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73 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Second best of the "Shadow" series, behind "Ender's Shadow", May 16, 2005
Perhaps it's because Card knew exactly where he needed to be at the end of this book, but it just worked for me better than the last two. There's less outright war, and more political manuveuring than the last two books. The political machinations are more complex, yet somehow more believable this time around.
That plausibility might be a result of seeing the Battle School characters as human and therefore potentially flawed. In previous "Shadow" series books, the Battle School kids were all good guys, except for the cardboard cutout villian of Achilles. It fell to the other characters, mostly politicians, to display human fallibility.
This time, the Battle School grads have serious character flaws of their own, and these flaws lead them into big mistakes. They also get into more and better conflicts with each other, which enriches the dynamic of the book.
Characters are nicely done - a particular strength throughout Card's books. The tragic Bean, the acerbic Petra, the enigmatic Alai, the dashing Han Tzu - all are crisply drawn. I never, ever get characters confused with one another in Card's books, and certainly not in this one.
The character development of Peter Wiggin is especially well handled. We already know from the very first Ender book (Ender's Game) that Peter becomes a beloved leader, and that Ender writes Peter's "obituary" as the second part of the his book The Hive Queen and the Hegemon. Now we get to see the other side of that story, including what Peter did to arrive at that point and how he was induced to get Ender (of all people!) to write his unvarnished life story.
Not everything is tied up into a neat little package. The matter of Bean and Petra's children is handled well, but I wouldn't call the end result "neat".
The open-ended matter of Bean's children leaves enough room for a sequel, I suppose, if Card decides to go that way. But I'd be happy to just leave the story here. The adventure of the Battle School grads is pretty much resolved, and we are caught up to events mentioned at the end of Ender's Game.
If you've read the other three "Shadow" books, then you absolutely owe it to yourself to get the full end of the story by reading this one. If you liked "Ender's Shadow", but got bogged down in the other two sequels, I'd recommend giving the series another go just to finish off with this very satisfying completion.
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104 of 109 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Card is a Giant, March 4, 2005
In Shadow of the Giant, the eighth book in the Ender series, Orson Scott Card concludes the "parallel" series of books featuring Julian Delphiki, or Bean, as he is better known. What started as Card's attempt to look at his science fiction classic, Ender's Game, from someone else's perspective, culminates in this fourth, masterful novel of Bean and the others who fought with Ender in Ender's Game.
Bean has married Petra, who also fought with Ender, and is working with Peter Wiggin, Ender's older brother, to help unify the Earth after the havoc wreaked by Achilles in the earlier Bean novels. He is also looking for the children who were stolen from him as embryos and have been secretly implanted in women across the Earth. Bean and the rest of Ender's "Jeesh" are being offered the chance to start colonies in space rather than remain on Earth and be used by nations as pawns in wars of conquest and aggression.
Card again does a masterful job of presenting differing sides to issues and forcing the reader to think hard about the choices his characters are making. This is the real beauty of Card's writing - it's not so much science fiction, as it is philosophy, religion, and military strategy. Shadow of the Giant starts slow as it tries to allow new readers to catch up to what has gone before. It quickly heats up, though, as things are set in motion throughout Earth by the actions of those who fought with Ender, Peter Wiggin, and the old military teachers from Ender's Game.
I was especially moved by the last 50 or so pages through the decisions, words, and actions of the novel's main characters - Bean, Petra, Peter, and even Hyrum Graff and Mazer Rackham. Each of the novels in this series has left me wanting more about these characters - which is the mark of a great writer. While it seems this series has concluded, I noticed a couple of threads left dangling that could be picked up should Card ever decide to return to Ender's and Bean's world. I hope that Card now has time to go back to work on the next volume of his other great series, the Tales of Alvin Maker.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Satisfying Finale, December 30, 2005
Unlike the Ender trilogy, which finished with more of a whimper than a bang, the Bean trilogy ends on a high note. Card wisely returns his main focus to the characters the reader has come to know and love, letting the individuals set the pace of the story instead abandoning character development for geopolitics. Even though the ultimate outcome (spoiler: a Hegemon-controlled Earth) is known to anyone who's read the Ender trilogy, Shadow of the Giant is still surprisingly suspenseful. The fates of characters such as Bean, Alai, and Virlomi are not resolved until near the end of the book, and Card keeps the reader guessing as to who will live and who will die. This is a smart strategy, as Card is at his best when he focuses his attention on the engaging characters he has created: the brilliant, passionate, and yet somehow quite innocent young adults formerly of Battle School. I can't help but think that the Ender trilogy would have been much more satisfying if Card had kept the focus on Ender instead of neglecting him for talk of aiua, alternate universes, and "children of the mind."
Shadow of the Giant closes the door on one chapter of the Ender saga and opens the door to another. For what is most interesting about this book is the ending: Card has left the options for further books in the series wide open. Will Bean be cured? Will Ender return to the series? What will happen with the children? For the first time since Ender's Shadow I find myself truly looking forward to the next edition in the Ender saga.
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