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cmg11's review
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
guategeek's review
3.0
I thought this was a pretty disappointing end to the series. Personally, I have enjoyed Orson's older writings better. I have enjoyed a number of the prequel books written with Aaron Johnston, and after reading this book I get the feeling that Aaron has a lot more credit for why I liked those books than I previously had considered. Nonetheless if you have read the books in Ender and Bean story-lines you might as well find out how it ends.
rpych2's review
1.0
There have been many, but this might be one of the most disappointing books I’ve read in my life. To wrap up both the Ender and Shadow series in this way was just ridiculous and terrible. It sort of reminds me of the Dune books, the series starts out so strong but ends in a way that’s almost unreadable. I truly can’t believe that the same person who wrote Ender’s Game wrote a book about a learning to travel by simply teleporting through space and talking to sentient birds for some reason. Just awful, I can’t believe I wasted so much time reading this book.
psydneigh's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Loved the keas! Hated that the drones from Shadows in Flight weren’t given an ending. This wraps up both the Ender and Shadow series, but I wasn’t super satisfied with it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Excrement and Xenophobia
humanignorance's review
3.0
3 stars. I liked the plot overall and the dialogue was usually witty and entertaining. However, there were several significant flaws. Some ideas required too much suspension of disbelief. In particular, costless instantaneous travel lowered the stakes. Minor characters were hard to distinguish, and I found Thulium’s development unconvincing. The conclusion was acceptable. However, the book itself serves as a weak capstone for the Enderverse as a whole.
fshguy's review
3.0
I'm going with 3.5 stars. A lot of flashback to the previous books I last read 10 years ago. This book didn't leave me hanging and did remind me a lot of what I forgotten. So a bunch of super smart kids running around in charge, what could go wrong. At least there was a demi-god around to keep them under control.
Really like the development of the new world with a couple new sentient species of birds. The birds were the best part. On the other hand, this is like the 5th book this year that had birds as a theme. We need more books with sentient fish!
I liked the core concept and the trip through memory lane, but overall I was left wanting after 10 years. Not alone the concept of instantaneous travel.
Really like the development of the new world with a couple new sentient species of birds. The birds were the best part. On the other hand, this is like the 5th book this year that had birds as a theme. We need more books with sentient fish!
I liked the core concept and the trip through memory lane, but overall I was left wanting after 10 years. Not alone the concept of instantaneous travel.
adamrshields's review against another edition
4.0
Summary: A conclusion (?) to the spin-off Shadow series about Bean and his family bringing them back into the Ender Quintet.
I have seen The Last Shadow both marked as the sixth book in the Ender series (starting with Ender's Game) and the fifth book in the Shadow series (starting with Ender's Shadow). It plays both roles. As I commented with The Last Tourist (odd that both have the same naming convention), it is just easier to read books that are written more closely together. The Shadow series was started in 2003 and Ender's Game is a 1985 novel that was based on a 1977 short story. What I did not know until the author's comments at the end of the book, was that initially Card had a contract to write the novel Speaker for the Dead, but realized that once he started writing that book with its roots going back to the short story version of Ender's Game, he needed to elaborate and change some of the plotlines to prepare for the later books.
As I have commented before, I am not sure there is any book I have read more than Ender's Game. Orson Scott Card has played around with the story since its novelization in 1985. He released a revised version in 1991 that took into account the fall of the Soviet Union. He revised it again slightly for a 20th-anniversary release in 2005. And he released an audio play version in 2013 that referenced some of the subsequent short stories and included new scenes and perspectives. And in 2011 there was a film adaptation. I am very familiar with the series and have even read the companion book that pays tribute to the ways that the novel has impacted scifi.
Despite my love for the "Enderverse", I have been a bit mixed about Card's writing over the years. Card has embraced his libertarian political ideas with the two books Empire and Hidden Empire about a second American Civil War. And Card's Mormon theology regularly comes through in his writing, not just in his religious book series but frequently in his social commentary, especially around family.
A story has to be able to stand up on its own, not just as a plank in the world-building of a series. For the most part, I think The Last Shadow cleaned up some of the mess of the Children of the Mind. The original characters of Ender's Game are essentially all gone except for Jane and some cameos by others. Miro from the 2nd-4th books of the series plays a significant role as does Peter from the fourth book and then the children and grandchildren of Bean that were introduced in Shadows in Flight.
The old adage from Arthur C Clark about "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is at play in The Last Shadow. Having achieved instant space travel by essentially a type of technology that could be called magic and a level of genetic science that would be called magic (probably black magic) by many, this continues to be a series that is as much about philosophical ideas as action. In this case, a number of threads spin around the concepts of love and loyalty and the limitations of humans, even if they are very smart humans.
I am trying to discuss the novel without spoilers. There is a lot of emotional angst, not just about the brilliant children that are always in Card's books, but among their parents and other adults that are trying to lead or relate to them. Humanity is never just the rational for Card. There is always a role for the irrational and the communal responsibility to the group. I think this is probably an end to the series, but I could be wrong. I thought the last book was an end to the series. And Aaron Johnson has written five prequel books with some input by Card about the first and second formic wars (which I have not read.) So I could be wrong about this being the end.
