While Ender heads off to a faraway planet, Bean and the other brilliant children who helped Ender save the earth from alien invaders have become war heroes and have finally been sent home to live with their parents. While the children try to fit back in with the family and friends they haven't known for nearly a decade, someone's worried about their safety. Peter Wiggins, Ender's brother, has foreseen that the talented children are in danger of being killed or kidnapped. His fears are quickly realized, and only Bean manages to escape. Bean knows he must save the others and protect humanity from a new evil that has arisen, an evil from his past. But just as he played second to Ender during the Bugger war, Bean must again step into the shadow of another, the one who will be Hegemon.

In Shadow of the Hegemon, Card can't help but fall back into old patterns. But while the theme is the same as in previous books--brilliant, tragic children with the fate of the human race resting on their shoulders--Shadow of the Hegemon does a wonderful job of continuing Bean's tale against a backdrop of the politics and intrigue of a fragile earth. While the novel is accessible, new readers to the series would be wise to begin with Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow. --Kathie Huddleston

Product Description

What made "Shadow of the Hegemon" stand out for me was the political aspect of the novel. Orson Scott Card has done a better job of painting national politics and intrigue across a worldwide scale better than any science fiction or fantasy writer I've seen since George R.R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones". The scope that he uses is very impressive as he takes the political action of the novel across most of the Asian continent and shows situations that are, on the whole, relatively plausible.

Card's work in blending national policy with personal motivation is very impressive. However, there are a few small areas I quibble with. I think that the world community he paints one hundred and fifty years hence is a little tainted by personal bitterness, both to the US and China. Whether he meant it to or not, it does, to me, detract a bit from both the plausibilty of the book and the overall quality of the writing. Likewise, while I am not a student of South and Southeast Asia, I question his wisdom in using just once source apiece - as he states in the afterword - when creating his India and Thailand circa 2150. This fact appears rather obvious when reading characters' discussions of these two countries. Card trys very hard to make the countries he creates plausible extrapolations of today's countries, and they suffer for these two reasons.

Nonetheless, the novel is still a wonderful read. Card takes a couple of classic premises for novels and blends them into a story that, if it occaisonally lacks for original plot twists, one that shows how well he grasps both individual struggle and national interplay.

On the individual side of the novel, Bean, Peter and Petra all take on additional depth in this novel and all three become characters that I am eager to read more about in the remaining two novels in Card's "Shadow" series. As adolescents and teenagers, they are as believable as they were as children in "Ender's Game" and "Ender's Shadow". As people, they develop more depth to their character - especially Peter - and move in directions that are, if predictable, certainly arrived at unpredictably.

In retrospect, what definitely stands out for me in this book, are the political machinations. I'm sure that will be what primarily stands out one, five, or ten years from now. Anyone with an interest in political struggle should read this book, as well as any Orson Scott Card fan who wants to see him successfully tackle new areas of writing. While I do have minor reservations about the world as he creates it, I have none about the way his characters move it and move through it.


Disappointing and tedious   January 31, 2002
 35 out of 45 found this review helpful

Ender's Game is a classic; Ender's Shadow is remarkably good; this book I found disappointing. It picks up where Ender's Shadow left off: the war against the aliens has been won, which means that all of the domestic tensions set aside for that battle have re-emerged in full force, and the brilliant children who won the war for Earth become prizes in those battles.

Again we focus on Bean with more emphasis on Peter Wiggin, Ender's brother. Early on, it's a gripping read as many of the child generals are kidnapped and attempts are made on Bean's life.

Later on, though, the book bogs down in pages and pages of talk about how to deal with the politics, which I found tedious. I also found limits to my suspension of disbelief with the continued dominance of the children over the adults in military and political strategy. One sees that in young adult fiction and can accept it, but I don't see very many young adults finding this book very interesting.

As I said, it's rather a disappointment and not at all up to the level of its predecessors.


Almost preachy, but an excellent read   January 6, 2001
 34 out of 39 found this review helpful

Shadow of the Hegemon is a fascinating book that held my interest the entire way through. I read it in one day because I couldn't put it down.

