Orson Scott Card, Shadow of the Giant

Orson Scott Card, Shadow of the Giant - The Battle School graduates had merged their skills enabling Andrew "Enders" Wiggin to lead their forces to victory against the insectoid invading Buggers. However, the threat is over, but now the problem is what to do next with the armies and who should lead. Civil war between former allies seems imminent unless the Battle School grads can come together as they did against the Buggers, perhaps under Peter the Hegemon, Ender's older sibling, who wants to bring a Pax eternal to earth, but may need war to achieve this.

Meanwhile, one of the key heroes in the Buggers War, Julian "Bean" Delphiki, is dying from the genetic alteration that turned him into a previously unheard of level of genius. He and his spouse, former Battle School peer Petra desperately want to find their eight stolen embryos/children before he dies. As the mortality clock ticks away, their task looks more hopeless by the minute.

Orson Scott Card is at his award-winning best with the SHADOW OF THE GIANT, the incredible finale of the Shadow Quartet (see ENDER'S SHADOW, SHADOW OF THE HEGEMON, AND SHADOW PUPPETS). The storyline can actually stand alone though better comprehension will happen if the audience has read the previous novels because reference to them and to a lesser degree to the Ender's Quartet occurs. Mr. Card brilliantly contrasts the epic (world peace or war) with the micro (finding one's misplaced "future") so that the audience understands the importance of both the enormous and the small. However, what makes the tale is the author's take on relativity in which every dispute seemingly has "enderless" interpretations as partisanship and personal agendas are reality.

Tor, Mar 2005, $25.95

ISBN: 0312857586

Harriet Klausner