Wonderful!This is the fourth book in the Ender’s Shadow series – and once again, is a book that can be read as a standalone novel.This book in many ways continues the story of Ender’s older brother, Peter, attempting to (and getting closer to success) unite the world in peace – with Bean’s and Petra’s help of course. For me, this is also a much more personal story of Bean and Petra.While the world politics continues in the background, Bean and Petra have found love, and – more amazing still – ha...

Here I am, yet again, drinking up page after page of vague, over-generalized international conflict talk like it is the sweetest ambrosia.Card writes this series specifically for me, honestly. There is a part where Peter Wiggin and Graff talk about "if Russia does this, then China will do that" "if India does that, I will do this" in massively nonspecific and omniscient terms for a whole entire chapter. I love it. Talk to me about ten all-powerful genius kids playing war games with the whole wor...

4.0 stars. And so we arrive at the finale to the wonderful Shadow series on the heals of the tumultuous events of the previous three books, Ender's Shadow,Shadow of the Hegemon andShadow Puppets. For those that have not read the previous installments, there will be some spoilers below as the plot summary alludes to events that have occurred in the previous books. However, I will avoid spoilers for this book and will try and be as general as possible in the synopsis. This book concludes short

După dispariția lui Ahile, ambiția foștilor membrii ai armatei lui Ender amenință să înghită și să sfâșie Pământul în lupte fără sfârșit. Cu un rol mai mult simbolic și fără o putere reală, Peter Wiggin, Hegemonul Pământului, încearcă să-și exploateze puțina influență politică pentru a pune bazele Alianței Popoarelor Libere și a unifica întreaga planetă sub un singur conducător, evitând astfel războiul.Pe celălalt plan, Bean își împarte puținul timp rămas între Petra, căutarea embrionilor pierdu...

Things this books taught me:Even if you save a planet by fighting an intergalactic war before you hit puberty, your life will be meaningless unless you have biological children. Also, the Islamic region exists only to take over the entire world and is more evil than the other people who want to take over the entire world, even though everyone else is also killing and fighting people because they think their way is better.Things I wanted to learn in this book:How Peter Wiggins was able to take ov...

Eh. It was ok. Not his crown masterpiece.Lots of war games, strategy. You get to find out what happens to Bean and Petra and the rest of Ender's Jeesh as all the nations of Earth use the wonder kids to try to tear each other apart. Interesting insight on Islam (from, um, a Mormon?). You get to see Peter be Not Such a Bad Guy After All.My problems with it are:- not much exciting new conceptual stuff like the Speaker for the Dead books. It feels like the whole book is denouement. Or filler. - I su...

Wraps up so many things from so many other books, and so beautifully done. The moment I learned what volescu was doing I couldn't stop reading and it didn't let up. I didn't know if I was going to read shadows in flight after this but now I have no choice. Loved all the character development. Just overall great book.

2.5 stars. Oh, jeesh, where do I even begin? Okay, well I love Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. No one really annoyed me in those two books. I can't speak to the remainder of Ender's series because I got so bored listening to Speaker for the Dead that I set is aside for a bit. I've finished off Bean's series with this one and phew, thank goodness it is over because I don't think I could've read/listened to another one. Why do I keep doing it? Good question. Answer: Because I do enjoy OSC's writi...

Who the hell decides to randomly re-read book 4 in a series that they haven't touched in YEARS? Umm. . . me? I guess?I first read these books a really long time ago. Ender's Game had been one my favorite sci-fi books ever back in the day (I will never forget how I felt when I read the "twist" at the end of that book. It was one of those moments that literally put goosebumps on my arms. SO GOOD.)I ended up reading most of the Enderverse books and liking them. I remembered that this was my least f...

This is the fourth of the Shadow books, and in it, Card picks up the question of what happens to a lot of young people who have never known anything but war, as Ender's Jeesh and other key Battle School graduates take their places among the heads of state. It's thoughtfully done, if not carried to great personal depths in every case; so much happens in this story that a lot of the political maneuvers simply have to be summed up, and some of the important character development happens in just one...

