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.
...says Petra in Ender's Shadow and I think it's also a fitting description to this book.
Sometime in the near future, Earth has been attacked by an alien race, Formics or "buggers". The International Fleet is monitoring and testing all of Earth's children to determine who will be its soldiers and commanders in the upcoming war.
Bean is an orphan living in Rotterdam when he is plucked out of the streets and taught by a nun, Sister Carlotta, who discovers his amazing intelligence and notifies the IF. He is sent to Battle School where students are trained like soldiers in the art of war. Being children, these exercises are called games. While there, he realizes that the only way for him to ever survive in his small body is to use his intelligence to gather as much information about the upcoming war as possible to make himself necessary in their plans, to make him impossible to ignore. However, it turns out that the "powers that be" already have someone they tagged as their savior, namely Ender Wiggen. Bean makes it his number one mission there at the school to learn all about Ender and what makes him such a powerful leader. Along the way, Bean learns to accept and even admire Ender, as well as play an integral part in Ender's final "game."
I read Ender's Game first, like almost everybody I think, and only came across Ender's Shadow much later. It honestly took me a couple of tries to get into Ender's Game but after the first couple of chapters I was hooked. I didn't think anything could match up the experience of that book but Ender's Shadow does a fantastic job of taking a minor character and making his story as engrossing as he does Ender's.
A lot of reviewers say that Bean isn't as engaging as Ender and that, in order to show how brilliant Bean is, Orson Scott Card had to put down Ender and show that he isn't as smart as we all thought.
Of course Bean isn't as engaging or as lovable as Ender! He was supposed to be such a polar opposite of Ender, that when even this cold, calculating child learns to love and admire Ender, it means even more. He isn't supposed to be Ender, he was an outsider looking in and wanting to BE Ender. He craved the power he held over others and Bean couldn't figure out why he didn't have it.
At first, I was also a little disappointed that OSC seemed to keep reminding us that Bean is smarter than Ender but after rereading it, I notice that even within this context, Bean makes pains to say that he is the result of genetic modification and Ender was born with the talents that matter.
Overall, I think this is a great companion book to Ender's Game. There are unexpected moments in here that will genuinely touch you, like Bean's thoughts after Ender's fight with Bonzo and after Ender is promoted to Command School.
Enjoy!
Ender's Shadow is a book about a boy named Bean who goes from a life on the streets to training in military schools in space to defeat an alien race known as the Buggers. The buggers have attacked Earth twice and the students at these military schools are Earth's last hope of survival.
At the military school (a.k.a. Battle school) Bean quickly ascends the ranks and quickly surpasses his teachers. However there is one student who even Bean can't keep up with, Ender Wiggins. Ender is a genius, like all the kids at Battle school: only Ender is more brilliant than any student ever to attend Battle School. Bean quickly grows jealous of Ender but soon grows fond of Ender as they become more acquainted, specifically when Bean is placed in Ender's Dragon army. Dragon army is quickly turned from worst to first and Ender soon realizes just how important Bean is when Bean comes up with plans that almost always work.
Unbeknownst to Bean and even Ender is the oncoming threat that looms just around the corner. The threat that is pushing the students at Battle school beyond their limits, and pushing fast. Bean and Ender are two of Earth's greatest minds but even they might not be ready for the dark truth that Battle school is hiding from them. On top of everything else the Generals of the school grows ever weary of Bean for the General discovers Bean's secret, the reason why Bean is so smart, why he could walk and talk when he was just months old a secret that could destroy Bean's future at Battle school and maybe his life.
Ender's Shadow is definitely one of the better books out there. The many twists and turns throughout the story keep you guessing about what's going to happen next. The way Bean handles his situations and thinks is amazing. The things he goes through and his dark past make Ender's Shadow a definite must read for all audiences.
