Ender's Shadow (The Shadow Series)
The novel that launched the bestselling Ender's Shadow series.
The human race is at War with the Buggers, an insect-like alien race. As Earth prepares to defend itself from total destruction at the hands of an inscrutable enemy, all focus is on the development of military geniuses who can fight such a war, and win. The long distances of interstellar space have given hope to the defenders of Earth--they have time to train these future commanders up from childhood, forging them into an irresistible force in the high orbital facility called the Battle School. Andrew Ender Wiggin was not the only child in the Battle School; he was just the best of the best. In Ender's Shadow, Card tells the story of another of those precocious generals, the one they called Bean--the one who became Ender's right hand, part of his team, in the final battle against the Buggers. Bean's past was a battle just to survive. His success brought him to the attention of the Battle School's recruiters, those people scouring the planet for leaders, tacticians, and generals to save Earth from the threat of alien invasion. Bean was sent into orbit, to the Battle School. And there he met Ender.... THE ENDER UNIVERSE Ender seriesEnder's Game / Ender in Exile / Speaker for the Dead / Xenocide / Children of the Mind Ender's Shadow series
Ender's Shadow / Shadow of the Hegemon / Shadow Puppets / Shadow of the Giant / Shadows in Flight Children of the Fleet The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
Earth Unaware / Earth Afire / Earth Awakens The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
The Swarm /The Hive Ender novellas
A War of Gifts /First Meetings
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Community Reviews
Read this one right after Ender’s Game (years ago and multiple times). I found Ender's Game to be captivating, so much so, that even when I believed that Ender's Shadow would be a slight retelling of it, I still dove into the novel head first. It didn't take long to relize that it was not the same story at all. With Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card managed to take the same sequence of events and turn it into an original and equally as engaging story. Even those characters we meet in Ender's Game are different as seen through the eyes of Bean, however not inconsistently so. Ender is still the profound, deeply compassionate, awe-inspiring, miniature hero, from the good to the evil of the battle school students, even the cadre remain true to the original story, but more exposed when seen through the unnaturally-intelligent, untrusting, analytical eyes of Bean.
Perhaps my favorite aspect of the story was the different perspective of Ender. When reading Ender's Game, we love Ender because we're in his head, we know he has the best intentions, we know he always has a plan. It made it impossible to really understand why his was so beloved and inspired such unwavering devotion from his subordinates, after all, THEY weren't in his head. Bean gives us the outsider's view, and while it is somewhat lacking, Bean's developing admiration for Ender makes it far easier to understand that of the others.
These two books are among my favorites, but I cannot decide which to rank ahead of the other.
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