Shadow of the Hegemon

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: David Birney, Scott Brick, Gabrielle de Cuir

Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Ender's Game told the story of the boy "Ender" Wiggin and his hard-won victory over an alien race that would have destroyed the Earth and all of humanity. But Ender was not the only child in the Battle School. He was just the best of the best. In Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card told the story of another of those precocious generals, the one they called Bean - the one who became Ender's right hand, his strategist, and his friend.

And now Card continues Bean's story, and finally tells a tale long awaited by millions of fans. At last we learn what happened on Earth after the destruction of the Hive Queen's worlds, after humanity no longer had a single enemy to unify the warring nations. This is the story of how Bean turned away from his first friend, Ender, and became the tactical genius who won the Earth for Ender's brother, Peter, who became the Hegemon.

Please note: This 2001 recording represents the technology of the time when it was produced. This is currently the best available source audio from the publisher.

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©2000 Orson Scott Card

glitches where someone else's voice is substituted

Weird glitches in audio where someone else's voice is substituted for the duration of a single word, typically the word "hegemon".

Excellent

This book, like all Orson Scott Card's books that I have read until now is amazingly good. Also, like all of his other books, it is very profound. He managed to create such wonderful characters. if I say anymore I will give away spoilers...

Great, except for one actor and the music

The book itself (as in the story and the writing) hardly needs more praise. It's classic Card. As always, "thanks, Scott!"

My gripe is with the silly ditty that was inserted between chapters. Totally unnecessary and quite annoying in the repetition. My suggestion is to the 'casting director' --- please don't use the actor who read Peter Wiggin again. Peter, as much as we may not particularly like him (I only put up with him because Valentine did/does), is a strong, autocratic, and brilliant person....but the actor read him as a simpering, misunderstood teenager with delusions of grandeur. If Locke had sounded like that, he would never have been taken at all seriously, much less been made Hegemon, even if in this early part of the story the Hegemony is but a "shadow of its former self".

What is it with the word Hegemon?

What made the experience of listening to Shadow of the Hegemon the most enjoyable?

The overall Story keeps me wanting to know what's next, I can almost immerse myself into this fictional view of what is a believable possible future for or planet!

Who was your favorite character and why?

All the usual suspects!

Did the narrators do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

This is where my only issue comes into play, throughout the book it's as if the reader maybe pronounced Hegemon incorrectly and the did a cheap cut and paste of another voice to say it correctly and it sounds horrible almost Comical really! Made it hard to listen to and really sink into because those cut and paste audio issues become like a smack in the forehead after the first few times! And it must happen a good 20/30 tea throughout maybe more!

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No it's not a emotional book

Any additional comments?

Fire whoever is responsible for those audio issues because it completely ruins the listening experence!

Orson Card writes such compelling characters

What made the experience of listening to Shadow of the Hegemon the most enjoyable?

Orson's themes and characters dealing with theme's of child versus parents, Heros and Nemisies, love and feelings despit genius and sheer natural talent. There are many personal views I disagree with with SC as a citizen (i.e. LGBT marraige and rights) but I don't believe this should make you more than pause before picking up this book after you read the Ender quartet.

Great book

The story and performance of said story were both great, with two minor issues. The first is that most chapters have the same narrator speaking all roles, while others switch roles with different narrators. The second and only reason for the lack of 5 stars was the forced change of some key words. If I remember the original book. The words president or king or monarch were changed to Hedgemon by different narrators in mid sentence. I hope they either return those words back to the originals or have the original narrators voiceover those lines or reread those sentences and edit them in more fluidly.
Overall I still love the books and will continue on now to the next story.

Great Story. Great Reading. Poor Recording.

Would you consider the audio edition of Shadow of the Hegemon to be better than the print version?

Yes, the audio readings of this series are THE way to experience the stories of Ender and Bean. The readers convey sincere emotion and inject life into the characters in a way that connects immediately and powerfully with the listener.

Any additional comments?

From the moment I began, I was surprised at the low quality of the recording. I re-downloaded the "highest quality" (i.e. highest bitrate) copy to make sure I had the right one. Alas, it sounds like this has been compressed for transmission over a telephone line. The other books in this series that I've listened to were clearer, and CD-quality meant CD quality.

I'm not yet through the story, but I had to stop and note that there are a number of *very* distracting edits that have been made to the recording, notably in places when the word "hegemon" is used. Clips have been cut out and replaced by presumably fixed recordings that have clearly different audio quality and voice intonation.

I don't blame the readers so much as whoever was in charge of producing this recording. Even the best movie looks like dirt balls when you watch a recording that was made with a camcorder filming an old television playing a VHS of the movie. Still, knowing the quality of this recording, I might have instead gone to the library to see if I could borrow it for free.

weirdly edited

good story. great actors but weird distracting edits where some random voice would jump in and read certain words or phrases.

Lacking audio quality

The book overall is good, however, this one has markedly poorer audio quality than previous installations. There's also several points where it is apparent they overlaid new audio where Scott Brick had mispronounced "hegemon", however, they did not replace it in all places, nor did they successfully match the audio. The result is quite noticeable and abrupt as the quality changes suddenly for a few words, then reverts back to the bass-heavy mix that is heard throughout the rest of the book.

While it is far from making the book impossible to listen to, it does detract from my ability to enjoy it as much as I find myself distracted by the poor audio quality.

good book, a couple small performance issues

great book, but i wish the voice talents would all sit down together and agree on the pronunciation of the words we're not used to hearing aloud. they all got "hegemon" wrong (though scott brick's mispronunciations were obviously rerecorded). Similarly with the character "Achilles". oh well. definitely worth listening to anyways.