Adam C. Zern offers his thoughts . . . "When I completed Shadow Puppets I was as hesitant as I’ve ever been to continue reading the Shadow series, which is an extension of the Ender series. I felt the book was extremely weak in both story and character. It made me feel as if Orson Scott Card was wandering helplessly in the desert of his own imagination and never finding an oasis of meaningful creativity. Happily, Shadow of the Giant, the 4th book in the Shadow series, is a solid return to the ch...

I've enjoyed Bean's story, even more than Ender's, but there are a couple of things that have been nagging me throughout this entire series. Bean is supposed to be the most intelligent human being alive. I can't help but feel that Card can't even come close to properly portraying the smartest man alive.First of all, it's ridiculous that Bean should spend any brainpower at all thinking about religion and God. Countless studies show a clear inclination towards atheism in people with high IQs. This...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. Going to have to reiterate my wish that these four books had been combined, heavily pruned, and polished a little, I'm afraid... I concur with this review on most points... the endless geopolitical stuff got very tired early on in this book, and while it was good to see a little more on Alai and Virlomi (I really liked her story), the whole point of this set of things is Peter's rise, and the constant bogging-down of what could have been a really interesting, succinct examination

I couldn't be happier with how this series ended.I feel like this book was just OSC showing off. It was as if he were attempting to write a book to show other authors how to develop characters. OSC took characters that the reader previously held in high regard and easily made them a villain as well as took previously, unlikeable characters and turned them to into charismatic heroes. It was a real treat to see these kids grow up and find out what happens to every story line.While I don't want to

This was an almost completely satisfying conclusion for the Shadow series. I just wish that girl, Randi, would have gotten smacked around a bit.But I really enjoyed that this addition to the series had more of the war games than the last. Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow of the Giant are my favourites of the Shadow series for that reason. I also enjoyed having some sort of conclusion for all of the other characters, such as Alai. Especially Peter. I really enjoyed his character. Being a very dif...

I am SO done with the series of sermons about biological determinism that these books have become. I will probably just keep going in the hope that’s I eventually like another as much as the first few. Peter is still good in this one, but only really in the last fifth of the book. And that’s the only good thing I can say. Card is of course great at writing political machinations, but that’s not enough for me to ignore everything like the heterosexism and pretty blatant Islamophobia.

I read a lot of the negative reviews for Shadow of the Giant because about halfway through I kept thinking, "Am I the only one that thinks this is pretty much garbage?" Card built his Ender empire both through Ender Wiggin and Bean/Julian Delficki, but in my opinion starting with Shadow of the Hegemon slowly flushes his universe and characters down the toilet. I was really impressed with Ender's Game even though I got tired of hearing, "Fart knockers" all the time. Ender's Shadow is the book tha...

Orson Scott Card concludes his shadow series brilliantly in this novel, which details the search for Bean and Petra’s missing children and the onset of world peace under the Hegemon’s rule. Card takes us into the heart of Ender’s jeesh and the ambition that drives them. At the same time, he makes Peter somewhat more likeable as his true motives emerge.The novel begins with a Chinese coup led by “Hot Soup,” resulting in him being crowned Emperor. Three key jeesh members now lead countries in rath...

"You have to tame the horse before you can let it have its head." ~Mazor Rackham p. 50"'Who are you writing to?''Whom. You foreigners are wrecking the English language.''I'm not speaking English. I'm speaking Common. There's no 'whom' in Common.'"~Mrs. Wiggin and Bean p. 104"'Why do you always drink that stuff?' asked John PaulPeter looked surprised. 'Guarana? it's my duty as an American to never drink Coke or Pepsi in a country that has an indigenous soft drink. Besides which, I like it.''It's

Shadow of the Giant was much better than Shadow Puppets, but still not close to the first two books of the series. The basic plot of the last three books has been Battle School grads treating the world as their own personal game of Risk, which is so cool. But for whatever reason, some of the subplots just aren’t drawing me in as much, and some of the characters are getting really annoying. The Bean and Petra relationship felt kind of forced a few books ago, but just as I was starting to get used...