Plasată după încheierea luptei dintre omenire și "furnici", acțiunea din n  Umbra Hegemonuluin urmărește luptele și intrigile politice ce sfâșie Pământul după desființarea Școlii de luptă. Odată ajunși pe Pământ, foștii membrii ai armatei lui Ender sunt răpiți și folosiți pentru a planifica strategia militară a celor ce visează să conducă lumea. Reușind să evite mai multe tentative de asasinare, Bean se desparte de familia sa și pornește în căutarea Petrei, fosta lui colegă din armata lui Ender.

Deși stilul lui Orson Scott Card rămâne la fel de captivant, se simte o detașare care te îndepărtează de personaje, accentul căzând de aceasta dată pe evoluția politică globală și implicațiile pe care le are fiecare alegere, fiecare acțiune. Strategii militare, planuri de rezervă, rezerve ale rezervelor, alianțe, trădări... recunosc că aș fi avut nevoie de câteva cursuri de istorie pentru a înțelege complet motivația din spatele mentalității unor civilizații...

Discuțiile dintre sora Carlotta și Bean mi s-au părut delicioase; mi-ar fi plăcut să aflu mai multe despre Peter Wiggin, portretul lui din Jocul lui Ender îmi lăsase un gust amar. Chiar dacă nu aș încadra-o neapărat în tiparul science fiction, Orson Scott Card reușește să creeze o poveste complexă și fascinantă, cel puțin pentru mine... probabil asta e una dintre cărțile care fie te fascinează, fie te plictisesc de moarte...

Ce amuzant, totuşi! Să crezi că un om l-ar putea cunoaște cu adevărat pe altul. Te poţi obişnui cu celălalt atât de mult încât să poţi rosti cuvintele în acelaşi timp cu el, dar nu vei şti niciodată de ce celălalt spune ceea ce spune sau face ceea ce face, pentru că nici măcar el nu ştie. Nimeni nu înţelege pe nimeni.

Pentru că oamenii sunt doar nişte maşini, Petra ştia foarte bine asta, maşini care fac ceea ce vrei tu dacă ştii pe ce butoane să apeşi. Şi oricât de complecşi ar putea părea oamenii, e suficient să-i deconectezi de la reţeaua formată din ceilalţi oameni care le conturează personalitatea, de la comunităţile care le formează identitatea, şi ei vor fi reduşi la acest set de butoane. Nu contează că se opun din răsputeri sau că ştiu prea bine că sunt manipulaţi, în cele din urmă, dacă ai răbdare, poţi să-i faci să cânte ca un pian, cu fiecare notă exact acolo unde o aştepţi. Chiar şi pe mine, gândi Petra.

Me gusto mucho, tiene un ritmo muy rápido y los eventos se suceden con fuerza unos tras otros, la inclusión de un enemigo humano hace la trama bastante interesante y el personaje de Aquiles tiene un oscuro encanto a pesar de lo mucho que se le critica en la obra, además Peter se nos presenta bastante más razonable que lo que cabria esperar, pero eso es prueba de su madurez

Pretty much crap, with a literally incredible number of 6-year-old running armies / countries, with a bizarre anti-abortion subtheme. The Brain Eater clearly got Card to the extent that he was sane in the first place (even discounting how his homophobic screeds in other media poison any possibility of enjoyment from rereading his earlier works).

4.5/5

This audiobook was wildly inconsistent.

About a third of the way through, only one of the readers was still pronouncing Achilles in the repeatedly-stated-to-be-correct French way (ah-sheel).
Apparently they butchered the pronunciation of "Hegemon" so badly that they had to re-dub almost every instance of it.
In the afterward read by Card he talks about how he was obsessed with maps and country name changes growing up, citing Rhodesia and Nyasaland specifically, and yet the book still refers to the anachronistic Burma instead of Myanmar. Just weird.

My favorite audiobooks

I never thought I’d be so fascinated with science fiction or want to continue with the Ender’s Shadow series as it’s so outside my typical genre. However, I loved this addition.

My favorite part was the authors note talking about how nations interact with each other. Good guys vs bad guys and how thin that line can be. It’s one I’ll be thinking about for a while.

Opening: "Dear Admiral Chamrajnagar: I was given your idname by a mutual friend who once worked for you but now is a glorified dispatcher--I'm sure you know who I mean."

I've been reading through the Ender and Bean books recently, because I never finished and I wanted to. I love the first books in both series and find them resonant on a deeper level than just cool scifi.

With Shadow of the Hegemon, I found my reactions to be quite different. While I was reading, I enjoyed the book and it pulled me right along. The tension between Peter and Bean is nicely played and I liked the after-the-war aspect of the story.

However (you did know that was coming, right?), when I had finished the book and was thinking about it afterward, I realized that quite a lot of it bothered me. The politics, for instance--the fact that Card automatically points to Russia as the bad guy, which seemed cheap and unthinking and easy.

This rest of this gets a bit spoilery, both for the Ender/ Bean series in general and this book in particular.

I liked the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Wiggin aren't as oblivious as they seem, and yet doesn't the fact that they've just been playing along with Peter and Valentine weaken the whole premise of the books--that adults consistently underestimate children, even when they know how smart they can be? Moreover, even while I agreed with Mrs. Wiggin, I really disliked the way the interaction she had with Bean about religion was portrayed.

