The absence of such frustration is only one of the many reasons why Orson Scott Card's new book Ender's Shadow is so satisfying. Technically, the book is the fifth in Card's Ender series. But Ender's Shadow is not so much the latest in a series but a reflection, a retelling, a reexamination of the story science fiction readers first fell in love with in 1985, when Card published the Hugo and Nebula award-winning Ender's Game, the story of Ender Wiggin, the child genius who saves Earth from an alien race called the Buggers.
For its part, Ender's Shadow tells the story of Bean, a child genius who spends the first years of his life as a beggar orphan on the streets of late 21st-Century Rotterdam. Bean is discovered there by Sister Carlotta, a nun who has dedicated her life to finding children who show promise of military brilliance and sending them to the International Fleet's Battle School, where they are trained for the anticipated second war with the Buggers.
Although Bean's intelligence is unequaled by the other children, he discovers that most of the military's hopes are already pinned on Ender, who becomes, as anyone who has read the earlier books knows, the leader that everyone had been waiting for. In fact, Ender is as significant a character in this book as Bean was in the first.
So why would anyone want to read an entire novel about the also-ran, in which many of the scenes overlap the original, and whose ending is already well established? Because in Ender's Shadow, Card returns to the issues and ideas that he examines so engagingly in Ender's Game -- alienation, responsibility, morality, and above all, will.
Besides, Card manages to make the books seem very different despite their similarities. Much of Ender's anguish stems from his fear of being like his brother Peter and his despair at being separated from his sister Valentine; Bean, on the other hand, has no family that he knows of. Ender spends a lot of time discovering his abilities, while Bean spends a lot time uncovering his weaknesses.
Although Ender's Shadow is an overall success, it does of course have its weaknesses. For Ender's Game, Card had a ready made conclusion in the form of the final battle with the Buggers. In contrast, Ender's Shadow's ending seems somewhat pat, set up as it is by a deus ex machina situation in the form of a revelation dropped not so casually by Col. Graff.
In fact, Card himself criticized one of the book's aspects -- the title. In the acknowledgements, he writes that he still believes that his original title, Urchin, is better than Ender's Shadow, although he concedes that the latter is the more marketable one.
But I have to agree with Card's publisher in this case. Ender's Shadow is a perfect title, and not only for marketing reasons. Like Bean, the book is a shadow of Ender's Game. Luckily for Card's readers, that shadow is almost as bright as the original.
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