This book tried really hard to ruin  Ender's Game for me. The premise of the book is that Ender wasn't really the hero of his own book, but that his course was manipulated and prodded onward by an even greater genius, in the form of Bean, a member of Ender's army.

Bean had a brutal upbringing on the streets, and somehow ended up in Battle School, where he takes over the computer system and runs everything by the time he's six. He ensures that Ender ends up saving the world -- without his help, Ender would have failed.

It was interesting to see the events of Ender's Game from a different perspective, but that's about the only positive thing I have to say about this book. Possibly the deepest theme element in the book is how Bean's interactions with Ender forced him to care about someone other than himself. End of Bean's worries that he might not be human.

It seems like Orson Scott Card also tried to pull in some elements of Alan Dean Foster's "Flinx" series, with the whole "genetically manipulated super-human with emotional insecurity" thing.

Great. "I see your super-genius and trump you with a super-super-genius." Lousy book.

Almost everyone I talked to about Ender's Game, told me I should read Ender's Shadow, it's just as good, if not better. So naturally, I was super pumped to get my hands on Card's retelling of one of my favorite tales. Instead, however, I found that after the first couple chapters, it was getting harder and harder to read the book without wanting to chuck it out the window.

Here are the main reasons why this book drove me completely bananas and caused me to finally abandon it 200 pages in:

1. The redundancy. Not in the fact that ender’s shadow is a retelling of a previously-written novel, but in Bean’s continued consideration of everything around him. His thoughts, which are described to run at an incomprehensible to speed to anyone but Bean himself, are spelled out word for word at an appallingly slow pace. Concepts that are comprehendible the first time around are continually repeated, leading to paragraph after paragraph restating the same idea. This is extremely unnecessary and took up the entire first couple weeks of Bean's stay at Battle School.

2. The technology. The advancement in technology between the writing of Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow is directly reflected into Card’s description of the technology. Desks are described much more to resemble laptops, at one point card goes so far as to call someone’s desk a computer. His description and use of the technology has been clearly affected. What’s wrong and annoying about this is that it seems like the technology between the two books are no longer the same entity as they are supposed to be. No longer do the desks have an other-worldly presence that separates this world from ours. Card has allowed the world around him to affect his analysis of his own sci-fi-future world. This is ignoring the replacing the name "Buggers" with "Formics," another unnecessary change that only divides the two books.

3. Bean's character. As a character, Ender Wiggin has the major contrast between his strong compassion and love for those around him and the ability to demolish anyone who threatens his own survival. The cross between his brother’s brutality and his sister’s empathy leads to wonderful characterization that enhances his account of his adventures through the book. In contrast, Bean’s character is described as a machine. The events affecting Ender's learning at Battle School have been replaced by monotonous thoughts and explanations in Ender's Shadow. Everything that happens is overanalyzed and over explained, whereas in Ender's Game, Ender simply acts as he sees fit, we learn why this is as we learn about his character and personality. Besides this, Bean, now in this retelling, is newly arrogant and conceited. He is offended when Ender doesn't know of his great "reputation" and reacts badly to everything Ender does as a commander, complaining about how horrible he is and what he is doing wrong.

4. The conception of Ender Wiggin. On this previous note, through Bean's arrogant perception, Ender comes off as a huge a-hole as well. There is no hint that Ender treats Bean and his fellow soldiers in order to get the best performance out of them, rather Bean sees everything as a product of Ender's arrogance, doing pointless things just to humiliate his soldiers. Also, although it is understandable that he would be some sort of legend at Battle School with the best ratings, the extent of his legend and ubiquitous obsession comes too soon too fast. He is good yes, but it is not until Dragon Army when Ender's presence truly takes over the school, when it becomes truly clear how obsessed the teachers are with his potential.

In essence, none of the characters in Card's retelling held any interest to me, even Sister Carlotta, the nun, came off as arrogant, sarcastic, and manipulative. At least in Ender's Game, Ender had good qualities that conflicted against his ability to control and manipulate those around him. With Bean, even when he has a chance at having a friend, he still sees himself as superior.

Amazing!
When people who read the book told me it's better then Ender's Game I doubt it.
But it's true, this book is a masterpiece, every second of reading is enjoyable.

Orson Scott Card attempted (and achieved) the near impossible. Twelve years later he went back and wrote Ender's Game from the point of view of another character. Several times in the book, the same exact event and dialog take place, but from an entirely different perspective. Powerful! Interesting.

I already mentioned that I woke up thinking of Bean and Ender. These two books are incredible.

4/22/11
I am excited to be listening to this book again. It's marvelous. Yup. It's official, I prefer Ender's Shadow to Ender's Game. But, I love them both.

1/23/12
Another read - still as good as ever.

3/9/16
I just listened to Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow back to back. Wondersome! I found even more reasons to love Bean and Sister Carlotta. And, even after four readings, I still cry at the end when Bean does as he clings to his mother.

Ender's Game:
There's this really, really smart kid, see, and he's lonely, and he has to do really hard stuff, and adults are mean.

OK. I can get with that.

Ender's Shadow:
Oh, but I forgot to mention, there's this OTHER kid, who's even smarter, like really, really, REALLY smart, and he's also even lonelier, and he has to do even harder stuff, and the adults are even meaner.

Give me a break. Yawn. I think Card is great but this is just ridiculous. I read Shadow of the Hegemon but quit after that.

Loved this retelling of Ender's Game from Bean's perspective. For anyone who enjoyed Ender's Game I would highly recommend this book.

He's done it twice!!! Just as good as Ender's game, might even be slightly better.

I read this outloud to my kinds., who loved the entire Ender series.

This is the simplified version of Ender's Game for the kiddie set that can't handle rich characters with moral ambiguity, moral introspection, and character growth.

Card does great work teaching people how to re-imagine stories from different viewpoints and with different motivations in his workshops. It's a shame that he didn't demonstrate it here.

Instead, we get Bean (a great character in the original story) as a classic Mary Sue, a wish-fulfillment character with all of Ender's skill but none of his angst or growth around it. Even the adults who spend the first book walking a delicate line trying to save Ender from their own work fall down at Bean's feet and beg him to save them from their own inadequacies.

The one limitation he has, and I'm not kidding, from his genetically engineered childhood where he was found in a toilet tank, is that he is so smart, so physically developed, and so gosh-darn what the 6 year old reader wants to grow up to be that he's going to die young. Except, of course, you know he's not. Because Mary Sues do die young, but he obviously won't.

We have more sequels to milk, after all, and not enough uberkinder to go around.

Skip this. Do your local child a favor and don't let them read it. If they want to read pablum, let them read fun pablum, at least. This book should come with insulin.

I personally found that I enjoyed Ender's Shadow more than Ender's Game.

Perhaps because I found Bean, as a character, more relatable in how he analyzes and views people and the world in general. He also felt more real as a character in that he is awkward and clueless and greatly flawed.

The pacing for this book is a little less smooth in comparison to Ender's Game. The plot, on the other hand, is a little better as you have a greater insight into the background workings of Ender's success. Graff and other characters come to life in a greater degree and have more personality and "air time". So too does Petra.

Over all, I enjoyed this book.

This book was assigned to us by our ELA teacher for our Science Fiction Unit. I will say that this book was very slow starting out. As you read though, it became easier to understand and better to read. If you have patience when it comes to reading and love intricate and over complicated storylines then I would suggest this book for you.

bae i love YOU you my EVERYTHING