In the author's note at the end of the book, Card thanks Steffon Rudnicki and other voice actors that have brought the series alive in audio formats over the past 20 years. For me, this is primarily an audiobook series. I have read them all in print, but I enjoy them most in audio. I recieved an advanced copy of the audiobook (these will not be published officially until Nov 16, 2021) and the audio production and multi-voice narration continues to be excellent.
I have seen The Last Shadow both marked as the sixth book in the Ender series (starting with Ender's Game) and the fifth book in the Shadow series (starting with Ender's Shadow). It plays both roles. As I commented with The Last Tourist (odd that both have the same naming convention), it is just easier to read books that are written more closely together. The Shadow series was started in 2003 and Ender's Game is a 1985 novel that was based on a 1977 short story. What I did not know until the author's comments at the end of the book, was that initially Card had a contract to write the novel Speaker for the Dead, but realized that once he started writing that book with its roots going back to the short story version of Ender's Game, he needed to elaborate and change some of the plotlines to prepare for the later books.
As I have commented before, I am not sure there is any book I have read more than Ender's Game. Orson Scott Card has played around with the story since its novelization in 1985. He released a revised version in 1991 that took into account the fall of the Soviet Union. He revised it again slightly for a 20th-anniversary release in 2005. And he released an audio play version in 2013 that referenced some of the subsequent short stories and included new scenes and perspectives. And in 2011 there was a film adaptation. I am very familiar with the series and have even read the companion book that pays tribute to the ways that the novel has impacted scifi.
Despite my love for the "Enderverse", I have been a bit mixed about Card's writing over the years. Card has embraced his libertarian political ideas with the two books Empire and Hidden Empire about a second American Civil War. And Card's Mormon theology regularly comes through in his writing, not just in his religious book series but frequently in his social commentary, especially around family.
A story has to be able to stand up on its own, not just as a plank in the world-building of a series. For the most part, I think The Last Shadow cleaned up some of the mess of the Children of the Mind. The original characters of Ender's Game are essentially all gone except for Jane and some cameos by others. Miro from the 2nd-4th books of the series plays a significant role as does Peter from the fourth book and then the children and grandchildren of Bean that were introduced in Shadows in Flight.
The old adage from Arthur C Clark about "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is at play in The Last Shadow. Having achieved instant space travel by essentially a type of technology that could be called magic and a level of genetic science that would be called magic (probably black magic) by many, this continues to be a series that is as much about philosophical ideas as action. In this case, a number of threads spin around the concepts of love and loyalty and the limitations of humans, even if they are very smart humans.
I am trying to discuss the novel without spoilers. There is a lot of emotional angst, not just about the brilliant children that are always in Card's books, but among their parents and other adults that are trying to lead or relate to them. Humanity is never just the rational for Card. There is always a role for the irrational and the communal responsibility to the group. I think this is probably an end to the series, but I could be wrong. I thought the last book was an end to the series. And Aaron Johnson has written five prequel books with some input by Card about the first and second formic wars (which I have not read.) So I could be wrong about this being the end.
In the author's note at the end of the book, Card thanks Steffon Rudnicki and other voice actors that have brought the series alive in audio formats over the past 20 years. For me, this is primarily an audiobook series. I have read them all in print, but I enjoy them most in audio. I recieved an advanced copy of the audiobook (these will not be published officially until Nov 16, 2021) and the audio production and multi-voice narration continues to be excellent.
thurminator's review
2.0
This was not as bad as I anticipated but also nowhere as good as I wanted it to be. I'm 100% sure that this book, along with Shadows in Flight, never needed to be written, and that everything after Ender's Shadow has been one long downhill slope, with this book ouranking only the dreadful Children of the Fleet, and probably the 3rd Shadow book. I enjoyed revisiting the setting and characters from the Ender books, and a few of the characters from the Shadow books are somewhat interesting. Unfortunately, the story completely lost me when we got to the planet filled with talking birds (surprising no one).
I have now read 13 of the books in this series (everything except the prequels). I was generally not surprised by anything in this book. Yet again the same tropes are being tread; everyone's story is tied up perfectly, no danger is worth being taken seriously, and everyone ends up in a big happy family with each person deciding that the logical conclusion based on what they've been through is to love their parents more, get married, and have children. There's nothing wrong with this path, but when dozens upon dozens of characters in every single one of OSC's books are doing it and nearly no one has an anything less-than-perfect ending, it gets old. This book in particular felt like 3 or 4 different plot ideas loosely tied together with randomly inserted convenience and more dialogue from talking birds. It's rough. The first five books in publishing order are great and worth revisiting, but I cannot recommend anything that came out after the year 2000.
I have now read 13 of the books in this series (everything except the prequels). I was generally not surprised by anything in this book. Yet again the same tropes are being tread; everyone's story is tied up perfectly, no danger is worth being taken seriously, and everyone ends up in a big happy family with each person deciding that the logical conclusion based on what they've been through is to love their parents more, get married, and have children. There's nothing wrong with this path, but when dozens upon dozens of characters in every single one of OSC's books are doing it and nearly no one has an anything less-than-perfect ending, it gets old. This book in particular felt like 3 or 4 different plot ideas loosely tied together with randomly inserted convenience and more dialogue from talking birds. It's rough. The first five books in publishing order are great and worth revisiting, but I cannot recommend anything that came out after the year 2000.