Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card- Book Review

Title: Shadow of the Hegemon

Author: Orson Scott Card

Publisher: HarperCollins

Publish Date: 2000

Rating: 4/5

Summary(blurb): The War is over, won by Ender Wiggin and his team of brilliant child-warriors. The enemy is destroyed, the human race is saved. Ender himself refuses to return to the planet, but his crew has gone home to their families, scattered across the globe. Battle School is no more. 

But with the external threat gone, the Earth has become a battlefield once more. The children of the Battle School are more than heroes; they are potential weapons that can bring power to the countries that control them. One by one, all of Ender's Dragon Army are kidnapped. Only Bean escapes; and he turns for help to Ender's brother Peter. 

Peter Wiggin, Ender's older brother, has already been manipulating the politics of Earth from behind the scenes. With Bean's help, he will eventually rule the world.

**This book review may contain spoilers**

Shadow of the Hegemon is the second book in the Shadow saga of the Enderverse (counting Ender's Shadow as the first book). While Ender's Shadow described the same events as Ender's Game from a different perspective, Shadow of the Hegemon depicts Earth after the victory against the Buggers (or Formics, as they're now called). Although months have passed since reading Ender's Shadow, I could still recall the details here. 

In this book, although the story is primarily centered on Bean, we also get to see the perspectives of other characters (usually Petra Arkanian). After the Formics have been defeated by Ender and his team (or 'jeesh' as they call themselves), Ender travels to the Formic colonies while everyone else from Battle School comes back to Earth. However, the members of Ender's Jeesh get kidnapped by Russia, except Bean who narrowly survives an assassination attempt. It turns out Achilles (from Ender's Shadow) is the criminal mastermind behind everything. Bean allies with Peter Wiggin to save the Battle School kids from Achilles, but Petra still remains in his grasp. The story then becomes a global tug-of-war with international government and politics, with Achilles having fled to India, Peter revealing himself as Locke, and Bean strategizing in Thailand. Eventually China takes over nearly all of South and Southeast Asia, and while Petra is rescued by Bean, Achilles goes over to the Chinese. 

Though Ender's Shadow was an ingenious alternate-perspective version of Ender's Game, this book is impressive in its own right. Here, Orson Scott Card expands the horizons of the book much further by diversifying the main cast as well as increasing the scale of events. The previous book clearly centered on Bean; however, many more characters rise to prominence in this book such as Petra, Achilles, and Peter. It was especially nice to see more of Peter Wiggin, as Ender's Game had made it known Peter becomes Hegemon, but Peter had played little to no role in Ender's Shadow. Achilles becomes the major threat and antagonist, unlike the previous book where Bean's arc against Achilles was secondary to the events of Ender's Game. Petra also plays a greater role in that she is the one who spreads the message to Bean about her Russian captivity, and also has an emotional attachment to Bean. She goes through a lot of much-needed development, becoming more fleshed out and characterized through her interactions with Achilles, Bean, and other friends. 

However, I was surprised by the story of Ender's parents, and how they had known of Peter and Valentine's alternate identities. In previous books the parents were portrayed as aloof and indifferent to their children, not much more than simply the people Peter and Valentine lived with. But as Ender's mother talked with Bean, it became clear that that had never been the case, and instead they had chosen to stay aloof so as to not interfere with their work. It gave much more realism to these characters, fully flushing them out. 

Even more interesting is the vast expansion of the chessboard after Achilles rises to power. After Ender defeats the Formics and war briefly breaks out on Earth, Achilles somehow gains Russia's favor and arranges the capture of Ender's jeesh. Then allying himself with India and finally China, Achilles extensively utilizes his powers as master manipulator and charming commander to literally change the course of history. The scale to which Achilles controls world events is staggering-- it's as if he's a puppeteer, pulling the strings on India and delivering the nation right into China's mouth. 

Achilles coming into play and becoming the main antagonist weren't without its faults, however, as there were some elements in the story that had been glossed over or not developed upon as much. One glaringly obvious plot hole is the question of how Achilles got the favor of the Russians in the first place-- he was placed in a mental institution in Belgium, and seeing as how the Russians could have had Vlad from Ender's jeesh on their side anyways, there would have been no reason for Russia to pull Achilles out of the mental hospital to use him. Also, if Russia had been behind Achilles' breakout from the institution, they couldn't have had no knowledge of his past criminal record. 

Additionally, in constrast to other characters such as Petra or Peter or Ender's mother, we readers see Achilles as an entirely two-dimensional character-- much more of a complete antagonist and villain without any trace of a good side. He is intelligent, but uses his brilliance to achieve his own purposes, which is just world domination and desire for absolute power over everyone-- not much of a rationally explainable motive in my opinion. I hope later books will expand on Achilles' motivations, or if he truly has none, lead to his death. 

Overall, Shadow of the Hegemon is a great sequel to Ender's Shadow, with more developed and nuanced characters, an old enemy that's terrifying in a new way, and with literally the whole world as the playing field. It was great to hear more diverse perspectives in this book with much better characterization of Petra, Peter, and Ender's mother in particular, and the plunge into international politics and military movement was unexpected but worked wonderfully for the book. Although there were some plot holes and underdeveloped characters, this book was just as great as the previous one.   

I would recommend this book for anyone who has read Ender's Shadow.

Rating: I would give this a 5/5 - Just as good as the previous installment, this book tackles world events following Ender's defeat. There's lots of great character development, and a few teens start shaping the course of world history and international politics.