Orson Scott Card: Ender's Shadow, Shadow of Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Books 1 2 3

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It was originally to be titled Urchin, but it was retitled Ender's Shadow prior to release.[1] Ender's Shadow was shortlisted for a Locus Award in 2000.[2] Bean is a homeless child living on the hellish streets of Rotterdam around 2170 after escaping as an infant from an illegal genetic engineering laboratory. Highly intelligent and extremely young, he is on the brink of dying from starvation, but manages to convince a nine-year-old named Poke to let him join her band of homeless children by offering her an idea. He tells Poke she should recruit an older bully to help fend off other bullies who prevent the younger children from eating at a local soup kitchen. She chooses Achilles, a bully with a bad leg; Bean realizes that Achilles is too intelligent and dangerous a choice, but is unable to change Poke's mind. Achilles is able to manipulate Poke's group, and eventually kills Poke. Bean's incredible intelligence, creativity and determination bring him to the attention of Sister Carlotta, a nun who is recruiting children for the International Fleet (IF) for a war of survival against the alien Buggers. She gets him admitted to Battle School, despite official resistance and skepticism about his background. Bean has to overcome being much younger and smaller than the other child recruits and faces scrutiny when it is revealed that he scored record highs in all of the school's mental tests. As he proves himself, they constantly compare him to Ender Wiggin, another prodigy who preceded him. Bean begins to ferret out secrets and truths about the school. Meanwhile, Sister Carlotta uncovers Bean's past. Ender has been chosen as the best chance to save humanity from the Buggers; Bean comes to be the backup in case Ender breaks down. Bean is assigned to draw up the roster for Ender's army. At first, Ender does not appear to recognize Bean's brilliance, but time shows that he was grooming Bean and he finally puts Bean in charge of a special new platoon to handle extraordinary missions. Ender wins combat games against the other, more established school armies; as time goes on, the other side is given more and more unfair advantages, but Ender never loses. Achilles joins Battle School, having also been selected for his intelligence and now with his leg healed. Bean concocts a scheme to trap Achilles and make him confess to multiple murders, including Poke's, revealing that he is a sociopath bent on killing anyone who has seen or made him helpless. The IF arrests Achilles. Eventually, Bean and other students graduate from Battle School to work under Ender, who now commands one side in electronically simulated battles; he is told that his foe is Mazer Rackham, the legendary hero who saved humanity from the Second Invasion. However, Bean deduces from various clues (such as the lack of speed-limit induced communication delay in the simulation) that the "simulations" are real battles: Ender and his "jeesh" are commanding human fleets attacking Bugger planets via the Ansible, an instantaneous communications device. The pace increases and the enemy forces become stronger and stronger. Through it all, Ender keeps on winning, but he begins to break down under the pressure; at times, Bean gives the jeesh additional commands. In the final battle at the Buggers' home planet, Ender faces seemingly impossible odds; his only edge is a weapon—"Dr Device"—that can start a chain reaction that destroys matter, but only if the matter is concentrated enough. Ender freezes, unable to come up with a plan, until Bean's prompt (inadvertently) shows him how they can win. With the victory, Ender commits genocide on the Buggers. Throughout the book, Bean struggles against the IF administration and how they push Ender, seemingly willing to break him to achieve their goals. Bean also has to contend with his past and his struggle to understand what makes Ender human and better than him. Bean also makes friends with an older boy named Nikolai who is drawn to Bean because of their similar looks. It is soon discovered, through Sister Carlotta's research, that the two boys are genetic twins, except for Bean's genetic enhancements. When Bean was illegally genetically engineered, the scientist Volescu had "turned Anton's Key," meaning that Bean's body—including his brain—will never stop growing, which will result in a premature death between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. Sister Carlotta ensures that Bean will get to live with Nikolai and his parents after the war. At the end of the story, after they defeat the buggers, Bean is united with his real parents and Nikolai.[1] Ender's Shadow is the first of a series that includes Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant, Shadows in Flight, and The Last Shadow. Shadow of the Hegemon Shadow of the Hegemon (2000) is a science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card, the second novel in the Ender's Shadow series (often called the Bean Quartet). It is also the sixth novel in the Ender's Game series. It is told mostly from the point of view of Bean, a largely peripheral character in the original novel Ender's Game but the central protagonist of the parallel narrative Ender's Shadow. Shadow of the Hegemon was nominated for a Locus Award in 2002.[1] In Shadow of the Hegemon, all of the Battle School graduates, except Ender, return to Earth in 2197 A.D., where Ender's brother Peter, using his online pseudonym Locke, arranges for Ender to be returned to Earth; but Valentine, under the pseudonym Demosthenes, uses Peter's violent past against him to keep Ender exiled. Shortly after their return, the members of the unit Ender commanded (called his Jeesh, an Arabic word meaning 'army'), with the exception of Bean, are seized as strategists in an upcoming struggle for world dominance, by Achilles de Flandres (ah-SHEEL), who subjects them to solitary confinement. Bean having imprisoned Achilles in the previous novel, Achilles attempts (unsuccessfully) to kill Bean. The Delphikis go into hiding, while Bean joins forces with Sister Carlotta. After he discovers an encoded message sent by Petra confirming that the Russians are Achilles' backers, he works to free her and the others, while helping Peter come to power. When Peter publishes under the 'Locke' pseudonym that Achilles is a murderer, the Battle School graduates are released, excepting Petra, whom Achilles brings to India. From there, he requests plans for an invasion of Burma and then Thailand, for which Indian Battle School graduates, including Sayagi and Virlomi, develop plans for brute-force attacks involving long supply lines. Petra arranges a