Certain Kindles are 15% off today only. As far as I can tell, regular Kindles and Fires, yes. Paperwhites, no.

I threw Ender's Shadow across the room when I finished it, and never look backed. I'd've lit it on fire if I'd had a grill at the time.

Me too, except I didn't finish it*. Petra's transformation from an actual character with her own thoughts and feelings into Bean's fucking baby-factory? FEH FEH FEH FEH FEH PTUI FEH.

*A rare moment where self-control triumphed over completism. I was not so lucky with the Dune prequels.

The mental image of Polgara grilling a book

She ties it to a chair, shines a bright light on it, and demands it answer the ultimate question: "WHY?"

She ties it to a chair, shines a bright light on it, and demands it answer the ultimate question: "WHY?"

FOR SERIOUS!

I really enjoyed Ender's Shadow - what about it inspires bookburning in the rest of you?

Hold on, I need a refresher on spoiler tags. Everything I'm clicking is giving me "No input specified" errors....

Just use "s" at the beginning of a line.

Ok, I hope this works.

Ender's Game is my favorite book ever, hands down. I adore Ender the character and want nothing more than to protect him from the world. He suffered and he saved the world and then he was demonized, and he's my favorite character in all of fiction.

When I read Ender's Shadow, it was right when it was published, so I've since (blessedly) forgotten most of the details, but I remember the impressions that made me hate it so much--Bean the Mary Sue. Bean was smarter than Ender, Bean was better than Ender, Bean was the true hero of the war, Bean is #1 yay! Fuck you, Bean, I'd throw you in a woodchipper any day. Ender wins ALL THE THINGS. I came away from that book hating Bean and despising OSC for belittling Ender, and this was all way before I found out his psycho personal views.

And that's why I've never read another Ender-universe book ever.

(Only took four tries!)

Well, from that read, you definitely made the right choice not reading any farther into the Bean series. I feel like OSC didn't start going off the rails until further in. (Like I thought it was further in that Petra had her personality-transplant).

I also haven't read it in quite awhile, but

I enjoyed having a different perspective/narrator on events, and though the book casts Bean as smarter, and I think savvier, than Ender, I didn't think that was a criticism of Ender. I thought that the fact that Bean didn't take over from Ender was him agreeing that Ender was the better choice of leader. I thought he was ready to step up if necessary because Ender was on such a knife-edge, but that he was glad he didn't have to - partly because he didn't want Ender to snap, partly because he thought Ender was good at the job, and partly because he saw the crap that would be coming down the pike for the "savior".

But I can see your reading turning you off. Thanks for your perspective. (Again, I feel like that's reading snotty and Eddie-Haskell-y, which is not what I'm going for). Anyway.

(Like I thought it was further in that Petra had her personality-transplant).

Yeah, I don't recall that being in Ender's Shadow but the later books. I agree with your read of the book.

I don't think that was in Ender's Shadow either, but I recall that being my stopping point.

The OSC book grilling? High point of my day. Thank you, Polgara.

I read Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead after I read Xenocide because that's what was to hand at the time. I think that let me like it more than I would have if I'd been orderly. EG is still a book I recommend, while also linking folks to John Kessel's essay on "Creating the Innocent Killer" [link]