Sequel To 'Ender's Shadow': ' Shadow Of The Hegemon'

enthalpyX writes: "According to The Philotic Web, Orson Scott Card's series, which began with 'Ender's Game' didn't end quite yet with Ender's Shadow. Due to be released January 2, 2001, 'Shadow of the Hegemon' will delve into Bean's life helping Peter rule the "old world" Ender left behind. You can read the first five chapters over at hatrack.com."

Comments

Bravo, Mr. Card. You will be rewarded

[Ars-Fartsica]

In return for letting me read a sneak peek of your book, I will purchase a hardcover copy when it is released.

Its important to reward authors using the new mediums when so many are poo-pooing e-books and the web.

Re:Bravo, Mr. Card. You will be rewarded

[UncleOrson]

Beyond the five chapters, I can't let out more of the book before the official release on 2 January. However, for those who would like to give autographed copies of Shadow of the Hegemon as Christmas gifts or simply have a copy signed for themselves, at http://www.hatrack.com we will be giving away sticky-backed bookplates printed nicely with the title and color scheme of Shadow of the Hegemon. Those who send in a self-addressed stamped business envelope, along with the names of the persons to whom bookplates should be inscribed, can receive up to three autographed and personalized bookplates for free. That is, until we run out of the thousand that we printed up. The address to which you should send the SASE is: Hegemon PO Box 18184 Greensboro NC 27419-8184. - Orson Scott Card

Repeat

[Greylark]

Didn't Slashdot already have a story on this?
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/04/30/1018246.shtm l

Re:Repeat

[mengmeng]

Since the story you cited is clearly about a different book (in fact the predecessor to the book under current discussion), the answer is no.

Ender's Game

[ClayJar]

I must say, and I hope I don't incite a riot by saying this (it's just my opinion), but I personally consider the Ender's Game set (counting however many books there are now) to be my favorite large story in book form. It's right up there next to my favorite large story in audio-visual form, that being Babylon 5, of course.

(My friend loaned me her copy of Ender's Game one Friday night. I read it cover to cover the next day, and bought the whole set the day after. Had them all done in less than a week. I can't wait to read more.)

Re:Downhill spiral

[SquadBoy]

You are right while Card rocks in many ways and most of his books are great. Also I'm from Utah where he has a special place in all our geek hearts. I have to agree that Ender's Game should have been the first and last book with young Ender in it. I think that instead of this I will read Treason again. Although I have yet to click over to the preview and it might change my mind I'm not hopeful.

Awesome Series

[Aciel]

Ender's Game is without a doubt my favorite single book, followed closely by The Hobbit. The Ender Series is my second favorite series (following The Lord of the Rings and followed by The Wheel of Time. It is truly original, in my opinion; the idea of consciousness governing everything was new in Ender's Game, to be repeated in Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass and His Dark Materials (another of my favorites).

I must say that it has come to change my outlook on life. I've converted from agnostic to Wiccan since then. I want more than anything for the universe to be conscious--it would be incredible. Orgasmic.

Read this series if you haven't. I'm going to check out the last two books (Ender's Shadow and The Shadow of the Hegemon) as soon as Christmas comes around and I finish reading the ninth book of the Wheel of Time. Also make sure to check out Pullman's The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. Excellent books with a similar viewpoint.

Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net

Re:"My Heart", Ender's Shadow was a Bad Book

[BilldaCat]

I disagree... I enjoyed Ender's Shadow quite a bit. Not as much as Game, but still worth the read/buy.

Criticisms of the new series.

[2nd Post!]

I own Ender's Shadow. I've read the 5 online chapters...

It seems to me that there is entirely too much self exposition by the character towards the readers. It makes it entirely too dry, to analytical, too heavy handed.

The first book had this way of grabbing you, of making you feel for Ender, of making you feel like you could be Ender.

I didn't have any such feelings for Bean (though he is admittedly difficult to relate to, given his nature), and no such feelings for Petra.

I don't feel any synergestic sympathy for the characters.

In fact, the person I felt the most for/with in the online chapters was Peter; if he becomes the main character in this book, perhaps we can recapture the same energies as the original Ender's Game.

The nick is a joke! Really!

Re:Criticisms of the new series.

[namespan]

In fact, the person I felt the most for/with in the online chapters was Peter; if he becomes the main character in this book, perhaps we can recapture the same energies as the original Ender's Game.

Well, the title is Shadow of the Hegemon, so one assumes we'll get at least as much Hegemon (Peter) as we saw of Ender in Ender's Shadow. Likely more, as we already had Ender's Game to give us info about Ender, but we don't have much on Peter, really.

I heartily agree with you, though -- Peter is the high point of the first five chapters so far.

