First Published: 2000

Rating: Average

"You think you've found somebody, so suddenly my program gets the ax?"

I wasn't particularly impressed when I finished Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, but since I already owned the "parallel" novel, Ender's Shadow, I decided to read it, too. I'll confess, I enjoyed it a litle more than Ender's Game. Very little more.

In Ender's Shadow, a young runt named Bean--who played a small but integral role in Ender's Game--is rescued from starvation on Rotterdam's cruel streets. A nun with an agenda picks him up after noticing the four-year-old's above-average intelligence and deciding that he'd be perfect for Battle School.

After a two-year waiting period, the six-year-old Bean is finally allowed into Battle School, where Earth's gifted youth learn to fight against the alien Buggers who want to destroy them. It's also where pretty much everyone tells Bean he reminds them of Ender Wiggin, the school's top student.

Bean quickly learns, however, that while he didn't do so hot on the physical scale, he scored higher than any other student--including Ender--on the intelligence tests. But he also discovers that Ender has other skills that make him the best choice for commander in the war against the Buggers, so he does his best to help his schoolmate from the background.

A lot of Ender fans seem to dislike Ender's Shadow because it downplays Ender's genius. I actually appreciated it more for that--Bean figures out a lot of the things that I thought should have been glaringly obviously to Ender. Apart from that, Ender's Game established that Ender was not the first kid who almost made it all the way to the top, so the fact that Bean is as smart or smarter than he is and just happened to come along a couple of years too late doesn't undermine either book. 

The constant explanations in Ender's Shadow did peeve me, though. Whenever Bean figures something out before Our Boy Ender, we're treated to a lovely explanation of how he figured it out. Card's constant exposition is something akin to having people in the row in front of you at the movie theater loudly ask each other to repeat lines and explain obvious plot twists. Readers don't need to be beaten over the head with things that were clear enough the first time around.

Still, Card's writing has matured since Ender's Game, giving Ender's Shadow an advantage when it comes to style. There are far fewer niggling errors to slow you down as you try to read. Unfortunately, there's still the same childishness incorporated into the speech, which grates after a few chapters.

Card was hailed for writing  Ender's Shadow as a parallel novel that didn't just rewrite Ender's Game. He does do that--the story he tells, even when it overlaps the previous book, is different enough that the books manage to stand on their own while complimenting each other. But while Ender's Shadow is just as fast-paced as its predecessor, it's unfortunately just as forgettable. 

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