JJ

Bean is my favorite character in the Ender universe and in this story, which is really a Stratego game within which our favorite characters operate, Bean finally gets the girl, Petra Arcanian. Petra is my second favorite character and I disagree with the reviewer that said there is too much dialogue and that Card can't write dialogue. He is a playwright first and I find his words magical, especially how he voices Petra, Bean, and the indomitable Colonal Graph. If there is one thing missing from this series, it is the maturity of Peter: we missed the transformation. In "Ender's Game" Peter seems like he could easily become a killer like Achilles, but the focus instead is on his continued insecurity. I would like "The lost year of Peter maturing" as a novella.