Ender’s Shadow

Let’s start with one thing being clear: I believe “Ender’s Game” is one of the best books I have ever read. Period. If you can stand science fiction at all, you owe it to yourself to read this book (Tracy.) It is so well constructed, so well thought through, so well told, so well characterized – it is a work of literature.

So why mention it in a review of “Ender’s Shadow?” Because a very large percentage of the charge from the lightning-in-a-bottle that was “Ender’s Game” is present in “Ender’s Shadow.”

Somehow, author Orson Scott Card found a way to tell much of the same underlying critical story twice! That’s right. “Shadow” covers the same basic dramatic events that were the core of the action in “Game” but from a completely different viewpoint.

In “Ender’s Game” the primary character is Ender Wiggin. Relatively early in the book, after learning how Ender’s early life is special, Ender goes to Battle School. And then, well, it gets really, really good. But, importantly, while he’s there, he meets Bean.

In “Ender’s Shadow” we get Bean’s story. And, as with Ender, it starts with his unusual life before Battle School. Card has imagined an extremely interesting character in Bean. At the beginning, Bean is so unbelievably precocious, a reader might be inclined to say “this can’t happen” and give up, except that the storytelling from Bean’s point of view is so gripping. Bean is amazingly intelligent, you see. The challenge for an author with a genius hero is that the author has to try really, really hard to make the genius realistic. And that means the author has to either be a genius, or lead us so skillfully through the story that we can’t really see where the hero might have been less than a genius. Or maybe both. I think Card did both.

It has been years since I read “Ender’s Game,” and I’m kind of glad. I remembered some key elements of the story, especially near the end, but I didn’t remember the exact interactions between Ender and Bean. Well, Card wrote the book so that remembering the end of “Game” did not spoil “Shadow” – it enhanced it! And now I want to re-read “Game” to see how the scenes with Ender and Bean differ because of viewpoint.

It’s another masterpiece. It’s not quite “Ender’s Game” but if you read “Ender’s Game” you owe it to yourself to read “Ender’s Shadow.”

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P.S. Lest you think I like everything I read, I can guarantee you that my review of "Shadow Puppets" will not be as glowing. Same author, same milieu, but I'm half way through it and, well, I'll save that thought.