The pace was good and I fell in love with the characters all over again. Only one thing seemed strange to me. The flow of story was interrupted a few times by long conversations and reflections that seemed like the author was slipping in his religious views. The passages didn't fit with the characters at all and for a few pages, I thought I had accidentally picked up a book from the "Left Behind" series. I hadn't noticed this before in the other Ender books. Maybe it was because Card was simultaneously writing "Sarah: Women of Genesis".

Those pages were definitely bearable because the strategies and power struggles were totally engrossing. Judging from Card's skill as a writer, the reflections probably serve as development for future books. I didn't necessarily disagree with the content, and he has earned the right to do whatever he wants in his writing.

If you liked Ender's game and Ender's shadow, don't hesitate in buying this book.


Precocious Pests Pursue Peace....   January 25, 2001
 25 out of 34 found this review helpful

Well, Orson Scott Card is back again with another saga of the world run by pre-adolescents. His first book in the series, "Enders Game" was believable because Ender & his siblings were so superior to everyone around them that they could be viewed as aberrations. The next three, "Speaker for the Dead", "Xenocide" & "Children of the Mind" dealt primarily with adults so the genius kid wasn't an issue. Then came "Ender's Shadow" which told the story of Bean, a member of Ender's "jeesh" in Battle-School. The brilliance displayed by the infant Bean was less than believable but accounted for by Bean's back-story (which I won't give away if you haven't read it yet). Now though we are presented with not only Bean, Ender, Peter & Valentine as pre-pubescent saviors of humanity, we also get at least 10 other children manuevering politicians & armies. Mr. Card has lost me here.

The villain of both "Shadows" books is Achilles whom Bean has known since his days as a street kid in Rotterdam. Achilles is presented to the reader as an older street kid who originally was handicapped by a bad leg, & has developed a nasty sort of underhanded cunning to compensate. While the fact that Rotterdams mean streets could produce 2 children equally brilliant in strategic thinking is difficult enough to accept (especially when malnourishment & lack of education is taken into account), Achilles has somehow picked up a knowledge of classical literature along the way! The author completely lost this reader at that point.

The adults in "Shadow of the Hegemon" exist only to achieve objectives for the children who command them, or else they give them moral lectures. Orson Scott Card's Mormonism becomes particularly obtrusive during the latter. At one point Mrs. Wiggins lectures Bean & the reader on the joys of children (& lots of them!) for a number of pages. Later, the reader will probably be laughing over the mental image of a small 11 year-old personally commanding a platoon of adults. The scene where Achilles brokers peace between Pakistan & India is even more mind-blowing if not quite as funny to picture.

Still, "Shadow of the Hegemon" gets 4 stars due to it's suspenseful writing, fast pace & execution. I just hope Mr. Card is not burning himself out; each of his recent books seems successsively weaker than it's predecessor.


Satisfying   January 12, 2001
 23 out of 26 found this review helpful

How do I review this book? Do I review it on the basis of the craftmanship of the storytelling? In that case, five stars without question. Do I review it on the basis of the fact that I stayed up five hours past my normal bedtime to finish it because I was so involved in the story? Again, five stars without question. You'll notice, though, that I gave it four stars. Without giving too much away, here is why:

1) In reading the scene with Bean and Ender's mother, there was a point at which I no longer heard Ender's mother, but heard Orson Scott Card. Normally, he does not do this... I think that his passion for that particular belief was so strong that it overwhelmed the character. I may be wrong, of course, but that is how I percieved it.

2) As another reviewer has mentioned, the plot relies heavily on the notion that a nation would follow Achilles in a situation where it is highly unbelievable that that nation would do so.

3) There is a major continuity flaw in the book with the other ones. When Peter reveals to the world that he was Locke and Valentine was Demosthenes, it breaks the confidentiality that Demosthenes appears to enjoy in the Speaker for the Dead trilogy. That could be explained by Jane cleaning up the references as she does later, but unless I misremember there is a point where Ender and Valentine are travelling, Valentine is writing as the "unknown" Demosthenes, and Jane had not yet been introduced.

If you have read and enjoyed the earlier books, of course you should read this one regardless of the minor flaws. If you haven't read Ender's Game, though, do not read this one yet. Go, now, and buy that book. You will not regret it.