Scan barcode
A review by sarahanne8382
Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card
3.0
I hate Orson Scott Card so much because his latest book about former Battle School students is clearly designed more to make money than to tell an essential story to the series, but I still read and enjoyed it.
This time around we finally get to hear what happened to Bean and the children sent out into space with him. It's five years after they set out on their voyage and the Antonines (or Leguminotes, as the children prefer to be called) come across what appears to be an ancient Formic colony ship. Could this ship hold the secrets to their survival or spell their doom?
To be honest, the book starts out a little too precious with the three children, Ender, Carlotta, and Cincinnatus, fitting their given names too well and basically being obnoxious child geniuses. Luckily, the action of discovering the ship propels the story along and things quickly get better. Still, this felt like a short story that was stretched into a novel. And while this one could have had repercussions on the events of other books in the series, Card wisely chose to keep it as a relatively small self-contained story. Which makes me wonder why the artistic choice was to turn this into a novel instead of release another bunch of stories like First Meetings.
The answer probably has to do with the fact that there's already another book following the action of this one set to come out this summer, and while I kind of hate myself for it, I will definitely want to read it. If you are similarly addicted, you know you're going to check it out, too.
This time around we finally get to hear what happened to Bean and the children sent out into space with him. It's five years after they set out on their voyage and the Antonines (or Leguminotes, as the children prefer to be called) come across what appears to be an ancient Formic colony ship. Could this ship hold the secrets to their survival or spell their doom?
To be honest, the book starts out a little too precious with the three children, Ender, Carlotta, and Cincinnatus, fitting their given names too well and basically being obnoxious child geniuses. Luckily, the action of discovering the ship propels the story along and things quickly get better. Still, this felt like a short story that was stretched into a novel. And while this one could have had repercussions on the events of other books in the series, Card wisely chose to keep it as a relatively small self-contained story. Which makes me wonder why the artistic choice was to turn this into a novel instead of release another bunch of stories like First Meetings.
The answer probably has to do with the fact that there's already another book following the action of this one set to come out this summer, and while I kind of hate myself for it, I will definitely want to read it. If you are similarly addicted, you know you're going to check it out, too.