Shadow Puppets (original 2002; edition 2003)

I hate to say this. I'll preface it by saying that I love Ender's Game. And really liked Ender's Shadow. This, the 7th in the Ender series overall, and the 3rd in the Bean wing of said series, was excruciating. It was not so much story as it was an extended pro-life, pro-Christianity, pro-America humorless trudge through a paper-thin plot. I'm not going any further with this series. ( )

I am such a lover of the cast that reads OSC audiobooks. Although this one had a lot of military plot points that aren't my favorite, I still plowed through it in a few days of listening. I liked Bean and Petra's storyline but I always miss Ender and Valentine when they aren't around...Peter and his mother are both rather annoying. ( )

Orson Scott Card tries to be Tom Clancy in this novel that continues the story of Bean one of Ender’s jeesh (close confidants/ friends) from the critically acclaimed Enders Game. I like Card and I like Clancy, but Card trying to write like Clancy is a big mistake and leaves it lacking on both the sci-fi and the political thriller side of things. Becoming a book with few surprises, and only familiar characters to keep you engaged. Hopefully the next book in the series goes back to the sci-fi roots from which is was born. ( )

This, the third in the Shadow series was more of a page turner than I expected, which is why I put off reading it for so long. I thought plot was too slow moving in the previous book, but this one kept me going and had an ending that is making me eager to read Shadow of the Giant. ( )

It was a reasonably good book.I wasn't too keen on some things about it, though:• With this and the previous book, Peter Wiggin somehow seems to be labeled as being less intelligent than both Ender and his sister, while in Ender's Game, he and his sister were both labeled as being exactly equal to Ender in intelligence (though they had character 'flaws' that kept them out of battle school); now they make it sound like Peter not only had character flaws, which they don't express in this series, but that he's actually significantly less intelligent—and I'm not talking about his being down on himself.• Bean's decisions at the end just seem a little fatalistic, like he's surrendering for no apparent reason, and not like things he, or anyone, would actually do—but then I guess he was trying to do the unexpected (but that it actually works—well, I'm not sure what to say about that). I'm glad that Achilles died in the end, though: that, at least, should mean he won't be the focus of the next book. That he didn't seem to anticipate the potential help of the Thai kid and his guards seemed a little surprising, though.• Bean doesn't really seem to have many reasons to like Petra, let alone marry her. Their personalities definitely don't seem the types I would think would gravitate toward one another, but hey, stuff like that can happen, even if it grates on my nerves a little in a book. I guess it's because I can relate to Bean's personality in a lot of ways, but I can't seem to relate to how he likes Petra (since she's not the type I would likely go for, since she seems to try to insult everyone she's around with everything she says, even if it is meant for humor or playful banter much of the time; plus, she tries to be competitive with people whether or not they themselves care about being competitive, and that, I think, is manipulative, and, unfair—there are a lot of people like her, and I'm not saying they're evil or anything, but they're not the sorts I would seek out, personally).• Bean seems to have some traits of the upper middle class (not the things I relate to), pertaining to his attitudes toward formal education in his manner of thinking and some of the things he cares about, which I don't think match his upbringing at all. I've noticed this in every book, so far, although they are subtle things (perhaps even arguable for those of varied experience), and the author probably shouldn't be blamed, since it probably wasn't apparent to him.• They make it sound like every kid from battle school is now magically a great tactician, while in Ender's Game, tactics didn't seem to be everyone's cup of tea (though they were still supposed to be pretty smart), even near the end. In fact, in Ender's Game, few seemed to do anything that wasn't traditional in the way of tactics—now it's like they've all learned to think outside the box to a much higher degree (unless their boxes have just expanded so much that it doesn't matter). It's nice to see this side of things, although the lack of explanation as to how it came about troubles me somewhat.• Bean doesn't seem to be any smarter in this book than he was in Ender's Shadow (and according to things characters said, he should be getting smarter all the time)—although it's good that the author addresses that Bean is wondering something like this himself (so we can suppose maybe there's a pending explanation in the next book). Maybe the problem is that the author is just having trouble making him any smarter and still having the book seem at all realistic. I think he was trying to give his characters more weaknesses in this book than in previous ones (a stylistic thing to please people who like that).There's a lot of political intrigue in this book, just as with the previous one.It's interesting, and you learn things important to the characters found in other books. I preferred the previous books (especially Ender's Shadow), but this book has it's good qualities. ( )