Reviews

Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card

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lkbm's review

4.0

Hegemon leaves the confines of Battle School to enter a world of international politics, and as much as I love international politics, I was glad Card didn't abandon the characters and character-level plot. Bean grows, Petra grows, Peter grows (though he's relatively ancillary--he's neither protagonist nor antagonist), Achilles...doesn't really grow. In Ender's Shadow, for a few paragraphs, we actually saw into Achilles' mind. In this book, we see him act and others' evaluations of his behavior, but they add nothing new to his personality--in fact they fail to draw on the peak we got in the previous book.

Over all, this book is similar in style to the previous two and added an aspect I very much enjoy (high-level politics, not just individuals bickering and seeking power), but I didn't enjoy it quite as much. Achilles did not interest me, and the genius of Bean, Peter, etc. occasionally felt unbelievable to me when applied to human behavior rather than strategy. There's a point where Bean insists Achilles would have at least three back-ups--why at least three? I don't care how smart Achilles is or how well Bean knows him. Humans make decisions far too arbitrarily and options are far too varied to be predicted with that degree of specificity. Attempts to display the intelligence of the characters ranged from really good to kind of terrible.

Though not as good as Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow, this is definitely worth reading if you loved the previous two in this thread.

deluciate's review

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4.0

Great sequel to Ender's Shadow. I didn't find this one particularly thrilling as a stand-alone novel, but of course it's part of a much longer story. The military and political maneuvers are believable even if their invention goes way over my head. (I was always terrible at the Civilization video games.) Looking forward to finishing the series.

daumari's review

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Apparently I *have* read this. Will have to reread since it's been >10 years since I did so....

akazen's review

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3.0

Orientalism.

2.5-3

knuckledown's review

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4.0

Continuing with Bean's series, this is the story of what happens on Earth after the war in space is over. All of Ender's crew has been kidnapped, with the exception of Bean. He is determined to save them all, but in particular his dearest friend Petra. The drama is intensified by the fact that their kidnapper is Bean's old enemy from his days on the street as a small child. To save them he must ally himself with Ender's ambitious older brother Peter.

I like the fact that my reading of the previous books added to my understanding of the situation in this one. The joy of reading these books is similar to that of certain action movies in which the hero is always one step ahead of the audience. I couldn't unravel the world politics the way that these genius kids do, but I sure enjoy watching them do it. Bean is a great character in that he's so advanced mentally but underdeveloped emotionally. This book sees him begin to realize who he loves and how to express it.