I’ve always enjoyed stories that focus on individual people with larger conflicts as a backdrop, and Shadow Puppets pulls this off rather well.Ĭonflicts on Earth two hundred years from now still forms that backdrop, and I feel like Orson Scott Card improves this setting in this book. These types of interpersonal issues dominate the story, and it works rather well as events move along. At the same time, the parents of a young and brilliant leader assist him in governing well while subverting his will to keep him safe from a perceived assassination attempt he refuses to see. We follow a young couple who disagree about building a life together while moving from country to country to evade their ubiquitous enemies. Shadow Puppets has a greater focus on individual characters and their drama than on the various countries and blocs that Shadow of the Hegemon features. By this time in the series, the world feels like it’s falling apart and our handful of flawed characters do their best to put the pieces back together. This aspect still bothers me a lot every time I read it, but that very frustration shows what I like most about this book and series: it draws you in. Shadow Puppets opens with one of the more flawed protagonists making a huge mistake, and the rest of the book features everyone dealing with the aftermath. Sadly, people have flaws and make mistakes. One of the biggest problems with Orson Scott Card’s characters is that they are people. Normally, my OCD would prevent me from buying a damaged book, but in this case I really needed to know what happened next and I didn’t have time to look for a better copy. So that cold December evening I ran out the door and drove from Barnes & Noble to Barnes & Noble till I found a copy of Shadow Puppets with a slightly warped cover. As it turned out, it had two direct sequels at that point, Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant.
When I finished reading Shadow of the Hegemon for the first time, I immediately looked online to find out about the sequel it clearly needed. You can find Stephen Olson’s other Ender’s Game posts here. Attack of the Books! will features his weekly review on the novels in the award winning Ender’s Game series. Editor’s Note: Ender’s Game may be one of the most awaited film adaptations of a novel in recent years, and Stephen Olson is a huge fan of the novel, as well as its sequels.
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