Monday, October 09, 2006

Ender's Shadow

You would think retelling the same story from a different perspective would be a recipe for a terrible novel and low sales. Think again.

Card tells a story on the same timeline as Ender's Game and the events of the world mirror each other. Ender's Shadow is able to break free of the shadow of Ender's Game by mesmerizing the reader with the tale of little Bean.

Card weaves a retelling of his best selling award winner in with the new stories that Bean brings with it. It is almost a behind the scenes look into what was going on inside the school. If the reader has read Ender's Game he sometimes finds himself routing against Bean.

Card nails the story as original as a retelling can be told. He also makes it self sufficient so that readers may pick up Ender's Shadow and then decide that they would like to read Ender's Game as well. To say that the book was a success is selling it short. This proved to Card that he could write and sell other viable stories within the Ender universe.

Highly recommended!


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1 comment:

jar said...

I totally agree. Card did a great job coming up with a completely original approach to writing. Not a sequel, not a prequel, but something else totally new that gave you new insights from an unexpected perspective. I loved this book. Now on the other hand, the rest of the Bean series is a bit lame. But this one hit the nail on the head....