Ender’s Shadow
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- ISBN13: 9780765342409
- Condition: New
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Product Description
Welcome to Battleschool.
Growing up is never simple. But try living on the mean streets as a child begging for food and fighting like a dog with ruthless gangs of starving kids who wouldn’t hesitate to pound your skull into pulp for a scrap of apple. If Bean has learned anything on the streets, it’s how to survive. And not with fists. He is way too tiny for that. But with brains.
Bean is a genius with a magician’s ability to zero in on his enemy and exploit his weakness.
What better quality for a future all-purpose to lead the Planet in a final climactic battle against a hostile alien race, known as Buggers. At Battleschool Bean meets and befriends another future commander – Ender Wiggins – perhaps his only right rival.
Only one problem: for Bean and Ender, the future is now.
Amazon.com Review
Ender’s Shadow is being dubbed as a parallel novel to Orson Scott Card’s Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Ender’s Game. By “parallel,” Card means that Shadow starts and ends at roughly the same time as Game, and it chronicles many of the same events. In fact, the two books tell an nearly identical tale of brilliant children being trained in the orbiting Battle School to lead humanity’s fleets in the final war against alien invaders known as the Buggers. The most brilliant of these young recruits is Ender Wiggin, an unparalleled commander and tactician who can surely defeat the Buggers if only he can overcome his own inner turmoil.
Second among the children is Bean, who becomes Ender’s lieutenant despite the fact that he is the smallest and youngest of the Battle School students. Bean is the central character of Shadow, and we pick up his tale when he is just a 2-year-ancient starving on the streets of a future Rotterdam that has become a hell on planet. Bean is unnaturally intelligent for his age, which is the only thing that allows him to escape–though not unscathed–the streets and eventually end up in Battle School. Despite his brilliance, but, Bean is doomed to live his life as an also-ran to the more legendary and in many ways more brilliant Ender. Nonetheless, Bean learns things that Ender cannot or will not know, and it falls to this once pathetic street urchin to carry the weight of a terrible burden that Ender must not be allowed to know.
Although it may seem like Shadow is merely an attempt by Card to cash in on the success of his justly legendary Ender’s Game, that suspicion will dissipate once you turn the first few pages of this engrossing novel. It’s clear that Bean has a tale worth telling, and that Card (who ongoing the project with a cowriter but later chose he wanted it all to himself) is driven to tell it. And though much of Ender’s Game hinges on a surprise ending that Card fans are likely well acquainted with, Shadow manages to capitalize on that same surprise and even turn the table on readers. In the end, it seems a bring shame on that Shadow, like Bean himself, will forever be eclipsed by the myth of Ender, because this is a novel that can easily stand on its own. Luckily for readers, Card has left plenty of room for a sequel, so we may well be seeing more of Bean in the near future. –Craig E. Engler
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I had to read this book for school and it was torture. If you don’t like Science Fiction this book will make your brain sick.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I was very disappointed with this buy and it’s return. I bought this book for my son for Christmas ~ he is an avid reader ~ but, my son then came home from school with a copy of Ender’s Shawdow which he borrowed from the school library. My order was already in progress – and upon receipt I returned it for a refund ~ we frequently shop through Amazon ~ the disappointment came when I recieved a -0- refund ~ of which I made inquiry, and have not yet recieved a response.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
In my latest attempt to try and read a science fiction book I selected up Ender’s Shadow, the parallel novel to Ender’s Game. 60 pages in I clogged the book and place it on the shelf. It is dreadful to say the least. Characters with ridiculous names (Bean, Poke, etc.) run around some kind of city where it seems like all children are homeless beggers. The characters spend their time running from “bullies” and formulating plans to get into soup kitchens. Our main hero even reveals that he lived in a toilet when he was less than a year ancient. Gimme a break.
The writing style is also cumbersome. Card switches from third person to first person in mid-paragraph in order to denote character thoughts not spoken aloud. How about a seperate paragraph and some italics Mr. Card?
If you are under 12 years ancient this will probably not be too terrible a series to get into. If you are older than that, look for more intelligent reading.
And the search for a science fiction book that is really excellent continues…
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Come on guys, lets all face it that Orson is a fantastic writer but wouldn’t we have rather had a sequel to Ender as a replacement for of one of his tag-alongs. Ender was the greatest, therefore none of his glory should have been taken away by the fact that Orson was hoping to grab people’s attention by using Ender’s legacy….For God’s sake look at the title. Card looks like a pimp trying to prostitute Ender’s name for more money.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
Ender’s Shadow is, I feel, and excellent book. Though it does not completely live up to Ender’s Game, it is permanently fascinating to see things from another point of view. Several additional ‘new’ point-of-view books have been widely successful, e.g. Wicked, and Ender’s Shadow stands with them.
I feel that I must right some of the inaccuracies of one of the widely-read reviews.
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Haven’t I read this book before? That’s the feeling any Ender fan will get paging through this so-called “companion novel” to Ender’s Game.
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This book, though it covers the same time period as Ender’s Game, does not really occupy the character Ender, save during Bean’s time in Dragon Army and at the simulator.
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Card is an brilliant writer, with the ability to flesh out complex characters and wile you into thinking about ethical issues lacking automatically being preachy. That’s what made the first Ender novel a hit. Sorry to say, it’s all gone downhill from there.
