From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Card's latest installment in his Shadow subseries (Ender's Shadow, etc.), which parallels the overarching series that began with Ender's Game (1985), does a superlative job of dramatically portraying the maturing process of child into adult. The imminent death of Bean, a superhuman 20-something Battle School graduate who suffers from uncontrolled growth due to a genetic disorder, leaves little time for Peter the Hegemon, Ender's older brother, to set up a single world government and for Bean and his wife and former classmate, Petra, to reclaim all their stolen children. When Card's focus strays from his characters into pure politics, the story loses power, but it's recharged as soon as he returns to the well-drawn interactions among Bean's Battle School classmates whose decisions will determine Earth's fate. They were trained to fight a (literally) single-minded alien enemy, but that war is over. Now, as young adults in command of human armies pitted against each other in messy conflicts with no clear solutions, Bean's old cohorts must help create a peaceful future for Earth after they're gone. Card makes the important point that there's always more than one side to every issue. Fans will marvel at how subtly he has prepared for the clever resolution. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
Considering the dynasty of novels launched by Ender's Game (1984), perhaps Card ought to consider renaming his central protagonist. Though this is putatively the eighth book in the Ender saga, when considering the books as two quartets linked across a 1,000-year gap (a by-product of Ender's light-speed travel to Lusitania), it's the fourth of the sequence that began with Ender's Shadow (1999). Here, Card further develops the premise that the return of Ender's battle team to Earth was tantamount to introducing "two Alexanders, a Joan of Arc here and there, and a couple of Julius Caesars, maybe an Attila, and . . . a Genghis Khan" into the geopolitical fray. The tension between characters' personal fulfillment and collective obligations also comes to the fore, as couple Bean and Petra desperately search for their eight missing embryos stolen by the mad eugenicist of Shadow Puppets (2002), watch Bean's health deteriorate, and attempt to restore order to the world under hegemon Peter Wiggin. The emergence of several additional perspectives makes for a somewhat cumbersome narrative, but it doesn't much matter. Like Card's idolized Battle School alumni, novels in this saga (not to mention Card himself) have acquired an irresistible aura from early associations with boy-hero Ender Wiggin. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"This fine follow-up to Ender's Shadow features that novel's hero, Bean (now a young man), wrestling with Card's trademark: superbly real moral and ethical dilemmas....The complexity and serious treatment of the book's young protagonists will attract many sophisticated YA readers, while Card's impeccable prose, fast pacing and political intrigue will appeal to adult fans of spy novels, thrillers, and science fiction."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Shadow of the Hegemon

"An undeniable heavyweight. . . . This book combines Card's quirky style with his hard ethical dilemmas and sharply drawn portraits."--New York Daily News on Ender's Game

"Card has taken the venerable SF concepts of a superman and an interstellar war against aliens, and, with superb characterization, pacing, and language, combined them into a seamless story of compelling power."--Booklist on Ender's Game

"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

"You can't step into the same river twice, but Card has gracefully dipped twice into the same inkwell--once for Ender's Game, and again for his stand-alone 'parallel novel'. As always, everyone will be struck by the power of Card's children, always more and less than human, perfect yet struggling, tragic yet hopeful, wondrous and strange."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Ender's Shadow

"The publishing equivalent of a Star Wars blockbuster." --New York Daily News on Ender's Shadow

"Ender's Shadow is entertaining, fast-paced science fiction." --CNN Interactive

"The author's superb storytelling and his genuine insight into the moral dilemmas that lead good people to commit questionable actions make this title a priority purchase for most libraries." --Library Journal on Ender's Shadow



Book Description
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, the beloved classic ENDER'S GAME, and its parallel, ENDER'S SHADOW.

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.



About the Author
Born in Richland, Washington in 1951, Orson Scott Card grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He lived in Brazil for two years as an unpaid missionary for the Mormon Church and received degrees from Brigham Young University (1975) and the University of Utah (1981). The author of numerous books, Card was the first writer to receive both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel two years in a row, first for Ender's Game and then for the sequel Speaker for the Dead. He lives with his wife and children in North Carolina.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Shadow of the Giant, the exciting conclusion of Orson Scott Card's Shadow Quartet (Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, and Shadow Puppets), completes the epic saga that chronicles the adventures of Julian "Bean" Delphiki and other young military geniuses in the years after they helped save Earth from annihilation. The Shadow series, a parallel story line of sorts to Card's award-winning Ender's Quartet (the first two novels in the series, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, won both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards) focuses on Bean, a mostly peripheral character in Ender's Game, and other young Battle School graduates who helped Andrew "Ender" Wiggin defeat the Buggers -- a race of insectoid space travelers bent on conquering Earth.

While Shadow of the Giant follows Bean and his wife, Petra, as they desperately try to find the eight missing embryos that were stolen from them before Bean's dread affliction kills him -- his genetic modifications for intellectual ability have also triggered a perpetual growth pattern -- a major focus of the novel is Peter Wiggin, Ender's older brother, whose life goal is to unite all of Earth's people under one government and to end war forever. But with many Battle School graduates now international heads of state, revolutionary leaders, and "fledgling deities," Peter's dream of unification just might spark the bloodiest world war yet￯﾿ﾽ

Longtime fans of the Ender's and Shadow Quartets who have patiently waited years for this concluding volume will be blown away by all the unexpected and startling developments within. But is this the last of the novels taking place in Card's Enderverse? According to the author: definitely not. Paul Goat Allen

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly