Reflection's Edge

Book Review: Shadow of the Giant, by Orson Scott Card

Reviewer: Romie J. Stott

When Ender Wiggin defeats the alien Buggers and leaves to found a new colony, the story on Earth is just beginning. Hundreds of highly trained teenagers with fierce ambition and brilliant strategic minds become the primary weapons of every country on Earth - and with the Bugger Wars over, those countries can turn their attentions to empire building. Determined to bring peace, Peter Wiggin must play a delicate political game with the limited resources of the Hegemon. But it's a race against time as Bean - the world's most brilliant tactical mind, and Peter's most important ally - moves closer to his genetic destiny of an early death from giantism.

Shadow of the Giant is 4th in a series, and the 8th novel in the "Ender" universe. Although this review strives to avoid revealing major plot points, it necessarily discusses the earlier books.

Orson Scott Card's Ender Quartet contains some of the finest and best-loved novels in science fiction. The first two books in the series - Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead - each won both the Hugo and the Nebula award; Speaker has spawned new funeral customs, and Ender's Game is now taught in many American high schools.

However, not every book in the Ender Quartet is loved equally. Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind never developped the crossover appeal of Ender's Game. Although all four books are masterfully written and follow the thought patterns and ethical dilemmas of the same character, he ages and he travels. The Ender who was a child defending Earth in Ender's Game is middle aged on a far-off colony planet by the beginning of Speaker for the Dead - and full of middle-aged concerns about family and death. Understandably, this older Ender has never sparked the same loyalty in young adult readers.

In an attempt to appeal to fans of Ender's Game and to revisit the universe he loves, Orson Scott Card has written a second "parallel" series about Bean and the other children in battle school. If this sounds like fanfiction, you're not far off the mark; Ender's Shadow, first in the series, takes place over the same time period as Ender's Game and the character arcs are almost identical - only Bean is even smaller then Ender, even more brilliant, and facing an even more fearsome rival. It could have been called "Ender goes to Hollywood." Nevertheless - and even though Card is a more intrusive narrator than usual - it's fun to read. It's the twinkie you sneak when you think no one is watching.

Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets lack this redeeming charm. They are tedious books in which very little happens; Card breaks his own rule and follows characters uninvolved in the main action of the story. Bean himself becomes boring and difficult to root for; most other major characters are whiny and similarly unlikeable. This is not helped by the ridiculous James Bond style villain, Achilles, who always gets away at the last minute and can thwart any plan anywhere in the world.

Throughout, Card never makes us care about the shifting political alliances central to the story; instead he indulges in creepy natalist moralizing, repeatedly stating that the only meaning of life is to marry someone of the opposite sex and have as many babies as possible. Moreover, Card constantly talks down to the reader and strains credibility by writing "superintelligent" characters who seem to be dumber than he is.

Fortunately, Shadow of the Giant rises above these precedents. The book begins in a world at war, and Card finally focuses on interesting characters in positions to make change: Peter, Hegemon of the Earth, struggles to make his office more than ceremonial; Han Tzu, Emperor of China, tries to undo the damage of the last administration while fighting the military advances of Russia; Virlomi, a self-styled Hindu goddess, uses religion and the media to unite the people of India against a common oppressor; and Alai, Caliph of the Muslim world, must try to reconcile fanatics of various beliefs and ethnicities.

What Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets did wrong, Shadow of the Giant does right. The ridiculous Achilles is finally dead, and Bean, although still bland, appears in only a handful of chapters. The stilted banter of the earlier books gives way to a dry and clever sense of humor. Instead of keeping characters ineffective and in hiding, Card moves the pace relentlessly forward; deadlines are finally presented with a sense of immediacy, and alliances finally seem meaningful.

Shadow of the Giant is a meditation on the kind of overreaching ambition that made Napoleon and then Hitler invade Russia - and which can make the rest of us overschedule ourselves or spend beyond our means. Its characters, though brilliant and powerful, are intensely human - not in a way that belittles them, but in a way that makes them more understandable. The tone can be more spy novel than science fiction, but that makes it no less enjoyable.

As a follow up to Ender's Game, Shadow of the Giant is disappointing. As a book by Orson Scott Card, it is equally unsatisfactory. However, taken on its own, Shadow of the Giant is a solid read. Buy it independent of the rest of the Shadow series (whatever backstory you invent will be more entertaining) and ignore the heavy-handed setup for a sequel - and it will be money well spent. If you've been avoiding Shadow of the Giant based on bad experiences with the other Shadow books, give it another look; if, on the other hand, you loved the rest of the Shadow series, Shadow of the Giant will not let you down.

If you liked this book, you may also enjoy:

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, by Orson Scott Card

Songs from the Stars, by Norman Spinrad

Wild Seed, by Octavia Butler

The Icarus Agenda, by Robert Ludlum



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