Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card- Book Review

Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card- Book Review

Title: Ender's Shadow 

Author: Orson Scott Card

Publisher: Starscape Books

Publish Date: 1999

Rating: 5/5

Summary(blurb): Andrew "Ender" Wiggin was not the only child in the Battle School; he was just the best of the best. Here is the story of another of those precocious generals, the one they called Bean—the one who became Ender's right hand, his strate-gist, and his friend. Bean's past was a battle just to survive on the streets of Rotterdam. He was a tiny child with a mind leagues beyond anyone else's. 

Bean's desperate struggle, and his remarkable 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....

**This book review may contain spoilers**

After reading Ender's game for the second time and discovering that there was an entire saga, I immediately started on the next book, Ender's Shadow. Although chronologically there were three more Ender books that were published before, Ender's Shadow was recommended by many as the next book to read. And it was a great decision to make, as this book is a companion or parallel novel to Ender's Game-- it takes place in the same time period as Ender's Game but from the perspective of Bean (the brightest one in the Ender-led Dragon Army). 

It was unexpectedly impressive-- I was afraid it was going to be merely a retelling of Ender's Game, but it turned out to go further than that, delving deep into Bean's situation as the main character in his life but the side character to Ender's story. It also gave a lot of depth to many side characters who weren't touched upon as much in the first book, for example Petra or Crazy Tom. 

The book starts with Bean's past before he got into Battle School; He was very undersized even as a baby, but at two or three years old, he is living on the streets. Although his size is diminutive, his brains more than make up for it, since at that young age he picks up multiple languages, reads body language, and accurately assesses/analyzes information from very little facts. He makes an enemy called Achilles, who isn't openly hostile like Bonzo Madrid but holds a grudge for eternity, and is also very clever (he knows the system and how to manipulate it to his own advantage). Bean gets into Battle School and excels, meeting many of the same people and making readers relive many of the moments from Ender's Game. However, this perspective sets things differently, so the same story from a new set of eyes is intriguing. 

I liked Bean very much as a character-- he obviously knows he is the most intelligent, and does not hesitate to accept that information. He shares many of the same traits as Ender, but some things are different. For one, Bean's learning is much, much faster than Ender. Ender learns extremely quickly, doing in a matter of minutes what takes others weeks, but Bean does it in seconds. Bean has a photographic memory, allowing him to absorb most things effortlessly and instantaneously, and his intelligence obviously surpasses Ender's. This is evident in many parts of the book; Bean learns and deduces the most complex and closely guarded truths from a technician's minor hesitation, he finds out ways to log on as a teacher and proceeds to monitor all the students in Battle School, he performs accurate political analysis based on very limited information, he figures out truths that Ender had to be verbally told, and so on. It's clear that Bean possesses a far superior intellect than Ender. 

However, there are characteristics Bean lacks that makes Ender a better commander-- these are Ender's traits of ruthlessness and compassion, taken from Peter and Valentine. Bean is not as ruthless as Ender-- when disposing of their respective enemies (Bonzo for Ender and Achilles for Bean), Ender defeats and kills Bonzo in a 1-on-1 fight, while Bean employs deception and strategy to lure Achilles into a trap with multiple people watching. As demonstrated in the first book, Ender always makes sure that his victory is complete (ruthlessness) while caring for all those under his command (compassion). However, Bean does not have those powers of leadership; he admits that "authority came from [Ender] like breath", while Bean himself "simply did not know how to" earn the others' devotion as leader. Thus Ender is the more effective leader of the two, while Bean would be more of a Mr Spock character.  

Additionally, I enjoyed the alternate perspectives of Battle School that Bean provided, and came to view Ender as less of a mighty infallible genius-- Ender sometimes can't see things that Bean immediately picks up on, and Bean (and the reader) gets frustrated seeing his idol so incompetent. Not to say that Ender isn't a genius-- he definitely is-- but compared to Bean, Ender can sometimes be quite stupid. It's the importance of multiple perspectives; the more angles you see something from, the more objectively you can assess. The new perspectives of the soldiers' mess, Dragon Army's internal workings, and how the rest of Battle School kept running without Ender there was interesting but all familiar, increasing my affinity for the book. The writing style was also the same across both books (obviously, since it was written by the same man), and as a result Ender and Bean had remarkably similar thought processes, but it was fine-- I liked how they thought. 

 

All in all, Ender's Shadow is an amazing companion book (or parallel novel, whatever you want to call it) to Ender's Game. Bean's side of events was refreshing, and the Battle School environment was pleasantly familiar, so I felt right at home but also newly excited while reading it. It's interesting how Bean was one of the most memorable characters for me after reading Ender's Game, and then I immediately read the companion novel that has Bean as a main character. 

I would recommend this book for anyone above middle school level-- similar to Ender's Game, it's about children, and the language is not too hard, but the primary focus is on adults and it deals with serious topics.

Rating: I would give this a 5/5 - Bean's perspective is insightful and refreshing in the familiar setting of Battle School, as is his powers of perception, deduction, deception, and analysis.