Starts strong, ends with a whimper (not a bang)

books:


	• Ender's Game Boxed Set: Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon Orson Scott Card Tor Books, 2002 - 1296 pages average customer review:based on 18 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

the game

the first book Ender's Game is great have not had time to start the other books yet. I will read them this spring and get back to this for an update.

Fast pace, High Tempo, Leaves you wandering

This is the first book I have read in ages. The book had a nice pace to it which just drags you in the story. The story (r)evolves around a number of characters.Which gives the whole a nice consistency. After reading the story which in my opinion was over before it begun, I just wanted to know more about everything. Which in certain cases can be an excellent platform for write 12+ novels, and as such create something no one wants to read. This book isn't like that, it is a complete story which can be read on its own. There could have been a bit mnore elaboration on the characters, however this might have taken de pace out of the story. All in all good job, I immediatly started reading the rest. I would recommend this to anyone interrested in science fiction.

Spoiler ahead:
I am unhappy about one thing though, at a certain point the timeline is broken, which closes a lot of untold stories, in a linear timeline, This is solved in the other books.

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repeat reader

Finding this book listed on my granddaughter's summer reading list, I was reminded of the pleasure it brought many years ago, so have now read it again and was entertained as much as I had hoped. The pace is sustained throughout "Ender's Game" and the ending is extremely pleasing, with lose ends tied up nicely. "Ender's Shadow" is surprisingly enjoyable at the same level of suspense despite a similar setting, while "Shadow of the Hegemon" was enjoyable, but not quite of the same quality as the first two books. The author has made a quite plausible and imaginative story, incorporating the idea of using problems that confront us to help build character, while being sensitive to the loneliness of the leadership role.

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Starts strong, ends with a whimper (not a bang)

The first two books in this set are amazing. The third one is a lame attempt at a movie deal. You can see Hollywood written all over it. It goes against everything the first two books stand for.
That being said, I still give this set a 5-star rating because of the first two stories it contains. They both have a natural flow to them that many sci-fi writers lack the skill to accomplish. All of the main characters behave realistically according to their motivations. The two books compliment each other, the second book serves to establish the same story from a different perspective which adds to the depth of an already great piece of work. Well done, Mr. Card!

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Enders Game Box Set

I purchased this set for my nephew for his birthday. He hasn't been able to put this series down and is reading it for the second time :)

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

Boxed Set contains Mass Market Editions of Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and Shadow of the Hegemon

Ender's Game
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut?young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

Ender's Shadow
Orson Scott Card brings us back to the very beginning of his brilliant Ender Quartet, with a novel that allows us to reenter that world anew.

With all the power of his original creation, Card has created a parallel volume to Ender's Game, a book that expands and compliments the first, enhancing its power, illuminating its events and its powerful conclusion.

The human race is at War with the "Buggers", an insect-like alien race. The first battles went badly, and now as Earth prepares to defend itself against the imminent threat of total destruction at the hands of an inscrutable alien enemy, all focus is on the development and training of military geniuses who can fight such a war, and win.

The long distances of interstellar space have given hope to the defenders of Earth--they have time to train these future commanders up from childhood, forging then into an irresisible force in the high orbital facility called the Battle School.

Andrew "Ender" Wiggin was not the only child in the Battle School; he was just the best of the best. In this new book, card tells the story of another of those precocious generals, the one they called Bean--the one who became Ender's right hand, part of his team, in the final battle against the Buggers.

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's. 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.

Bean's desperate struggle to live, and his success, brought him to the attention of the Battle School's recruiters, those people scouring the planet for leaders, tacticians, and generals to save Earth from the threat of alien invasion. Bean was sent into orbit, to the Battle School. And there he met Ender....

Shadow of the Hegemon
The War is over, won by Ender Wiggin and his team of brilliant child-warriors. The enemy is destroyed, the human race is saved. Ender himself refuses to return to the planet, but his crew has gone home to their families, scattered across the globe. The battle school is no more.

But with the external threat gone, the Earth has become a battlefield once more. The children of the Battle School are more than heros; they are potential weapons that can bring power to the countries that control them. One by one, all of Ender's Dragon Army are kidnapped. Only Bean escapes; and he turns for help to Ender's brother Peter.

Peter Wiggin, Ender's older brother, has already been manipulating the politics of Earth from behind the scenes. With Bean's help, he will eventually rule the world.

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