different plan of stripping India's garrisons along the Indo-Pakistani border, which she expects will never happen, until a meeting with Pakistan's prime minister, in which Achilles encourages the two nations to make peace among themselves and declare war on other neighbors; secretly giving China the opportunity to annihilate the Indian army. Petra finds an ally in Virlomi, who reveals to Bean that Petra is a prisoner, and eventually escapes the military compound to bring rescue. Courtesy of Bean's and Sister Carlotta's assets, "Locke" is nominated publicly for the position of Hegemon, allowing Peter to unmask himself. Meanwhile, Bean enters the Thai military under the patronage of Suriyawong (Suri), a fellow Battle School graduate and (nominal) head of Thailand's planning division, and trains 200 Thai soldiers against India. When the Thai Commander-in-Chief betrays Suriyawong and Bean, Bean hides himself and Suri in the barracks of his troops, and sends word for rescue, while Thailand prepares for war. Sister Carlotta's airplane, en route to Bean's location, is destroyed by a Chinese SAM, and Bean receives an earlier-recorded message, in which she describes the relationship between Anton's Key and Bean's brilliance, but also informs him that his life expectancy will be drastically reduced as a result. Bean and Suriyawong use the troops Bean has trained to halt Indian supply lines. While striking a bridge, they meet Virlomi, who defects to their side. With the aid of Bean's soldiers and Locke's distinguished connections, they move on Hyderabad, where Bean rescues Petra. Furthermore, "Locke" publishes an essay detailing the Chinese betrayal just as it is happening, and on the basis of this prescience (and other miracles over the years) Peter Wiggin is elected Hegemon over the world. CharactersJulian "Bean" DelphikiPetra ArkanianAchilles de FlandresSister CarlottaPeter WigginHyrum GraffSuriyawongVirlomiJohn Paul WigginTheresa WigginHistoryCard accredits two books in particular as being profoundly influential in the writing of this novel: Thailand: A Short History by David K. Wyatt and Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India by Lawrence James. In addition to these two books he was also inspired by Phillip Absher, who was one of the readers of the first draft. Phillip suggested that the Petra arc of the novel was anticlimactic. Upon hearing this criticism, Card rethought this entire book and decided to split it into two books. At the time of publication, Card thought the Bean series (Shadow series) of the Enderverse would only be four books long.[2] Shadow Puppets Shadow Puppets is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card, published in 2002. It is the sequel to Shadow of the Hegemon and the third book in the Ender's Shadow series (often called the Bean Quartet). It was originally to be called Shadow of Death.[1] Peter, Ender's brother, is now Hegemon of Earth. Accepting a tip from inside China, where Achilles is held prisoner, Peter had planned for Bean to operate the mission, but at the last minute (because he doubted Bean would cooperate) assigns Suriyawong, a Battle School student from Thailand, to rescue Achilles in transport. Peter believes that he can spy on Achilles, take over his network, and then turn Achilles over to some country for trial, since Achilles has previously betrayed Russia, Pakistan, and India. Achilles is known to kill anyone who has seen him vulnerable. Bean and his friend Petra, who also served under Ender and who is travelling with Bean, have both seen Achilles so and immediately go into hiding, preparing for a future confrontation. Bean believes Peter has seriously underestimated Achilles, and that he himself is not safe unless he is hidden. During their travels, Petra convinces Bean to marry her and have children with her by taking him to Anton, the person who Anton's Key (Bean's Condition) was named after. Bean is reluctant to have children, as he does not want his Anton's Key gene to be passed on. He finds Volescu, the original doctor who activated the key in his genes, and has him prepare nine embryos through artificial insemination. Volescu pretends to identify three embryos with Anton's Key and they are discarded. One of the remaining six is implanted into Petra, while the rest of them are placed under guard. At the same time, a message is passed to Bean that Han Tzu, a comrade from Battle School, was not in fact the informant in the message sent to Peter about Achilles. Realizing that it had been a setup, Bean gets a message to Peter's parents, and they flee with Peter from the Hegemon's compound, located in Brazil, which Achilles takes over. Bean narrowly escapes an assassination attempt himself, and escapes to Damascus. There they find that another Battle School comrade, Alai, is the unrivaled Caliph of a nearly unified Muslim world. Meanwhile, Bean and Petra's embryos are stolen; Bean expects Achilles to use them to bait a trap for them. Peter and his parents escape to the colonization platform in space that used to be the battle school, relying on the protection of Colonel Graff, the former commander of the school, now Minister of Colonization. Shortly after they arrive, however, a message is sent betraying their presence. Faking their departure from the space station, Peter and his parents discover the traitor, one of the teachers at battle school. The unmanned shuttle sent as a decoy is shot down over Brazil. In the previous novel, China had conquered India and Indochina. Alai plans to liberate them by invading first China in a feint, and then India once China has withdrawn its armies to defend the homeland. His invasion is successful, and in the midst of realizing their danger, the Chinese government disavows Achilles, providing evidence that he stole the missile launcher that destroyed the decoy space shuttle. Left with nowhere to turn, Achilles contacts Bean and offers the embryos in exchange for safe passage. Bean and Peter return to the Hegemon's compound. Achilles expects Bean to be so distracted with the idea of retrieving his children that he can be killed with a bomb in the embryo transport container. When Bean sees through that trap, Achilles offers up fake embryos in petri dishes, expecting to lure Bean into a vulnerable position. However, Bean sees through the deception. He pulls out a pistol and shoots Achilles in the eye - a similar fashion to Achilles' first victim, Poke, whom he killed with a knife to the eye in Ender's Shadow. The novel ends with Peter restored as Hegemon, Petra reunited with Bean, a Caliph in command of the world's Muslims, a China severely reduced in territory and forced to accept humiliating surrender terms, and the embryos still lost.

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