Re:Criticisms of the new series.

[RickHunter]

I agree. I couldn't stand Ender's Shadow, and not just because of that. Not only did I not care about Bean, but the premise of the book was basically that Ender was nothing special, and everything that he thought he did that was out of the ordinary was really done by Bean. So it shifted the focus from a character I did like to one I couldn't stand.

-RickHunter

Re:Criticisms of the new series.

[John_Prophet]

the premise of the book was basically that Ender was nothing special, and everything that he thought he did that was out of the ordinary was really done by Bean.

Or at least, that was Bean's impression of the same events. Most people, I think, tend to make themselves the "Star" of their own story. Perceptions of facts tend to align themselves with our perception of ourself.

Given that, is it surprising that Ender sees himself as an incredible leader and Bean sees something similar in himself?


-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)

Re:Sequels are...

[namespan]

Card explained why he started writing the sequels in the intro to Ender's Shadow. He was going to start farming out the Ender "universe" to other authors, and let them write from the point of views of other characters from the story. He'd even got someone who was interested in doing this. But, then, the more he thought about it, the more jealous he was of the guy who was going to get to do this. Eventually, he decided to swipe the project back.

Now, of course, you could say that's all a smoke screen. But it sounds to me like he did it for one reason: fun.

Re:Neal Stephenson

[vectro]

I've gotta agree. Card actually wrote about the history behind the books -- Ender's Game started as a short story, and he was pressured into turning it into a full-length novel by his publisher. The same is true of the sequels; each was pressured by his publisher.

I think that by Children of the Mind, he had just plain run out of ideas. Ender's game was great, Speaker of the Dead was good, but the rest just didn't come up to spec.

criticism of the first 3 and a warning

[lyapunov]

I feel the Ender's Game is five star science fiction (e.g. Dune, just the first one, and the Chung Kuo series by David Wingrove). It is a well written fast paced story, appeals to both young and old. The second, Speaker for the Dead, was again five star science fiction and superbly written. It has a slower pace than the first and dealt with politics. And then we have the third book, Xenocide.

This book had some great ideas (I was particularly impressed with the people that where way out of control obsessive-compulsive (even by obsessive-compulsive standards)), the story was good for a while, but there was damning flaw. I feel that Card wrote himself into a corner and pulled the old deus ex machina to get out of it. I was so PISSED. The story in Xenocide was good (not as good as the first two) and then it was severly dicked up in the ending. After that I never even bothered to pick up any of the rest, Ender's Shadow, I was a Teenage Ender, etc...

The reason I am bringing this to your attention is that those 5 chapters maybe wonderful (I don't know as I have not read them yet) but unless he has improved you might find yourself pissed off, and out 20 bucks if you buy this book based off of those first 5 chapters.

I think that Card is a very talented author but he needs to move on to greener pastures and stop beating this dead cow even more.

With the abundance of books to read and constraints on time I find myself very picky in what I read, and once an author pisses me off, it is very unlikely that I will read anymore of their work. I know some of you will disagree with my criticisms of the series. I could be wrong, but I have not heard any arguments convincing enough on why I should pick up the series again. So if you have any please enlighten me.

Re:criticism of the first 3 and a warning

[thulorn]

I have to agree about Xenocide. I think the O/C planet didn't work so much for me, but I don't really remember. What I do remember was that the book was fully of gem-like quotes, mostly from the conversation of the fathertree and the hive-queen. And that the ending was... yes, deus ex machina. I mean, you have what have been a bunch of highly political and philosophical novels, and suddenly magic physics comes in out of nowhere to save the day. Very unsatisfying, at least for me.

For random contrast, Look to Windward arguably had a deus ex machina ending. But the Culture has well-established machinae whose job it is to be dei, so it fits. Plus it didn't require magic, just someone being way too sneaky. But that's part of their job too.

Re:criticism of the first 3 and a warning

[orabidoo]

I had the *exact same feeling*. Ender's Game was a good, fast and compelling read. Speaker for the Dead was an amazing broadening and deepening of both the subject and the characters. Xenocide had great quotes, great characters (though both taoism and puritanism get caricatured rather badly), great situations, and a shitty deus-ex-machina ending that fit like a soccer ball in the soup. for that reason I haven't read Children of the Mind (or whatever the following sequel is called), although I'll probably pick it up if I see it cheap enough in a 2nd hand bookstore. As for the 'shadow' series, I really don't find the premise all that compelling, nor the characters of Bean or Peter. Give me Valerie's story anytime, and I'll buy it ... no wait, no need, it's already in Speaker for the Dead.

My Kuro5hin Crosspost...

[pb]

Slashdot picked up another Kuro5hin story. I just wish the book was closer to being released. So here are my comments, from there to here...

