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Shadow of the Giant  By  cover art

Shadow of the Giant

By: Orson Scott Card
Narrated by: David Birney, Scott Brick, Full Cast
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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

What listeners say about Shadow of the Giant

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Weird proselytism and borderline racism

I loved the first few books in the Ender’s series, but this one is downright weird. There has always been some philosophical bent to the earlier books in this series (which is one of their strongest features), but this one reads much less like coherent philosophical reasoning and much more like shitty Christian propaganda, with the authors borderline hateful views on homosexuality, obvious contempt for Islam, and and backwards views on women very unsubtly leaking through the dialogue.

I was honestly kind of shocked at how bad it was compared to earlier works.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Good, but sad

This is an amazing wrap to the story though I feel like there may be a follow up. Even though it’s a little bit sad it’s still an amazing book and I highly recommend it. I’ve listened to every book in the series’s starting from Enders Game to Xenocide. And from Enders shadow to this very book, I recommend it very highly and I think you should listen to or read every book.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Few bad production parts

There are a few spots with double audio, but still a great book and series.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

lots of odd audio issues

there were lots of unusual audio issues throughout the book. Ending was lackluster , but could have turned out worse.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

umm...and...

I am missing a few story line endings. Baby 9? Bean and the babies? umm

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Loved it

Best of the series. Story and narration are outstanding and well developed in every way.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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New books have lost magic of Ender's Game.

Orson has lost what made Enders game great. instead of focusing on the sci-fi narrative of the first few books, Orson has fully gone into religion themed plots, revolving around marriage and making babies. The plot has gotten very 1 dimensional.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another audiobook with weird audio

Just like the previous novel in this series, this one also had some weird post dubbed audio. Idk why they can’t do a better job on post dubs, because this sounded like AM radio.

Other than those few minutes, the rest of it was good.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Best book so far

Last book I was very disappointed in the way people acted and how things turned out. But I guess it was so this book could take off the way it did. Favorite book in the series so far

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Puts me in tears every time

What an ending for Peter’s life story, and for the story of Bean and Petra. Shadows in Flight always gets me too, but what a powerful novel. Sure, there’s some really outdated westernized views of other countries that are, admittedly, offensively ignorant. But the human tale that carries throughout is powerful and tragic. Big improvement over Shadow Puppets.

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