Ender's Shadow - by Orson Scott Card (Paperback)

About the Book

Card returns to the beginning of his Ender cycle with this parallel stand-alone novel as powerful as "Ender's Game". Ender wasn't the only child in Battle School -- Bean was Ender's right hand, strategist, and friend who was with Ender in the final battle. A tiny child from Rotterdam, Bean's struggle caught the attention of the Battle School's recruiters.

Book Synopsis

The novel that launched the bestselling Ender's Shadow series.

The human race is at War with the "Buggers," an insect-like alien race. As Earth prepares to defend itself from total destruction at the hands of an inscrutable enemy, all focus is on the development of military geniuses who can fight such a war, and win. The long distances of interstellar space have given hope to the defenders of Earth--they have time to train these future commanders up from childhood, forging them into an irresistible force in the high orbital facility called the Battle School. Andrew "Ender" Wiggin was not the only child in the Battle School; he was just the best of the best. In Ender's Shadow, Card tells the story of another of those precocious generals, the one they called Bean--the one who became Ender's right hand, part of his team, in the final battle against the Buggers. Bean's past was a battle just to survive. His success brought him to the attention of the Battle School's recruiters, those people scouring the planet for leaders, tacticians, and generals to save Earth from the threat of alien invasion. Bean was sent into orbit, to the Battle School. And there he met Ender....

THE ENDER UNIVERSE

Ender series
Ender's Game / Ender in Exile / Speaker for the Dead / Xenocide / Children of the Mind

Ender's Shadow series
Ender's Shadow / Shadow of the Hegemon / Shadow Puppets / Shadow of the Giant / Shadows in Flight

Children of the Fleet

The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
Earth Unaware / Earth Afire / Earth Awakens

The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
The Swarm /The Hive

Ender novellas
A War of Gifts /First Meetings

From the Back Cover

A COMPANION VOLUME TO ENDER'S GAME, ONE THAT EXPANDS AND COMPLIMENTS THE FIRST, ENHANCING ITS POWER, ILLUMINATING ITS EVENTS AND ITS POWERFUL CONCLUSION.

Andrew "Ender" Wiggin was not the only child in the Battle School; he was just the best of the best. Here is the story of another of those precocious generals, the one they called Bean -- the one who became Ender's right hand, his strategist, and his friend.

Bean's past was a battle just to survive on the streets of Rotterdam. He was a tiny child with a mind leagues beyond anyone else's. Bean's desperate struggle, and his remarkable success, brought him to the attention of the Battle School's recruiters, those people scouring the planet for leaders, tacticians, and generals to save Earth from the threat of alien invasion. Bean was sent into orbit, to the Battle School. And there he met Ender....

Review Quotes

"You can't step into the same river twice, but Card has gracefully dipped twice into the same inkwell--once for Ender's Game, and again for his stand-alone 'parallel novel.' As always, everyone will be struck by the power of Card's children, always more and less than human, perfect yet struggling, tragic, yet hopeful, wondrous and strange." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Ender's Shadow

"An absorbing, near-flawless performance." --Kirkus

"The wonders of Battleschool and flashsuits and children's armies should keep readers turning pages." --Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

"An exceptional work." --School Library Journal

About the Author

Orson Scott Card is best known for his science fiction novel Ender's Game and it's many sequels that expand the Ender Universe into the far future and the near past. Those books are organized into The Ender Saga, the five books that chronicle the life of Ender Wiggin; the Shadow Series, that follows on the novel Ender's Shadow and are set on Earth; and the Formic Wars series, written with co-author Aaron Johnston, that tells of the terrible first contact between humans and the alien "Buggers".

Card has been a working writer since the 1970s. Beginning with dozens of plays and musical comedies produced in the 1960s and 70s, Card's first published fiction appeared in 1977--the short story "Gert Fram" in the July issue of The Ensign, and the novelette version of "Ender's Game" in the August issue of Analog.

The novel-length version of Ender's Game, published in 1984 and continuously in print since then, became the basis of the 2013 film, starring Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, and Abigail Breslin.

Card was born in Washington state, and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, he runs occasional writers' workshops and directs plays. He frequently teaches writing and literature courses at Southern Virginia University.

He is the author many sf and fantasy novels, including the American frontier fantasy series "The Tales of Alvin Maker" (beginning with Seventh Son), There are also stand-alone science fiction and fantasy novels like Pastwatch and Hart's Hope. He has collaborated with his daughter Emily Card on a manga series, Laddertop. He has also written contemporary thrillers like Empire and historical novels like the monumental Saints and the religious novels Sarah and Rachel and Leah. Card's recent work includes the Mithermages books (Lost Gate, Gate Thief), contemporary magical fantasy for readers both young and old.

Card lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card, He and Kristine are the parents of five children and several grandchildren.

Scott Brick has performed on film, television and radio. He appeared on stage throughout the United States in productions of Cyrano, Hamlet, Macbeth and other plays. In addition to his acting work, Scott choreographs fight sequences, and was a combatant in films including Romeo and Juliet, The Fantasticks and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He has also been hired by Morgan Freeman to write the screenplay adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama.

Scott first began narrating audiobooks in 2000, and after recording almost 400 titles in five years, AudioFile magazine named Scott a Golden Voice and "one of the fastest-rising stars in the audiobook galaxy." He has read a number of titles in Frank Herbert's bestselling Dune series, and he won the 2003 Science Fiction Audie Award for Dune: The Butlerian Jihad. He has also won over 40 AudioFile Earphones Awards. In 2007, Scott was named Publishers Weekly's Narrator of the Year.