Shadow Puppets

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: David Birney, Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

Bestselling author Orson Scott Card brings to life a new chapter in the saga of Ender's Earth and The Shadow Series.

Earth and its society have been changed irrevocably in the aftermath of Ender Wiggin's victory over the Formics. The unity forced upon the warring nations by an alien enemy has shattered. Nations are rising again, seeking territory and influence, and most of all, seeking to control the skills and loyalty of the children from the Battle School.

But one person has a better idea. Peter Wiggin, Ender's older, more ruthless, brother, sees that any hope for the future of Earth lies in restoring a sense of unity and purpose. And he has an irresistible call on the loyalty of Earth's young warriors. With Bean at his side, the two will reshape our future.

Shadow Puppets is the continuing story of Bean and Petra, and the rest of Ender's Dragon Army, as they take their places in the new government of Earth.

Browse more titles in the Ender Wiggin series.

©2002 Orson Scott Card (P)2002 Fantastic Audio

Critic reviews

“David Birney's voice sounds purposefully fatigued, beautifully conveying the world leader Peter Wiggin's frustrated resignation, and Stefan Rudnicki's clipped, low baritone is perfect for the cloack-and-dagger email correspondence that bookends the chapters. Gabrielle de Cuir expertly handles both accents and emotion...[Scott Brick] tackles the Bean chapters with the youthful cynicism and passion that Bean embodies in this book, capturing the character's voice with wonderful passion.” —AudioFile

“The folks at Audio Renaissance have quite literally brought greatness to the text. They've included an introduction and a postscript read by Card himself, both of which place the novel and the audiobook in its context as well as enlightening us to the author's method of its construction. Multiple readers led by Stefan Rudnicki work perfectly to vocally illustrate each chapter, character and scene.” —Science Fiction and Fantasy on Ender's Game(A Science Fiction and Fantasy Essential)

“The ideal presentation of any book of mine is to have excellent actors perform it in audio format.” —Orson Scott Card from the afterword of Ender's Game

Excellent As Expected

Would you listen to Shadow Puppets again? Why?

Overall, this was another excellent book by Orson Scott Card. I am steadily moving through the Ender's Game Series, starting with the Shadow stories (after Ender's Game of course) and this was another positive addition to the story. It is nothing like Ender's Game or Shadow again, but if you liked Shadow of the Hegemon this is formatted very similarly as a continuation of that story. It is admittedly less interesting than Ender's Shadow by a fair margin, and more predictable than Hegemon, but still worth reading. It focuses a LOT on military strategy.

Before I downloaded it, I saw a review that was extremely critical of the supposed anti-homosexual commentary and was expecting it to be much worse. Realistically there is about a 5 minute conversation where one character in the book expresses his opinion that even though he is of the homosexual persuasion, he believes that every human's desire to have children with a woman transcends that. So basically, don't let the easily offended reviewer deter you and make you think that this is an anti-gay book by any means.

Review of Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card

Shadow Puppets, by Orson Scott Card is an excellent sequel to Ender's Shadow. Card creates a whole new perspective of science fiction, showing different character's perspectives including that of the antagonist.

This story should be listened to by more mature minds; those that can handle death and banter of lovers. This book is also for the slightly more scientific and technical minds who enjoy analyzing and solving problems.

issue with cronology

exelent naration but the storry fealth like it had issues with keeping some kind of cronological timeline

worth a credit

it was worth a credit to listen to this book. average book but not bad

Closure!

All I wanted to know is what happens next to Julian, Petra, and Achilles. If you like Scott’s writing then you will enjoy the closure this book brings after Shadow of the Hegemon. The audio was better than Shadow of the Hegemon (I don’t know what happened to that book but I wouldn’t recommend spending a credit on it). This book on the other hand goes back to great audio like that of Ender’s Shadow.

Another Good Read in the Ender Series

You continue with Bean's story, and the positive here is that Card develops the character quite nicely.

However, the premise of the world going to war based on advice from 10 and 12 year olds is simply not believable in this one.

I was able to suspend disbelief in Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, but he simply missed the mark with the story.

Overall, I recommend and will be moving on to Shadow of the Hegemon.

Shadow puppets - great story!

Bean is one of my favorite characters of all time. It's a thrilling story however I'm disappointed that the author had to use his characters to preach religious views

spotty recording

This production house is typically amazing, but there are some strange issues with this reading. I think the readers must have been mispronouncing "hegemon" because the word is dubbed over in a really jarring way throughout the production. There were places were they couldn't agree on how to pronounce Achilles. The audio quality also seemed of compared to previous entries in the series.

I enjoyed more time with these characters very much. A few times I had to roll my eyes because the author's personal political evolution is shining through in ways unseen in previous works. Bean's exploration of the morality of abortion as an example. Didn't stop me from enjoying the story. Anyone who made it this far in the series has no reason to stop here.

strange music

the novel it's self is amazing and the voice actors do a phenomenal job. the random music is off putting though

Good but the weakest Shadow book so far

I love this series and the way it can make a compelling story out of a glorified game of Risk. However this entry was significantly weighed down by the romance-and-babies plot.