Ender's Shadow

by Card, Orson Scott

• ISBN13: 9780812575712
• ISBN10: 0812575717
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-12-15
• Publisher: Tor Books

Summary

The novel that launched the bestselling Ender's Shadow series-available for the first time on unabridged cd The human race is at War with the 'Buggers', an insect-like alien race. As Earth prepares to defend itself from total destruction at the hands of an inscrutable enemy, all focus is on the development of military geniuses who can fight such a war, and win. The long distances of interstellar space have given hope to the defenders of Earth-they have time to train these future commanders up from childhood, forging them into an irresistible force in the high orbital facility called the Battle School. Andrew 'Ender' Wiggin was not the only child in the Battle School; he was just the best of the best. In this new book, Card tells the story of another of those precocious generals, the one they called Bean-the one who became Ender's right hand, part of his team, in the final battle against the Buggers. Bean's past was a battle just to survive. His success brought him to the attention of the Battle School's recruiters, those people scouring the planet for leaders, tacticians, and generals to save Earth from the threat of alien invasion. Bean was sent into orbit, to the Battle School. And there he met Ender....

Author Biography

Born in Richland, Washington in 1951, Orson Scott Card grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He lived in Brazil for two years as an unpaid missionary for the Mormon Church and received degrees from Brigham Young University (1975) and the University of Utah (1981). The author of numerous books, Card was the first writer to receive both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel two years in a row, first for Ender's Game and then for the sequel Speaker for the Dead. He lives with his wife and children in North Carolina.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. 11
Urchin	p. 13
Poke	p. 15
Kitchen	p. 25
Payback	p. 40
Memories	p. 54
Launchy	p. 69
Ready or Not	p. 71
Ender's Shadow	p. 85
Explorarion	p. 105
Good Student	p. 124
Scholar	p. 137
Garden of Sofic	p. 139
Sneaky	p. 148
Daddy	p. 158
Roster	p. 175
Soldier	p. 191
Dragon Army	p. 193
Brothers	p. 205
Courage	p. 218
Companion	p. 236
Leader	p. 251
Deadline	p. 253
Friend	p. 276
Rebel	p. 294
Trial and Error	p. 304
Victor	p. 317
Guesswork	p. 319
Reunion	p. 333
Ender's Game	p. 352
Homecoming	p. 374
Acknowledgments	p. 380
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

1 Poke "You think you've found somebody, so suddenly my program gets the ax?" "It's not about this kid that Graff found. It's about the low quality of what you've been finding." "We knew it was long odds. But the kids I'm working with are actually fighting a war just to stay alive." "Your kids are so malnourished that they suffer serious mental degradation before you even begin testing them. Most of them haven't formed any normal human bonds, they're so messed up they can't get through a day without finding something they can steal, break, or disrupt." "They also represent possibility, as all children do." "That's just the kind of sentimentality that discredits your whole project in the eyes of the I.F." * * * Poke kept her eyes open all the time. The younger children were supposed to be on watch, too, and sometimes they could be quite observant, but they just didn't notice all the things they needed to notice, and that meant that Poke could only depend on herself to see danger. There was plenty of danger to watch for. The cops, for instance. They didn't show up often, but when they did, they seemed especially bent on clearing the streets of children. They would flail about them with their magnetic whips, landing cruel stinging blows on even the smallest children, haranguing them as vermin, thieves, pestilence, a plague on the fair city of Rotterdam. It was Poke's job to notice when a disturbance in the distance suggested that the cops might be running a sweep. Then she would give the alarm whistle and the little ones would rush to their hiding places till the danger was past. But the cops didn't come by that often. The real danger was much more immediatebig kids. Poke, at age nine, was the matriarch of her little crew (not that any of them knew for sure that she was a girl), but that cut no ice with the eleven- and twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys and girls who bullied their way around the streets. The adult-size beggars and thieves and whores of the street paid no attention to the little kids except to kick them out of the way. But the older children, who were among the kicked, turned around and preyed on the younger ones. Any time Poke's crew found something to eatespecially if they located a dependable source of garbage or an easy mark for a coin or a bit of foodthey had to watch jealously and hide their winnings, for the bullies liked nothing better than to take away whatever scraps of food the little ones might have. Stealing from younger children was much safer than stealing from shops or passersby. And they enjoyed it, Poke could see that. They liked how the little kids cowered and obeyed and whimpered and gave them whatever they demanded. So when the scrawny little two-year-old took up a perch on a garbage can across the street, Poke, being observant, saw him at once. The kid was on the edge of starvation. No, the kid was starving. Thin arms and legs, joints that looked ridiculously oversized, a distended belly. And if hunger didn't kill him soon, the onset of autumn would, because his clothing was thin and there wasn't much of it even at that. Normally she wouldn't have paid him more than passing attention. But this one had eyes. He was still looking around with intelligence. None of that stupor of the walking dead, no longer searching for food or even caring to find a comfortable place to lie while breathing their last taste of the stinking air of Rotterdam. After all, death would not be such a change for them. Everyone knew that Rotterdam was, if not the capital, then the main seaport of Hell. The