Pablonaj reviewed Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card
Review of "Ender's Shadow" on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Amazing book.
leather bound, 384 pages
Published Feb. 5, 2000 by Tor Books.
This is Bean's installment of Orson Scott Card's Ender's saga. It is a great character building book for those who have read Ender's Game and want to know more about Bean and his background.
Here is the description from the back of the book:
Welcome to Battleschool.
Growing up is never easy. 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 small 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 general to lead the Earth in a final climactic battle …
This is Bean's installment of Orson Scott Card's Ender's saga. It is a great character building book for those who have read Ender's Game and want to know more about Bean and his background.
Here is the description from the back of the book:
Welcome to Battleschool.
Growing up is never easy. 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 small 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 general to lead the Earth 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 true rival.
Only one problem: for Bean and Ender, the future is now.
Amazing book.
A great example of how much you can get out of retelling of a story from a different angle.
Lacks the more philosophical stylings of the later Ender books but an entertaining page-turner that sets things up well for the rest of the series.
Ender's Game is more homophobic than I remembered, with antisemitism I'd never noticed, and a weird insistence on stating how clothed the child soldiers are at any time. The battles remain exhilarating and children are taken seriously, but the bigotry isn't worth it.
I’m not here to tell you that you can’t like this book. I used to, I loved this series, read it over and over (I’ve finished Children of the Mind at least thrice), but you need to know that it’s blisteringly homophobic and consistently has the message that no one in power will help a kid being bullied. It starts off pretty blatantly homophobic by calling the alien enemy “Buggers” and then keeps going from there. The way the kids bully each other reeks of homophobia and toxic masculinity. The adults are either useless or actively encouraging the kids to humiliate each other. Ender’s parents are portrayed …
I love when stories are retold from a different perspective. I loved Ender's Game, so when I heard about Ender's Shadow which is told from the viewpoint of a different character, I knew I had to read it. I like how it was a good blend of retelling the story from a different perspective, but it was also a unique story with its own plot and drama. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that there were a few brief section that really made me roll my eyes (including a speech where "and then everybody clapped"). But otherwise I loved this book and would definitely recommend it!
Not a fan of Orson Scott Card the person, but he's a great author. Reading the plot of Ender's game from a different perspective felt a bit like re-reading a book after an original drunk/tired run-through; you know generally what's going to happen but most of the details seem new. (And in this case actually are). I found Beans cool, calculative (transitioning into caring) voice drastically changed the tone of the book. It's been about 6-7 years since I've read enders game though, so I'm not sure how accurate my previous statement was.
I enjoyed the first part until the stories of Bean and Ender converge but honestly none of the rest stuck with me. I won't be reading any of the others which follow.