This review is not of the whole book, which has not been publically released. It is only on the first four chapters, which I have had the joy of reading, so here it goes:

Ender's Shadow is not a sequel to Ender's Game. It is, sort of, a parallel novel to Ender's Game. It starts where Ender's Game starts, and ends when Ender's Game ends, but it is from a different point of view. It's from the point of view of Bean, a character from Ender's Game, and a boy from the streets of Rotterdam.

From what I have read, all I can do is hope the rest is as good as the first four chapters. As with Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card had me hooked by the first sentence. With the close of my review, the final thing I have to say is that Ender's Shadow has definately matched my all-time favorite book, Ender's Game, and I will go out to get it as soon as possible.

Rating:
Summary: Scott's BEST BOOK IN YEARS!!!
Review: I am an OSC fan from way way way back. I think I have read every word he's ever published. I am still such a fanatic about Ender's Game, I buy used copies to give friends. ENDER'S SHADOW is remarkable, amazing, a great read. It will bring you back to everything you ever loved about Orson Scott Card. Remember Bean from Ender's Game? You will never forget him after reading ENDER'S SHADOW!! Trust me, get this book now. Do you need to read Ender's Game first? Probably not, but it will make the experience all the better. I think everyone should read Ender's Game before any other book.

Rating:
Summary: It's no Ender's Game, but then again, what is?
Review: I *LOVE* Ender's Game. Honestly it is one of my favorite books of all time. Said plainly, Ender's Shadow is not as good. However, it is still a good read and worth the time. When I read Ender's Game, I so much wanted to know more about that world that OSC had created. Ender's Shadow offers this chance. It bascically covers the same period of time as Ender's Game, but (of course) focuses on Bean, another one of the children at Battle School with Ender.

By the time I was done with this book, I wanted to contact him in some way and thank him for giving the young Ender back to me at least in some small way.

This book isn't perfect, but seriously, it is woven into the fabric of the original novel so well that I will forgive its some of its flaws. My main compaint about the novel was that Bean was portrayed as being so much smarter than any one else in the novel and in my heart, the position of child genius is already taken. Ender is there and I don't think that I have room to for another. But, of all the characters in EG that I liked and wanted to know better, Bean was next and I am glad that I read this book.

And...the way he left it... there has got to be a sequel!

Rating:
Summary: That books owns
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed reading the Ender's Game Series. I began it in 7th grade for a book report and loved it so much I continued to read the rest of the series. Ender's Game would have to be my favorite book of all time and just learn a little more about that book is great. I read the first few chapters at the website and I can hardly wait til the book is released. Anyone who is interested in talking about his books or can suggest any other authors to read, e-mail me.

Rating:
Summary: Back to the Game!
Review: All of the magic of the first book is back. Those who have read the entire series know that "Ender's Game" stands alone in its universal appeal... that is until now. "Ender's Shadow" takes us back to the same time period, back to the ruthless world of children, where Card gives us a window on the origins of Ender's most valuable teammate, a boy so small and apparently worthless that kids named him Bean.

Don't get me wrong. I also loved the other three books in the original series: "Speaker for the Dead", "Xenocide", and "Children of the Mind". But they stand apart from "Ender's Game" in character because they come from an adult's point of view. I, like many readers, felt that Ender grew up too fast. We realize that he had no other choice but we had hoped to spend more time with Ender the child. So I was thrilled to discover that the first four chapters of "Ender's Shadow" (available at Card's official web site) carried the same pathos as the first book.