Ender's Shadow

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: Scott Brick, Gabrielle de Cuir, full cast

The novel that launched the bestselling Ender's Shadow series—available for the first time on audio

The human race is at War with the "Buggers," an insect-like alien race. As Earth prepares to defend itself from total destruction at the hands of an inscrutable enemy, all focus is on the development 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 them into an irresistible 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 Ender's Shadow, 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. 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....

Browse more titles in the Ender Wiggin series.©1999 Orson Scott Card (P)2005 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC

Critic reviews

• Alex Award Winner, 2000

"An exceptional work." (School Library Journal)
"An absorbing, near-flawless performance." (Kirkus)
"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)

Don't waste your time with the abridgement.

The abridged audio of this title is absolutely awful, but for years it was inexplicably the only audio version available. Why anyone thought Michael Gross would be a good narrator for this title is beyond me.

I've had the release date for the GOOD (i.e. UNabridged) audio version on my calendar for months and now it's FINALLY here. Unabridged, full cast, hopefully as good as the full cast audio versions of the rest of this series. I don't know why they waited to do a correct version of the first "Shadow" title LAST, but I'm relieved they finally did.

A Great Addition to the Series

Card re-visits Battle Scholl in "Enders Shadow" through the eyes of Bean. Card has grown as a writer since he wrote "Enders Game" and it shows. Characters in "Shadow" are much better developed and the story has a much more "polished" feel to it. I found the narration to be very enjoyable and easy to listen to. I would recommend listening to "Enders Game" and "Enders Shadow" before going on to "Speaker for the Dead", the books compliment each other.

awesome book!

Loved the different perspective of the story. I just want to read more! on to the next book.

Great Book!

I loved Enders game. And this made that book even better. I can’t wait to listen to the next one!

Shadow's Reign

Great listen as always from Card's Audiobooks. Ender's Shadow is a great Companion to Ender's Game.

Read this book immediately after Ender's Game

This book starts with such sadness and sorry that I wasn't sure I could continue. The story smacked me straight in the face and I was totally shocked. However, it is brilliant and I will go on and read the other books.
I would never consider myself a sci-fi fan and have never got immersed into a series but this is different and very addictive.
I had listened to the 25th anniversary edition of Ender's Game that finished with the 1st chapter of the next book "Speaker of the Dead". Whilst i applaud the technique to encourage me to buy the next book, I honestly didn't like the chapter. I thought my journey with Ender Wiggins was complete. However, fortunately I read an Audible review that listed a different path to read the series. I'm so glad I heeded their advice.

New take on Ender's story.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would. I can't say I like it better than Ender's game, however, I appreciate seeing a different take on the same story. It fleshes out certain events and characters. I liked learning more about Bean.

Book repeats a chapter right at the end.

If you could sum up Ender's Shadow in three words, what would they be?

Kept me listening

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

Loved having different narrators for different point of views.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Enjoyed seeing enders game from the outside.

Any additional comments?

Right before the end game the book decides to repeat a prior chapter. At first thought Bean was flashing back but no such luck. From an Author that cares so much about how his books are portrayed its a pretty big miss....

so good but

it so good but I feel like Bean is too smart that he seems to be figuring out everything too quickly, but what do I know I'm just a reader

A great Audible performance...

...and a story/perspective as good if not better in many ways than the Ender's Game perspective. Bean is incredible!