Shadow of the Hegemon: 2 - Softcover

Card, Orson Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812565959 ISBN 13: 9780812565959

Publisher: Tor Books, 2001

Synopsis

The War is over, won by Ender Wiggin and his team of brilliant child-warriors. The enemy is destroyed, the human race is saved. Ender himself refuses to return to the planet, but his crew has gone home to their families, scattered across the globe. The battle school is no more.

But with the external threat gone, the Earth has become a battlefield once more. The children of the Battle School are more than heroes; they are potential weapons that can bring power to the countries that control them. One by one, all of Ender's Dragon Army are kidnapped. Only Bean escapes; and he turns for help to Ender's brother Peter.

Peter Wiggin, Ender's older brother, has already been manipulating the politics of Earth from behind the scenes. With Bean's help, he will eventually rule the world.

Shadow of the Hegemon is the second novel in Orson Scott Card's Shadow Series.

THE ENDER UNIVERSE

Ender series
Ender's Game / Ender in Exile / Speaker for the Dead / Xenocide / Children of the Mind

Ender's Shadow series
Ender's Shadow / Shadow of the Hegemon / Shadow Puppets / Shadow of the Giant / Shadows in Flight

Children of the Fleet

The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
Earth Unaware / Earth Afire / Earth Awakens

The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
The Swarm /The Hive

Ender novellas
A War of Gifts /First Meetings

About this title

Review:

Orson Scott Card keeps returning to his first published story "Ender's Game" (1977). He expanded it into the acclaimed 1985 novel Ender's Game, winning Hugo and Nebula awards and spawning several sequels. More recently, Ender's Shadow reworked the original tale of precocious boy soldier Ender saving the world from alien hordes at terrible personal cost, as told from the different, colder viewpoint of his even younger lieutenant Bean.

Now Ender has been sent to the stars as too dangerously charismatic a military leader to keep on Earth. Without the common alien threat, our global alliance is disintegrating. Ender's top strategists like Bean are in demand by would-be conquering countries. Kidnappings rapidly follow.

Four strange, tortured teenagers dominate the book. Ender's brilliant but twisted brother Peter is already manipulating international politics as respected political pundit "Locke", hoping to become world ruler or Hegemon. He needs the genetically enhanced abilities of Bean, who's mainly concerned with the fate of kidnapped Petra--the only girl to reach the top rank at Ender's Battle School. Meanwhile boy serial killer Achille, the villain of Ender's Shadow, has sold his strategic talents to more than one nation, and has scores to settle ...

Shadow of the Hegemon lacks glittering SF hardware and seems almost old-fashioned after the planet-busting supertechnology of Ender's Game. What makes it compulsive reading is Card's uncannily sure handling of character, especially flawed characters and their painful moral choices. Minor figures like Ender's parents acquire new depth, and we care when people die. Recommended--but do read the books in sequence. A third "Shadow" novel follows. --David Langford

Review:

"The characterizations are first class, and the fast-paced action features one hair-raising episode after another....Shadow of the Hegemon is so nicely integrated into the rest of the Ender canon that readers will be completely enthralled." --Booklist

"Shadow of the Hegemon is an ideal book with which to start your science fiction year." --Rocky Mountain News

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0812565959
• ISBN 13: 9780812565959
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 451