Tara

This is a brilliant character. One would never have imagined such complex workings happening behind the scenes in Ender's game. One wants to know Bean more and more and more.

Simplistic, and not as believable as enders game/speaker of the dead/enders shadow. One is hard put to believe the ineptness of the adult leaders of the world in the face of these children...and the sudden and inexplicable rise(s)? of Achilles. The character of Bean, previously more rounded and open to identification, becomes flattened into a guilt stricken mercinary(?!)determined to use the resources of waring nations to further his own aimes. With lines such as 'I prefer to think of myself as a general between armies.' His allegence to Peter as the only alternative to Achilles, is equally unbelievable - a genius would see only two alternatives? Petra makes war plans for Achilles without building in weaknesses because she thinks the war will never come to be? I ended up giving up and going to the last CD. Card is a brilliant writer, who, drunk with or pressured by the successes of game/speaker, may have carried on past the point of personal growth and enjoyment in his writing of this series.