Shadow of the Giant
Bean's past was a battle just to survive. He first appeared on the
streets of Rotterdam, a tiny child with a mind leagues beyond anyone
else. He knew he could not survive through strength; he used his
tactical genius to gain acceptance into a children's gang, and then to
help make that gang a template for success for all the others. He
civilized them, and lived to grow older. Then he was discovered by the
recruiters for the Battle School.
For Earth was at war – a
terrible war with an inscrutable alien enemy. A war that humanity was
near to losing. But the long distances of interstellar space has given
hope to the defenders of Earth – they had time to train military
geniuses up from childhood, forging them into an irresistible force in
the high-orbital facility called the Battle School. That story is told
in two books, the beloved classic Ender's Game, and its parallel,Ender's Shadow.
Bean was the smallest student at the Battle
School, but he became Ender Wiggins' right hand. Since then he has
grown to be a power on Earth. He served the Hegemon as strategist and
general in the terrible wars that followed Ender's defeat of the alien
empire attacking Earth. Now he and his wife Petra yearn for a safe
place to build a family – something he has never known – but there is
nowhere on Earth that does not harbor his enemies – old enemies from
the days in Ender's Jeesh, new enemies from the wars on Earth. To find
security, Bean and Petra must once again follow in Ender's footsteps.
They must leave Earth behind, in the control of the Hegemon, and look
to the stars.
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Orson Scott Card
Before Ender’s Game became required reading in classrooms and a touchstone for science fiction fans worldwide, it was just a short story—one that Orson Scott Card wrote while trying to understand how humanity might survive its own genius. That idea, born of curiosity and a deep interest in moral complexity, would eventually grow into a sprawling series exploring war, empathy, leadership, and the loneliness of brilliance.
Born in Richland, Washington in 1951 and raised mostly in Utah and California, Card grew up in a family where storytelling was a living thing—spoken, passed down, constantly evolving. Though he began his career writing plays and studying literature, he found his true voice in speculative fiction. And when he wrote Ender’s Game—and later Speaker for the Dead—he did something science fiction rarely dared at the time: he treated the genre as a tool for exploring the human soul.
The Shadow Series (Ender)
The Shadow Series (Ender) consists of six books and considered as a complete series. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
Main series Enderverse
