Shadow of the Giant

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: David Birney, Scott Brick, Full Cast

Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

The Ender Saga continues with Shadow of the Giant, which parallels the events of Ender's Game from a different character’s point of view.

Bean's past was a battle just to survive. He first appeared on the streets of Rotterdam, a tiny child with a mind leagues beyond anyone else. He knew he could not survive through strength; he used his tactical genius to gain acceptance into a children's gang, and then to help make that gang a template for success for all the others. He civilized them, and lived to grow older. Then he was discovered by the recruiters for the Battle School.

For Earth was at war—a terrible war with an inscrutable alien enemy. A war that humanity was near to losing. But the long distances of interstellar space has given hope to the defenders of Earth—they had time to train military geniuses up from childhood, forging them into an irresistible force in the high-orbital facility called the Battle School. That story is told in two books, Orson Scott Card's beloved classic Ender's Game, and its parallel, Ender's Shadow. Now, in Shadow of the Giant, Bean's story continues.

Bean was the smallest student at the Battle School, but he became Ender Wiggins' right hand, Since then he has grown to be a power on Earth. He served the Hegemon as strategist and general in the terrible wars that followed Ender's defeat of the alien empire attacking Earth. Now he and his wife Petra yearn for a safe place to build a family—something he has never known—but there is nowhere on Earth that does not harbor his enemies—old enemies from the days in Ender's Jeesh, new enemies from the wars on Earth. To find security, Bean and Petra must once again follow in Ender's footsteps. They must leave Earth behind, in the control of the Hegemon, and look to the stars.

THE ENDER UNIVERSE

Ender series

Ender’s Game

Speaker for the Dead

Xenocide

Children of the Mind

Ender in Exile

Children of the Fleet

Ender’s Shadow series

Ender’s Shadow

Shadow of the Hegemon

Shadow Puppets

Shadow of the Giant

Shadows in Flight

The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)

Earth Unaware

Earth Afire

Earth Awakens

The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)

The Swarm

The Hive

Ender novellas

A War of Gifts

First Meetings

Browse more titles in the Ender Wiggin series.

©2005 Orson Scott Card (P)2005 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC

Critic reviews

“The novels of Orson Scott Card's Ender series are an intriguing combination of action, military and political strategy, elaborate war games and psychology.” —USA Today

Enderverse

The Enderverse

This is my favorite science fiction series. The characters are easy to identify with, and you will find yourself sucked into this imaginary universe, nick named the Enderverse by fans.

Recommended order of reading (in my opinion): Ender?s Game, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind. Reading the books in this order will keep you interested and keep the story moving more naturally.

If after reading all of these wonderful books you are still itching for an Enderverse fix then read First Meetings. The list above is sorted by the Enderverse timeline. Meaning that the flow of events in the stories are uninterrupted. If you were to read the books in the order they were published, you would bounce back and forth in between time and few of the plot twists in future books would be revealed before you wanted them to be known. First Meetings, however contains short stories that occur both before and in between the list above within the Enderverse.

much better this time around

better story quality than ender's shadow and far better production than shadow of the hedgemon. things get weird with the Indian girl and petra but whatever

Great Recovery

Kinda started doubting the series after Shadow Puppets but Shadow of the Giant had me enthralled again. On to Shadows in Flight now

Great Listen/Read

I really enjoyed this book (just like all the others in the series). I feel like it did a great job wrapping up the Bean Quartet.

my heart is broken.

Loved it,however, my heart is a bit broken. I won't spoil it but, it was everything I had hoped it would be.

where was the author interview in this one?

Lacked the author's interview that all the previous books and Ender's story had. Is it too recent of a book to reflect on?

The worthy end to an epic tale

I think this is my favorite book in the series. I love the deep human connections and the story of what Peter Wiggin does to bring mankind together. I love Bean and the insights we get into who he becomes. it would make Sister Carlotta proud

Weird audio anomalies

There were some weird audio anomalies in a few place like someone messed up editing the audio, but they were short and few and didn’t affect my ability to hear what the narrator was saying. The story & performance were as excellent as you’d expect from the series.

Truly phenomenal

Listening to this was amazing. The ending was like inhaling the last cigarette before walking home on a fall day, not sad or happy but just content with nature. I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's the best way to describe my feelings.

Again, Totally Card

I usually hate "Companion Series" books, they usually seem to decline in entertainment value after the original book (Enders Game, in this case), especially when the original book seems to neatly end with no loose ends to warrant another book.

The Ender series is MUCH different, the "follow-up" books just keep getting better... The characters are well fleshed out (sometimes it seems a little too much time is wasted fleshing out a character, but it ends up being just the right amount of information you needed to know to keep up with the character's motivations further along in the book, or series).

If you liked Ender's Game, then the follow-up books are a "Must have", even if you think "How could they be better than the original"?

The unabridged versions are a bit long winded at times, but you get details that you NEED to have to keep up with the complex stories being woven.

Card says, "hearing" the books are the way he wanted them presented, and having several narrators in each book makes the audio books MUCH better.