Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card

[thirstyVan]

I just finished it and I really enjoyed it. Here's the "review" I wrote for Amazon (I usually don't bother but I felt like it was getting somewhat unfairly slammed).

"I don't want to write a huge review here, so I will just say I thought that overall this was Card's best work in years. Bean's story was heartbreaking but still a great read. I immediately fell in love with the kids. It's not his best work ever, and it definitely starts to fall into some "Cardisms", particularly at the beginning, but overall I loved it. Enough that I am kind of hoping he squeezes a few more books out of this family before wrapping it all up with "Shadows Alive" (only kind of, I also want to see this series finally reach it's end).

If you are an Ender/Bean fan, and/or a Card fan you will probably enjoy this, if not totally love it. It's certainly worth the price of admission. "

Anyway. Obviously, I liked it. Has anyone else read it yet? What did you think? Also, did it seem like he was hinting that

the new race descended from Bean's kids are the same "alien" race that released the Descolada virus from the original sequel series? Because they were screwing around with using viruses to insert new code into DNA, and isn't that basically what the Descolada did? It's not the strongest connection, but still... Also, the godspoken from Path have had Anton's Key turned, right? It seems so obvious, but since the original sequel series was written years before it's never really been spelled out as far as I know. Just curious of what anyone else thinks of this.

[Pennarin]

What is meant by original sequel series?

[EllenS]

The first set of sequels follows Ender and Valentine and is set thousands of years in the future. Since they were first, I guess they'd be the original sequel. And they really don't have connection to Ender's Game except for a few of the main characters.

The Shadow sequels are all Bean and his story.

[thirstyVan]

You got it.

I guess no one's really interested in this one. Oh well :P

[EllenS]

I didn't know there was a new one out.

My husband bought me my entire Amazon wish list for Christmas(now THAT's romantic!), so I still have 5 books left from the stack to read, but I'm going to go buy this on the weekend and read it.

[Killer Tomato]

I was extremely disapointed by the new Ender Series book in that it did not offer a conclusion for the series. At this point I Feel Card is milking the series for all its worth and has no plans to actually right a conclusion for the series any time soon. On a side note i think that Beans kids will start the alien race that created the Descolada virus. Think about it the Descolada virus made the piggies live longer by allowing them to live as trees, it would do the same for the leguminotes and allow them to live longer inside some other organism. Makes sense to me at least

[psikeyhackr]

At this point I Feel Card is milking the series for all its worth and has no plans to actually right a conclusion for the series any time soon.

I figured David Weber is doing the same thing with the Honor Harrington series.

It's been a long time since I read an Ender book and it would be the same for the Honor series if Baen had not put those I haven't read over the last 5 years up on the net.

http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

I'll follow a series as long as it's good enough. If the writer is throwing out shlock and expects loyalty then I just won't buy it but it will continue if other people do it. That seemed to be what Weber was doing by the 7th book in the Honor series but maybe I was just getting bored with Honor. But even the last one I read Mission of Honor was just too wordy for the quality of the story. I can't really complain since I read it for free but Weber managed to make an interesting story just too long-winded about it.

I started but did not finish Children of the Mind or Shadow of the Hegemon. But Ender's Shadow was good.

psik

[Loerwyn]

It's been a long time since I read an Ender book and it would be the same for the Honor series if Baen had not put those I haven't read over the last 5 years up on the net.

http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

Just to point out that's not an official Baen site nor do Baen host it. They've given it their blessing, yes, but it's not their site.

And that's Baen's choice, and it exists as a measure to reduce the piracy rates of their ebooks and bring in new readers.

And it works.

[Teela Brown]

I'm looking forward to reading it, since Bean is pretty much the only character I give beans about.
Ha, see what I did there?