Shadow of the Giant (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Han Tzu waited until the armored car was completely out of sight before he ventured out into the bicycle-and-pedestrian-packed street..." (more)
Key Phrases: Han Tzu, Battle School, Caliph Alai (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Card's latest installment in his Shadow subseries (Ender's Shadow, etc.), which parallels the overarching series that began with Ender's Game (1985), does a superlative job of dramatically portraying the maturing process of child into adult. The imminent death of Bean, a superhuman 20-something Battle School graduate who suffers from uncontrolled growth due to a genetic disorder, leaves little time for Peter the Hegemon, Ender's older brother, to set up a single world government and for Bean and his wife and former classmate, Petra, to reclaim all their stolen children. When Card's focus strays from his characters into pure politics, the story loses power, but it's recharged as soon as he returns to the well-drawn interactions among Bean's Battle School classmates whose decisions will determine Earth's fate. They were trained to fight a (literally) single-minded alien enemy, but that war is over. Now, as young adults in command of human armies pitted against each other in messy conflicts with no clear solutions, Bean's old cohorts must help create a peaceful future for Earth after they're gone. Card makes the important point that there's always more than one side to every issue. Fans will marvel at how subtly he has prepared for the clever resolution.
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From Booklist

Considering the dynasty of novels launched by Ender's Game (1984), perhaps Card ought to consider renaming his central protagonist. Though this is putatively the eighth book in the Ender saga, when considering the books as two quartets linked across a 1,000-year gap (a by-product of Ender's light-speed travel to Lusitania), it's the fourth of the sequence that began with Ender's Shadow (1999). Here, Card further develops the premise that the return of Ender's battle team to Earth was tantamount to introducing "two Alexanders, a Joan of Arc here and there, and a couple of Julius Caesars, maybe an Attila, and . . . a Genghis Khan" into the geopolitical fray. The tension between characters' personal fulfillment and collective obligations also comes to the fore, as couple Bean and Petra desperately search for their eight missing embryos stolen by the mad eugenicist of Shadow Puppets (2002), watch Bean's health deteriorate, and attempt to restore order to the world under hegemon Peter Wiggin. The emergence of several additional perspectives makes for a somewhat cumbersome narrative, but it doesn't much matter. Like Card's idolized Battle School alumni, novels in this saga (not to mention Card himself) have acquired an irresistible aura from early associations with boy-hero Ender Wiggin. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312857586
• ISBN-13: 978-0312857585
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (103 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #100,554 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 4 in The Ender's Shadow Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 59 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

By	Billy Hollis (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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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.

101 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Card is a Giant, March 4, 2005

By	T. Lundregan "toml30" (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Satisfying Finale, December 30, 2005

By	Charles E. Stevens - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Shadow of the Giant (Ender, Book 8) (Ender's Shadow) (Mass Market Paperback)

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.