Background
I had a goal to read 6 novels in 2023, and I started that goal with the book “Ender’s Shadow” by Orson Scott Card. It’s a parallel story to “Ender’s Game”, revisiting the original book from the perspective of Ender’s right-hand man, Bean. After finishing that book, I couldn’t put the rest of the series down and between January and April, I finished the remaining 6 books.
Before going into my thoughts on the series, I feel like I need to explain a little bit about the Ender Universe. My thoughts on the Shadow Saga are below that.
Card first wrote “Ender’s Game” in 1985, this marks the beginning of the universe and what is usually called the “Ender Series”. After his first book, Card wrote “Speaker of the Dead” in 1986, an indirect sequel which takes place 3000 years after Ender’s Game. The following books, “Xenocide” (1991) and “Children of the Mind” (1996) are direct sequels to the second book, continuing right where the last book left off. I finished this series in 2021 and I enjoyed it a lot! I loved the first book for its characters, military-esque setting and the universe it was building. The rest of the series is completely different. It’s more philosophical, addressing what it means to be an intelligent species, and asking if the rights of one species supersede another’s. Though the ending is a little mystical, I thoroughly enjoyed the series. But this post isn’t about the Ender Series, I’ll save that for a different post. This is about Cards follow-up series within the same universe, the “Shadow saga”.
As I mentioned before, the first book “Ender’s Shadow” was written in 1999. It’s a retelling of the first book from Bean, a hyper-intelligent orphan from Rotterdam and his own experiences in Battle School. There are 4 other books in this saga “Shadow of the Hegemon” (2001), “Shadow Puppets” (2002), “Shadow of the Giant” (2005), and “Shadows in Flight” (2002). This series covers the Battle School events from the first book and then explores what happens to Earth after the war. Since every nation united to fight against the Formics, differences were set aside, sending the world’s brightest children to become expert military tacticians. Well, now that the Formics are defeated, and the children return to their respective countries, what happens now? It’s not like they can forget their military teaching and return to a regular childhood. The Shadow saga dives into geopolitics, and questions what the world will do once the common enemy is gone. The nations can return to their feuds and issues and that creates turmoil since every nation in the world is effectively in a cold war of intelligence. I thought it was super fascinating but I’ll get into that later.
Only to make the universe more confusing, Card eventually releases “Ender in Exile” (2008), which is a direct sequel to “Ender’s Game”. It’s about Ender and his experiences directly after the war. This novel would eventually lead to “Speaker of the Mind”. Finally, to wrap it all up, “The Last Shadow” was released in 2021, as the final book concluding the Ender series and the Shadow Saga. There is also a prequel series called the “Formic Wars”, which takes place before “Ender’s Game”, but I haven’t read them yet.
My Thoughts
As much as I loved the Ender Series, I think I’m an even bigger fan of the Shadow Saga. Card set up an interesting world and plot, but I think his writing shines in the way he deals with the relationships between people, and people’s character development.
Geopolitics
One of the subplots of the Shadow saga is Peter attempting to unite the world under one hegemony. Since every country has its own goals, culture, allies and enemies, how would one make these countries unite? Card does a good job of predicting what the conflicts would be like hundreds of years in the future. The actions of each nation, and the reactions they have feel realistic.
Character Development
You see Bean grow from a hyper-analytical person, to someone he would almost consider “human”. Bean considered himself an unloveable person, plagued by the guilt of Poke’s (and eventually Sister Carlotta’s) death. As he meets more people and develops more relationships, his view of the world and himself changes.
Peter, who is framed in the first book as just being evil, is now an integral part of the story. He has always been overshadowed by his brother, even though his accomplishments have their merit. Peter grows to develop a sense of self and trusts the people around him.
On the other hand, as a reader, you also witness character regression. Virlomi starts by being a level-headed Battle School child, but falls for her ego, becoming a self-proclaimed goddess. You see how this changes her decision-making and has negative outcomes for her country.
Other secondary characters develop and grow, but then there are characters like Petra who grow into the archetypical support to Bean. At the start of the saga, she was an independent thinker, with internal struggles and conflict, but by the end of the story, it felt like she was only Bean’s wife. I wish she remained more defined in the story.
Overall, this was a fantastic read and I definitely will return to it in the future.