Orson Scott Card

Follows the life of Ender Wiggin's comrade Bean, from his escape from the mean streets of Rotterdam, to his student days at the Battle School, and to his role as Ender's right hand ally, strategist, and friend in the epic struggle to save Earth from alien

Ender's Shadow

Ryan LaFerney

Ender's Shadow is the first novel in The Shadow Series by Orson Scott Card. Ender's Shadow (published in 1999) is a parallel science fiction novel, taking place at the same time as the novel Ender's Game and depicting some of the same events from the point of view of Bean, a supporting character in the original novel. 

Bean, in many ways, is a more interesting character than Ender. Bean is a homeless child living in the hellish streets of Rotterdam in roughly 2170 after escaping as an infant from an illegal genetic engineering laboratory. Highly intelligent and extremely young, Bean is mainly concerned with his need for food. He joins a large gang of children led by a girl named Poke and sets up a system in which they can all receive nourishment at a local soup kitchen. Specifically, the group gets a bully, Achilles, to be their protector. However, Achilles is increasingly ruthless, protective, and methodical.

Luckily for Bean, his incredible mind, creativity and determination bring him to the attention of Sister Carlotta, a nun who is recruiting children to fight a war against the Buggers. Soon enough, Bean finds himself at Battle School alongside of Ender Wiggin where Bean's intelligence becomes apparent (he is even more intelligent than Ender). We get to see the events that happen in Ender's Game from Bean's point of view and we realize that Ender isn't exactly the savior character we thought he was (he was quite cruel to his friends from Battle School when he led "simulations" in Command School on Eros). Bean is not as perfect as Ender Wiggin either, and although he struggles to understand Ender, he becomes Ender's ally. Though Bean is cold at first, the kind of child who weighs the costs of hugging the nun who saved him from the streets, he wants to understand the respect and love that Ender wields. Thus, Bean's story is twofold: he learns to be a soldier, and to be human.

I love the way Card reweaves the story he told in Ender’s Game, making it both the same and different. And I found it quite emotionally touching and heartbreaking as well, particularly the final battle scene and the end where Bean is united with his parents.

Follows the life of Ender Wiggin's comrade Bean as he navigates the mean streets of Rotterdam and the Battle School.

Battle School

Nelson Zagalo

This second part on the Ender's series by Orson Scott Card, is way better than Ender's Game. Ender's Shadow as the name states, is the story about a "shadow" kid for Ender Wiggin messias. Bean is a kid with no parents living on the streets, with no one to take care of him, Ender Wiggin on the contrary was living with good and rich parents, with brother and sisters, a total regular life. But the different feelings we get from the reading is not the guilt of the content, but the way it was chosen to be portrayed.
Bean get's to be interiorly much more described than Wiggin, and this is what makes this second part much interesting, much compelling. On the art side Shadow get's a much richer art, more detailed and singular, giving texture to drama represented.
The original concept for both came from Orson Scott Card, but the teams doing comic adaptation of Shadow and Game are different. In Shadow we've Mike Carey as author and Sebastian Fiumara as illustrator. For Game we've Christopher Yost as author and Pasqual Ferry as illustrator. And this explains the differences of tone. Carey has been working with much more dramatic material than Yost, and here we can feel both flavours at work in the same series.

Todd Luallen

Wow! What an amazing story. I'm a huge fan of Ender's Game, and this story is a perfect companion. I don't think it would have been possible for Card to write Shadow in such a way that surpassed the original, but he came really close. The crazy ending is already known if you've read Ender's Game, so the book already lacks a little of that 9th inning punch. But even so, Bean is a spectacular character, and much deeper than I anticipated going into the book. The book was so good, in fact, that I'm now going to re-read Ender's Game, because I want to hear the story from Ender's perspective again. This book is a must read for any fan of Ender's Game.

Ayden

I didn't like that victories of ender were actually bean. I like ender too much for him to be second. Enders awesome I worship him more than bean does.

brendan sudol

re-read after many years -- still so captivating and good!

Noah Warner

Orson Scott Card brings us back to the very beginning of his brilliant Ender Quartet, with the novel that begins The Shadow Series and allows us to reenter Ender's world anew. With all the power of his original creation, Ender's Shadow is Card's parallel volume to Ender's Game, a book that expands and complements the first, enhancing its power, illuminating its events and its powerful conclusion. The human race is at War with the "Buggers", an insect-like alien race. The first battles went badly, and now as Earth prepares to defend itself against the imminent threat of total destruction at the hands of an inscrutable alien enemy, all focus is on the development and training 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 then 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 this new book, 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. He first appeared on the streets of Rotterdam, a tiny child with a mind leagues beyond anyone else's. He knew he could not survive through strength; he used his tactical genius to gain acceptance into a children's gang, and then to help make that gang a template for success for all the others. He civilized them, and lived to grow older. Bean's desperate struggle to live, and 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 series Ender’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

Omar

I didn't know what to expect from the shadow series. I went in hesitating - would it be interesting to read about these series of events from another character's perspective? I'm so glad that I did! I loved Bean's story and his experience, plenty of new and interesting things in this book. It doesn't feel like a retelling of the same thing, it has enough new content and insights for it to be it's own book, with some connective tissue to Ender's Game. 

Also, I think Bean is super cool. I did at times get tired of him being so damn smart and mature for his age, but that's probably the normal human in me wanting to relate to him more than I can.

Ender's Shadow (Ender, Book 5)

Ben Nathan

This was really really great. I liked Ender's game, but this was much deeper, richer, and better thought out. Even though OSC is a terrible human being, this is a pretty darned wonderful book.

Aurooba Ahmed

In so many ways, this was even better than Ender's Game. It was utterly fascinating to hear about so much that Ender often didn't care about, was too innocent to figure out, or too consumed to understand.

Bean's brilliance astounded me (as it should) and the equally heart wrenching weight he carried was, if not same, almost equal to the weight Ender carried.

Can't wait to read the rest of the series.

Adam

Beans character is an oddity. I enjoyed the character in this one, but less so in the political intrigue that came up later in the Bean series. For the Enders Game story though, this one was impressively fun. The thought of reading the same story from another character was not at all exciting to me, yet this was a fun read.

Paul Camacho

A fast read, and fun to revisit the world of Ender's Game. I thought Bean a complex and interesting character, and while Orson Scott Card had to work at places to square this "parallax" story with the original, all in all it was an enjoyable read.

Ender's Shadow

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