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Sorry to say, yes, as I mentioned above, E’s Game makes one reflect more about ethical issues than in E’s Shadow. E’s Shadow occasionally makes you reflect ‘how can he be so cold and calculating’ and additional such things. Though I must admit the part about the trees of life and knowledge was appealing. I wish that I had a Bible handy so that I could reread that part of Genesis.
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Ender’s Shadow certainly *contains* a novel about Bean’s past which is worth reading. The characters of Achilles, Carlotta and Graff are compelling and deep, and the tale of Bean’s rise to the Battle School is worthy of being a supplement to the Ender tale itself. The problem is, having got Bean into space, Card insists on telling us a tale we will find all too familiar. In fact, the exact same tale. To the point where the leader recopies dialogue out of the first book, adding only a snide inner monologue from Bean. I’m not kidding.
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Excellent, but a small exaggerated. For example,
“To the point where the leader recopies dialogue out of the first book, adding only a snide inner monologue from Bean. I’m not kidding.”
Well, gee, I marvel why he would do that? That’s very appealing… *sits and ponders* Oh. My. God!!! *slaps hand on knee* I know!! It’s because persons parts take place to be A CONVERSATION BETWEEN ENDER AND BEAN!!!!!!! I would reflect that it was a excellent thing that the dialogue was the same, as it was the SAME EVENT!!
“The irony is that in a novel approximately twice the part of Ender’s Game, Mr. Card rumor has it that doesn’t have room to coherently retell the original.
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Hmmm…let’s go back to third grade and practice elementary multiplication. Anything times two is…yes? Excellent! Same as adding itself to itself.
Example: 324 x 2 =
Come on kids! Do you know the answer?.. yes? excellent!
324 x 2 = 648
Excellent, now everybody have a sucker! Yay!
Now let’s skip to seventh grade, or Pre-Algebra!
Now kids, the equals sign isn’t the only sign. Yes, there are 5 more, but we will only take in 3 today
>
means ‘greater than’,
<
means ‘less than’, and
means NOT equal to.
Let’s use the third one. Is this right or fake, kids?
648 467
Excellent job, it IS right! *applauds* Now, what else is right? Jimmy? Excellent job!
467 < 648
Oh kids, I’m so proud!! *sob* *memories fade*
I fail to see how 467 pages is “approximately twice the part of Ender’s Game”.
Card does a reasonably excellent retelling of E’s Game lacking obsessing on Ender, a problem that apprehensive me from the start. I was delighted to see that it told a different tale.
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In fact, this retelling is far second-rate, and adds nothing new to the tale. Ender’s characterization is flat and artificial because the only interaction Bean has with him is second-hand rumor and dialogue already seen in Ender’s Game.
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Through Bean’s eyes, Ender IS very different, so Ender-worshipers may be a small disappointed at the difference of perception.
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Most of the new material is, in fact, grafted on, the leader’s attempt to force the new, expanded Bean character into a setting that just doesn’t fit. Bean is now superintelligent and is widely known at the school, for example, yet Ender meets him for the first time as an army draftee.
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Not surprising that Ender doesn’t meet him, as Ender spends all his free time in training or practice. But, it does tell of Bean skipping grades, whereas it does not tell this of Ender, so would not Bean have had the same classes, at least at one point, as Ender had?
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The largest problem is that the plot of Ender’s rise, being told from the point of view of a person who has no real vested interest in its conclusion, is flat and lacks tension in this version.
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I was under the impression that Ender was already legendary by the time Bean came to Battle School.
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At one point Card has Bean learn some vital secrets about the human plot to ruin the Buggers; at another he resorts to having Bean plot Ender’s army for him. These hokey, desperate attempts to make Bean significant to the Ender tale fail, as they should.
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Eh, this is a matter of how you feel about Card’s “twists”. I like them, and it sure clarifies some of Beans cheek and shock, but I suppose that that is up to the reader.
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The leader seems desperate to right minor scientific errors in the original (no, Orson, we don’t need to know about the coriolis effect),
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Right, but I am personally glad that his strives to right oversights.
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yet he fails to give the reader any kind of background or setting for the Battle School.
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Not completely right. E’s Game does give more, but it still let’s you know what it is.
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I’m not adage he doesn’t supplement what we read in Ender’s Game. I’m adage he gives us even less than that. New readers will marvel what a flash suit is.
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Hmm, I don’t know on this one, and don’t have the time to find out whether this is right.
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Because this book also contains less about Ender than the original, we hardly know why anyone would like or follow him;
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Completely fake — Bean spends much time contemplating why, though Bean is smarter, Ender is the better commander.
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because so much time is wasted on retelling Ender’s tale, Bean’s characterization is also missing and he reacts like the automaton he is, being place through the tale’s paces for a second tedious time.
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Beans characterization may be missing, but that is because he is analytical about nearly everything. I do not see him being an automaton.
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For all these reasons, the thought that this book is an equal companion to Ender’s Game, which any reader can dive into and delight in as a novel in its own right, is hilarious.
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Though this is not an equal to E’s Game, after reading E’s Game, E’s Shadow becomes a fascinating book which reveals what goes on in Bean’s head.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5