Shadow Puppets

Rating:
Summary: Shadow Puppets is Right!
Review: Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are two of my most favorite books. This flimsy excuse for a book seemed like just another attempt by Card to cash in on the success of the rest of the franchise. I wonder if he realizes that while he may gain profits in the short term...in the long term it only serves to denigrate and hurt the whole series. I found the characters uninteresting as they seemed to really be puppets, acting out the desires of the author with no real sense of purpose or reason...other than thats where the author wanted to go. The plot was uninteresting and made me feel like I was watching a bad B (or C if there is such a thing) Sci-Fi movie.

I am starting to wonder if William Shatner "Shadow" wrote this book. It's that bad. Don't waste your time.

Rating:
Summary: Certainly not the best of the series
Review: I introduced myself to the Ender series as a teenager nearly a decade ago and throughout my high school years Card was by far my favorite storyteller. In my mind, Ender's Game is a classic and ranks alongside works such as the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Although I haven't revisited Ender's Game since I first read it (and for the sake of nostalgia, probably never will), these last few books certainly don't show a great deal of TLC on the part of Card. In one sense, my assessment's unfair. Card put decades of thought into developing Ender's Game and it's a solid, inspiring work. He's been churning these last ones out in a year's time. I assume he's written the more recent for his fans, whom I believe he genuinely relates to, and I guess he's simply trying to satisfy their appetite to know what happened from the mind that created this whole fictional universe. But Shadow Puppets is, in my humble opinion, a laundry list of events with fairly lackluster prose and pretty weak character development (for what I remember as the best of Card, at least). There was a mystery to the world (it was a far more exciting place when the details were murky) of Ender's Game, but the post-Formic War planet Earth is too much like the one we have in the here and now and I just can't swallow any longer the premise that adolescents would be running the world, at least not in such great number...I read this book as soon as it arrived at my door here in Scotland. And when I put it down, I couldn't help be get a lump in my throat as I remembered fondly those final chapters of Ender's Game. Now that was a heck of a book.

Rating:
Summary: Hoping for a little bit more...
Review: Let me start by saying that I found the Ender Series extremely enjoyable. (Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind) Although I found them to slightly decline in quality, in the end, I had very few complaints about them.

I enjoyed Ender's shadow a lot. It helps us get into the fantastic mind of Bean, one of the most interesting characters in the book. Shadow of the Hegemon was more on the militaristic side, and not much character development of bean, but it kept you reading it, in order to find out what happened.

Now. For this one. Shadow Puppets, as I've already said, I was expecting a little bit more. I was hoping that my slight dissapointment in Shadow of the Hegemon could be brought back with Shadow Puppets, but it was only mediocre. The book starts off fast paced, and i found the beginning of the book to be pretty interesting... im liking it. Once Petra and Bean left, however, the entire novel was devoted to babies. Petra's babies. The middle section of the book, in my opinion, was the lowest in all the Bean series. It was an interesting concept for, say, one-two chapters. However when you drag it on for 3,4,5 chapters it starts getting old. I would have liked to see some more development of Bean in action, instead of seeing him sit around wallowing in self pity. Once we met Alai, however, the book starts to get better, and the ending is great. (Once again returning to the babies.) My final verdict is: Read this book, if only to be able to read the next two books that come out. And cross your fingers that Card will be able to go back to his standard of Speaker for the Dead and Ender's Game/Shadow.

3 1/2 Stars.

Rating:
Summary: It's All A Matter Of Perspective
Review: Ok I actually have to say that I enjoyed this 7th book in the Ender's Series. Now I know a lot of people are compalaining and giving this book bad reviews but I think that they're looking at it in the wrong context. This book isn't for everyone. Just like Shadow of the Hegemon it's heavily concentrated in political/military matters more than sci-fi, in fact the only reason the book is even classified as such is because it's part of the Ender's Series. I happen to like that sort of stuff so these books were quite good to me. It really depends on the person. If you really liked Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind then you might not like these books as much. However if you have an open mind and just look at them for themselves then I think people wouldn't be so harsh on it.

Now on to the book itself. Shadow Puppets continues the story of what happens on Earh after Ender. Peter is now Hegemon but with little power. Achilles is still at large, causing trouble. Bean and Petra develop a romance. A lot of political and strategic maneuvering with character interactions and developments. Overall I thought it was good book that continued the story arc.

Finally and this is my own opinion, I wish too see more Peter!! In fact I think a whole book should be written with him as the main character. I find him far more interesting than Bean, who just doesn't appeal to me. The books would greatly improve if more time was spent on Peter but that's just me. Still I'll be reading the next book and the one after that(which I'll probably really like since I heard that Bean finally dies in the next book which therefore leaves room for more Peter).

Rating:
Summary: You like it or you don't.
Review: SHADOW PUPPETS is one of things that you either REALLY like it or you REALLY don't. You can see that from the other reviews. The numbers are one, two, four, five. No three stars. If you need some explaining, here it is:
Shadow Puppets is about Bean and Petra all the way. Some people might find it kind of disturbing that two people of such different ages get married and so on.

Petra talks a little bit too much about forcing Bean into having kids. Some people probably think that part is a little weird.

Peter is the Hegemon, trying to find world peace. People might find that because China, Thailand, and many Asian and Middle Eastern countries have to do with this that the book is racist. Look, being Swedish, I don't think it is a problem. But if it was about Sweden being allies with a mass-murderer I would have been a little disappointed. It matters what view you have on the counties at hand.

But, as usual, OSC writes a great understanding of young geniuses. I think that his writing abilites, intelecual strengths, and vocabulary make this book and all the others awesome.

Also, Peter shows a soft spot in this book, which is a little refreshing. His new personality proves that he might actually be human.

And, as someone else mentioned, Bean gives Achilles some of his own medicine. That is REALLY refreshing.