And I felt cheated by Peter's big fulfillment moment--I still don't feel like I know Peter enough for this to work. I've seen him through Ender's eyes and, to some extent, through Valentine's, but I have not really seen him through his own. I want to care about Peter, but I don't yet and so I wanted to care about this moment, but I didn't. If it had come later in the book, I think it would have been much more effective.

The other criticism I have is with the resolution, or rather the this-is-a-series NON-resolution, of the Achilles plot. To be honest, it's about as ham-fisted as you can get and I was astounded that Card used essentially a bad pantomime trope.

At one point in this book, Petra recalls seeing a play which was explicitly designed to provoke sentiment and even though she realized that fact, she still felt what the play wanted her to. This book was like that, excet that I didn't feel the way I was supposed to. I was a little sad, a little happy, a little worried--but never once did I cry or cheer.

In the end, I simply don't know what to think about this book. It'll probably be one of the rare ones I don't rate on Goodreads. It is one thing while reading, and aother when the enveloping magic of the world has slipped away. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Will I keep reading? Probably, but all the time with one eye out for these problems, which means I'm less likely to be really sucked in, less likely to love.

Book source: public library
Book information: Tor, 2001; scifi
Orson Scott Card, previously

Not the author's best work

Shadow of the Hegemon follows the brilliant battle school children from the exciting space-centered, alien-fighting novel Ender's Game into a new political thriller.

Full disclaimer: In general, I do not like thrillers and I don't like heavy politics in books. However, since I already know and care about the battle school kids, I should have liked this book more. The book starts out with the kidnapping of all of Ender's friends except for Bean, who is instead nearly killed when his vacation home is blown up. It follows Petra who is a prisoner, Bean who is trying to help her from the outside, and Peter Wiggin, whose "Locke" personality and identity as Ender's brother also gets him involved.

The beginning of the book was intriguing. I very much enjoyed the encoded messages/sneaky covert communications between all parties. I thought that Bean and Petra had decent personalities and I really liked Peter. However, there were several aspects of this book that really drove me crazy:

(1) The kids know everything.

Okay, okay, it's a book about genius kids, maybe I should be able to suspend my disbelief and say that, sure, the battle school kids are just brilliant and the adults on earth are fools to disregard them. However, the knowledge of these kids goes beyond intelligence and into the realm of the supernatural. Not only can these kids come up with brilliant military strategies and analyze people to predict possible behaviors/plans of action, but they are always right about it. There's always a right answer, the kids always know the right answer, and they always know that their answer is the right answer. Seriously. Like, Bean's a fortune teller.

(2) The kids are obsessed with their brilliance.

Look, I get it. You're smart. Like, really smart. The rest of us mere mortals should defer to you to do all the thinking. But yeah... referring to regular people as "stupid" and as "idiots" all the time is a little much? I mean, just because we don't have ESP doesn't mean we're complete and utter fools.

(3) There is always a "right answer."

If only the world were as clear as it is in this book. All the issues have actual "right answers," and the smart battle school kids all know what that right answer is. Military campaign strategy? There's a right answer. Political maneuvering strategy? There's a right answer. Leadership strategy? There's a right answer. How to manipulate a stupid human into feeling/doing/thinking what you want them to? There's a right answer. Life, the universe, and everything? There's a right answer. Forget that people aren't 100% predictable and that there are as many possibilities as there are people to think of them--because there are no options, just right answers and wrong answers.

(4) I feel like I'm being preached to.

Card has strong opinions about life, morality, and philosophy, and he takes every opportunity in all of his books to give us a "Card Sermon." I've noticed this before, but this book is the first time that it has really bothered me. I mean, it's great for him to have strong opinions about life, and it's great to put that into his literature. But when he starts having characters state his opinions as universal truths I have to roll my eyes. (Remember how there are always right answers and the kids know everything? Well sometimes the right answers are Card-losophies and the all-knowing kids who are obsessed with their own brilliance can't help but share what they "know.")

The thing is, as annoyed as this book made me, I feel like it still deserves more than 2 stars. It wasn't horrible, after all. It was pretty decent. Peter is a fascinating character and the secret messages were awesome. I'm not a huge fan of Achilles as a villain, and kids understanding and manipulating world politics is a little much, but overall, it was entertaining.

Fantastic, just fantastic. The first one was so emotional whereas this one was so political intriguing and complex.
P. S. I didn't expect that ending ❤

My Rating Scale:
1 Star - Horrible book, It was so bad I stopped reading it. I have not read the whole book and wont
2 Star - Bad book, I forced myself to finish it and do NOT recommend. I can't believe I read it once
3 Star - Average book, Was entertaining but nothing special. No plans to ever re-read
4 Star - Good Book, Was a really good book and I would recommend. I am Likely to re-read this book
5 Star - GREAT book, A great story and well written. I can't wait for the next book. I Will Re-Read this one or more times.

Number of times read: 2

A good supporting book to the Ender Series

Characters - This book focuses on Bean, Petra, and Peter. The main focus being on Bean and Petra. The character development focuses mostly on Petra. Bean's character is refined but you don't really learn much past what you already know. There is a small amount of development on Peter. Overall since I really love Bean, I was very happy with learning more about Petra.

Story - This is a good story, but it does not finish or wrap up events. You will need to read Shadow Puppets to get the rest of the story. Together the 2 books make up a really good story, but it does not reach the height of Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow. The story is still enjoyable and if you are a lover of Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow it is a must read and worth the time.

Overall - This is a must read for any fan of Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow. It does not reach the same level of excellence of those 2 books but it is still a very good story and worth reading more than once.