Yeah, I've seen Card talk about [his movie plans], too, (since I live in North Carolina :) but realize that he's been talking about it for years. I, for one, hope it happens sometime soon, but even if it happened tomorrow, it'd probably be at least three years before we saw anything.

I'd love it if they could film the two at once, because then you'd get all the same cast at the same time. There aren't really any other decent sequel possibilities that wouldn't be completely different, and otherwise, they'd screw up Ender's Shadow.

I really like almost everything in that series, but everything after Ender's Game originally is pretty different. They're good books, and they aren't a rehash of Ender's Game, either, like Ender's Shadow is, (even though I love that, too :) but they're slower, and they have different characters, and most importantly they aren't necessarily what his audience was expecting out of him...

Card writes a lot of stuff, and some of it hits the mark; I liked the Harmony series, and I really enjoyed Songmaster and A Planet Called Treason. Most of his short stories are really good, which is funny since he claimed that he can't write short stories decently. I didn't like the Alvin Maker series as much, but maybe I just wasn't expecting American Historical Fantasy... :)
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

I want an Ender Badge...

[MustardMan]

Hegemon, I choose you!

I wouldn't know. I hated Ender's Game.

[mangu]

I never read the sequels. "Ender's Game" caters to the "there will never be such a thing as Artificial Intelligence" crowd. If I remember right, the story was about a boy that had a certain intuitive feeling about war, so that he could defeat aliens if he thought it was all a game, but if he ever suspected the batle was for real, he would lose.

Bullshit. If I had the computing resources he had, I would write a software that could defeat any enemy, human, alien, or machine, that had less computer power at hand, claw, or interface. Let's face it, "intuition" isn't about magic, it's just software that runs in a computer made of approximately 1e11 neurons, each with about 1e3 synapses and capable of doing some 1e2 computations per second. Yes, software can be made more efficient, but it cannot do magic, you need hardware power as well.

It's just plain stupid to assume that the human mind has some magic power. It just runs on hardware that hasn't (yet) been duplicated in the lab. The Wright brothers didn't achieve supersonic speeds in their first flight either.

Re:I wouldn't know. I hated Ender's Game.

[msaavedra]

I never read the sequels. "Ender's Game" caters to the "there will never be such a thing as Artificial Intelligence" crowd.

I think you've seriously misinterpreted the book. I don't think Card is even remotely saying that there will never be AI. Instead, in the fictional future of Ender's childhood, AI is simply not advanced enough to do what you are thinking (the book is supposed to be set not very far in the future). In addition to that, if you had read any of the rest of the books, you would know that one of the main characters in the series actually is an AI.

Here's my take on Ender's Game. Ender was a genius, one of the most gifted human beings alive at the time, and through intense training became a formidable military strategist. It had nothing to do with intuition. The reason why he could not know he was actually involved in a real war was that he had studied the aliens so closely, and learned to identify with them so well, that he would have been overcome with guilt and would not have been able to wipe them out of existence. This really is the main theme running through the entire Ender series: if you can truly understand another being (alien or human), you cannot hate them, because you would see their motives, even the despicable ones, as being not too different from your own. This is what Ender comes to believe (and presumably Card believes as well), though whether it is true I'm not completely sure.

---------------------------
"The people. Could you patent the sun?"

Re:I wouldn't know. I hated Ender's Game.

[ruin]

Bullshit. If I had the computing resources he had, I would write a software that could defeat any enemy, human, alien, or machine, that had less computer power at hand, claw, or interface.

Using what? Brute-force search? Neural networks? A heretofore undiscovered AI technique? The computing power isn't the problem, it's knowing what to do with it.

So let's say I have a chess computer that can do a depth n search. Now double its speed. Congratulations, now it can search n+1 levels deep. Wait a whole thirty years, and it'll be able to search n+20 levels. Enough to beat Gary Kasparov, sure, but can it play go? Plan a battle strategy? Play a game whose rules change?

I'm not going to defend the consistency of technological advance in Card's stories*, but it seems a reasonable premise that no one made any great advances in AI in the handful of decades that the book is supposed to take place after. Perhaps all the computer scientists were busy building a computer network that would allow a couple of kids to take over the world. Or maybe they figured it was faster to try and make people smarter until they could raise a super-general than it was to try to make machines smarter.

*(Card's books are fantasy, not hard sci-fi. His computers are basically Apple IIs with magic powers.)

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Re:Neal Stephenson

[PurpleBob]

Well, there's one shared character - Y.T. ends up as the old lady in the wheelchair, Mrs. Matheson.
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Obfuscated e-mail addresses won't stop sadistic 12-year-old ACs.