Matthew

Ender's Game was and is arguably the best science fiction book to come out in the past thirty years. It stands apart from even such greats as Diamond Age, Ringworld, the Dune books and Stranger In A Strange Land.

Ender's Shadow does it again, complementing and completing Ender's Game like no other book could. It's the same story with the same characters, and yet it is almost completely new and exciting. By showing the character differences between an ultra-smart little kid (bean) and Ender (smart yet more innovative than a walking computing machine) OSC has shown that he truly is a remarkable writer as well as a visionary.

Excellent read. A+++ read it if you haven't. In addition, make sure you listen to OSC's afterward describing the difficulties of making an Ender movie and how Ender's Shadow helped to make it possible.

The Tkeshi (sp?) Kovachs (sp?) books are some of the best science fiction books I have ever read. I had to stop in and write this review because the average rating was so horribly low, and after investigating why I discovered that those low ratings are mostly given by people who didn't give the book a fair chance.

The plot for these three books (including AC, Broken Angels and Woken Furies) is astonishingly in-depth, engaging, and incredibly romantic in the best traditions of science fiction. These aren't space opera, and they aren't going to read like a Heinlein novel, but the combination of action, mystery, science and witty cynicism make these an instant classic.

Don't put it down too soon, let it grow on you. Yes the gratuitous sex gets a bit wearing but the plot, man, the PLOT!

I only wish RKM would write more like this.

I wish audible would let us rate 3 things in a book, the narrator, the book, and the book in the context of the genre. Ah well, I'll do it my way:

Book: long and wordy, but placed as a philosophical space opera I'm ok with that. Personally I find that timeline jumping is an artifice that seldom works out well for television or books, and that holds true in this book. 3x10^9 A.D. is in the future, leave it for the end of the book mmkay?

narrator: never has a narrator's name more aptly applied to his reading style. All the elegance of bricklaying with none of the aesthetics. This narrator may preclude me getting books in the future. Succinctly: he annoyed me immensely.

by genre (science fiction): Fantastic. Theoretically plausible, unique premise, fascinating development and intriguing possibilities all wrapped into one. For me, this drove the rating up by two stars alone. Well played sir, well played.

If you are a science fiction fan of the Star Wars/Flinx and Pip/BSG persuasion then move along, this will bore you. If, however, you prefer the Space Opera, theoretical physics and philosophical possibilities related to space, then you will probably love this one.

This book, really the entire series, is quite excellent. Some sci-fi is deep and makes you think, some sci-fi is cool with all kinds of fancy tech, Ringo's sci-fi has a little of both of those but a whole lot of FUN. After reading this, I read the whole series and have started on some of his others as well.

If you want to enjoy a good read, get it.

The author starts off with a fantastic overall plot. Then he proceeds to completely mutilate it from chapter one on.

The story is told from the First-person perspective of a traveller "Stone" who is swept from earth through a star portal built by the supposed progenitors of intelligent life on earth. To the best of my ability to tell those progenitors failed completely if the reader is to judge by the actions and intelligence of the book's main characters. The main character is a coward, inept, of less than average intelligence and completely useless to his comrades. I was left with little or no respect for any of them past the first chapter.

The narrator does not help at all. When I listen to an audio book I want to listen to the Author tell the story HIS way. This narrator wanted to make it a broadway production starring himself. I wanted to reach through my headphones and slap the guy.

Just stop the stupid theatrics and read the book already... please!?

Waste of money. And I rarely say that about books.