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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. The League Wars are over, but the struggle continues between various world powers. Someone kidnaps all the Battle School kids who served under Ender during the Bugger War. Bean alone escapes this fate. Though he must go into hiding, he seeks out the only person who can help him free the others: Peter Wiggin. Most of the story revolves around Bean and Petra, but I didn't feel like I got to know her any better than I did in Ender's Game. Of course, I've noticed Card's difficulty with writing realistic female characters before. The continuation of Achilles's tale was kind of interesting but not especially believable. I hear the series improves as you go along. Not that this is such a bad book - it just didn't do much for me. (  ) melydia | Oct 28, 2009 |  The second novel about Bean, Ender's friend and fellow Battle School graduate. By this point Ender is gone and Bean is left on Earth to both survive and try to fend off the schemes of Ender's brother, Peter. In this novel we start to find out what happened on Earth after Ender left. While that turns out to be good material for a novel, it still feels a bit like going over old material, even if this is almost entirely new. Bean is still an engaging character, and the events of the book are plausible and interesting. (  ) Karlstar | Oct 14, 2009 | Unfortunately, like so many authors who write endless series, Card should have known when to stop. Not one of his best works, Shadow of the Hegemon is filled with cookie cutter characters who are clones of one another to some degree; utterly nonsensical political stratagems that tend to a big yawn; utterly implausible premise of very young adolescents being the political geniuses and power-mongers of the world. All of this is very disappointing coming from Card, because when he has his literary act together he is so very, very good. It would seem, however, that when he's bad, he's very, very bad. Ultimately this is a forgettable novel. (  ) fiverivers | Aug 21, 2009 | The worst of the bunch thus far (comparing it against the first 3 Ender books and Ender's Shadow); a pretty much average science fiction book. The book is narrative heavy compared to the other Orson Scott Card books I've read. I believe that this made it a bit more boring. I found myself longing for the long philosophical passages of Xenocide and Speaker for the Dead, which were conspicuously absent throughout this book. Orson Scott Card's handling of international politics seems often naive and superficial, which might make the book more accessible to a wider audience, but still results in the glancing over of certain key events in the politics of the Ender Universe. Characterizations seemed a bit off key a times, to the point where one may speculate that Card's voice is what you're reading and no the characters themselves. It just seemed as if Bean's personality was not as coherent as in the previous book. Petra's on the other hand, was on the dot. ( ) calwakeel | Jul 20, 2009 | Even though you know how this story has to end if you've read Ender's Game (although you don't necessarily know how many books it will take to get there), it still sucks you in and is hard to put down. It's a fairly enjoyable read, but there are a lot of problems. It's not science fiction. It happens to take place in the future, but there are no sci-fi elements whatsoever; that's just an excuse for Card to make up whatever he feels like regarding world politics. And those politics are simplified to a level of a game of Risk. Characters can predict the future of world events based on a handful of pieces of information, which is especially unbelievable since Peter Wiggin, the supposed political genius, comes across as a complete twit in this book. And he and two other of the four main characters are insufferable smart asses. Even Bean comes across that way sometimes. The dialog is often terrible. Sometimes it's just awkward and unnatural. Sometimes Card uses it to frame things he wants to say to the audience, which is the most unfortunate aspect of this book. As great a storyteller as Card usually is, he's kind of a d**k, and as soon as I feel like I'm hearing his opinions rather than his characters' opinions, the book loses a lot for me. ( ) comfypants | May 3, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0812565959, Mass Market Paperback)Orson Scott Card finally explores what happened on earth after the war with the Buggers in the sixth book of his Ender series, Shadow of the Hegemon. This novel is the continuation of the story of Bean, which began with Ender's Shadow, a parallel novel to Card's Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Ender's Game.While Ender heads off to a faraway planet, Bean and the other brilliant children who helped Ender save the earth from alien invaders have become war heroes and have finally been sent home to live with their parents. While the children try to fit back in with the family and friends they haven't known for nearly a decade, someone's worried about their safety. Peter Wiggins, Ender's brother, has foreseen that the talented children are in danger of being killed or kidnapped. His fears are quickly realized, and only Bean manages to escape. Bean knows he must save the others and protect humanity from a new evil that has arisen, an evil from his past. But just as he played second to Ender during the Bugger war, Bean must again step into the shadow of another, the one who will be Hegemon. In Shadow of the Hegemon, Card can't help but fall back into old patterns. But while the theme is the same as in previous books--brilliant, tragic children with the fate of the human race resting on their shoulders--Shadow of the Hegemon does a wonderful job of continuing Bean's tale against a backdrop of the politics and intrigue of a fragile earth. While the novel is accessible, new readers to the series would be wise to begin with Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow. --Kathie Huddleston (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:11 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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