Shadow of the Hegemon

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