I need some advice. I'm about to finish up a re-read of Ender's Game, and I've never read the sequels or any of Bean's parallel books. What would be a better way to read them:
A) Read up through Children of the Mind and switch to Ender's Shadow and it's sequels, or
B) Read Ender's Shadow next and continue chronologically through the series.

Comments?

I've only read Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. All I can tell you is that Ender's Shadow runs parallel (as far as time wise) as Ender's Game. It's Ender's Game from whatshisfaces point of view.

Maybe that will help, maybe it won't. Just thought I'd share.

I couldn't stand Children of the Mind etc... But Ender's Shadow, although parallel to Ender's Game, was pretty good. Shadow Puppets just came out in paperback so I might give it a shot even though other people have said that it sucked.

Keep in mind that there is at least one more book to read, possibly two, in the "parallel" section of this series. Since you just finished Ender's Game, I'd read Ender's Shadow next since all the action is still fresh in your head.

The other "shadow" titles are immediate sequels to Ender's Shadow, so I think those should be read next (again, keep in mind at least one is yet to be written).

You can read the "regular" Enders Game sequels at anytime since they don't take place immediately after the others. Bascially, the "Shadow" books take place on earth, while the others, starting with Speaker for the Dead starts 3,000 years after Ender's Game (but Ender is still young thanks to his zooming away in a spaceship).

I hope that helps. If not, I can try to explain again.

Shadow of the Hegemon is the sequel to Ender's Shadow. The war is over, and now the new war (the one that they figured would break out on Earth once they no longer had a common enemy) is starting. All of Ender's soldiers except for Bean have been captured by various governments.

I haven't read it yet, so I don't know if it sucks. If you have a Media Play near you, go look through their bargain tables... I found my copy of it there about a month ago for $5.99

Cool, thanks for the info everyone.

The Shadow books were pretty good. Didn't read Puppets yet, but the others are pretty good. They do well on building on the charecters introduced in Ender's Game, Peter, Bean etc...

Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are wonderful.

The Ender's Shadow series (Ender, Hegemon, Puppets) is fun.

Xenocide and Children - you have to plow through those.

I've read Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow so far. Got around 150 pages left in Speaker. I'm really loving it so far, although it was hard at first keeping all the characters straight, especially when OSC jumps a generation between chapters. I'm gonna go back to Shadow of the Hegemon once I finish this one.

I've read both the Ender's Game and speaker series as well as all of the shadow series. The speaker series is definetly a little slower moving then the shadow series, both have their merits. I put off reading the shadow series for a long time because I very much enjoyed ender's game and didn't want to sully that with what I thought were going to be bad books. As it turns out I really enjoyed the current shadow series books, I recommend reading both series, however, go with the shadow series after reading Ender's game as it picks up right where Ender's game leaves off rather then jumping into the future with the speaker boosk

Anyone know anything about the newest "Enderverse" book that pretty much deals with Ender's parents? Just came out, or just coming out.

I noticed that on Amazon a couple of days ago. I think it sounds pretty cool. Have you found out much about it yet?

btw- I'm now on Xenocide. I loved Speaker, but I thought Shadow of the Hegemon was just ok. I felt like OSC got a little long-winded with all the political stuff. It frankly got confusing to the point where I was tempted to take notes on the characters and which country they had allegience to.

The Enderverse book consists of three short stories, only one of which is new. The first one is the original Ender's Game short. Another is one about his sister (I think) and was published in the short story collection Legends (again, I think this is right). The last one deals with his father.

On another note, this book was originally published in a signed limited edition by Subterranean Press.

Edit: okay, I was wrong. The title is First Meetings and features Ender's Game, The Polish Boy (about Ender's father as a young boy), and Investment Counselor (about his first meeting with Jane).

Ender's Game is the crowning jewel of the entire series. Not one of the sequels measures up, though some come close.

Many hate Ender's Shadow, because it takes away from some of the brilliance of Ender, and makes him more just a good commander with brilliant subordinates. I prefered thinking that Ender was the miliatry genius, and the others, while bright and innovative, were not his equals at understanding the full picture. The original book makes this point many times, and then Ender's Shadow craps all over it by making Bean the true tactician and Ender just a 'people person' who can get everyone to work together.

That said, it's still a very good book. I would probably read it immediately after Ender's Game because I haven't yet read those two books back to back, and looking at the parallels would be much more interesting if Ender's Game were fresher in my mind.

After that, you're going to want to read Shadow of the Hedgemon and Shadow Puppets. Each book flows naturally into the next. They are good, and an entertaining read, but I don't think they would stand well on their own.

Speaker for the Dead takes place so far after Ender's Game, it's like a completely different book. Please don't pick this book up expecting Ender's Game. It's much more an intellectual and mature book, and there is much less action. I can't emphasize the changes in tone enough. While it contains the same characters, it couldn't be more different. That said, I really like it, and think it's the second best of the series. In some ways, it's a better book and better written than Ender's Game, but I find it's a lot colder and more removed, so it doesn't have quite the emotional pull of Ender's Game. The character Jane introduced in this book is, to me, the most interesting character in the entire series.

Xenocide and Children of the Mind are crap. You'll want to read them to finish up the Ender saga, but you'll probably not have an interest in ever re-reading them. They are a jumbled mess with no real direction. Xenocide shows some redeeming qualities from time to time, but Children of the Mind just falls off a cliff.

I read Ender's Game a while ago, then followed it up about a year later with Speaker, Xenocide, and Children. Then about a year after that, I read Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon.

That said, I thought that the series sort of loses quality the further it goes (by publication date). Ender's Game was awesome, Speaker was pretty good, Xenocide was ok, and Children just got too overloaded with stuff. I really enjoyed the story of the first four books, but Children of the Mind just didn't seem as focused as the other ones, and introduced way too many elements for its own good.

Ender's Shadow was ok, and follows Bean along the same time period of Ender's Game. As others have said, it's a good read, but it does sort of change your perspective on the original book.

Shadow of the Hegemon just put me off the whole series, though. It was just way too much, and the story just seemed to not really go anywhere. After trudging through Hegemon, I find myself not even caring that there's a book after it.

If I was going to read them all, I'd read in published order, because I prefer to read everything in the order it was written.

That said, even though I am a big OSC fan and have read all his other SF novels and most of his stories (even a lot of the Mormon stuff) and loved Ender's Game, I thought Speaker was only marginal, and the other 2 of the first four, I didn't even finish. I still really liked Ender's Shadow, and enjoyed the last two books as well, so if you decide to read in published order and get bored, consider switching over to the second set of books.

Xenocide must have a really craptastic ending or something, because I've really been enjoying it so far. I've only got about 150 pages left.

Well, after several stalls where I was just too busy to read, I just finished Children of the Mind. I'm not completely done this the overall series- I've still got Shadow Puppets and Tales from the Enderverse to read, but I've finished the first series.
I thought the entire series was amazing, one of the best series I've read in years. The characterization was great throughout, and it really had me caring what happened to each character. I know a lot of people hate anything after Speaker, but IMHO Xenocide and CotM were very worthy sequels, and I just don't get what the hate is over.
My only gripes are that I wish there had been more of a resolution with Quara and that there had been an actual conclusion to the plotline involving the homeworld of the descolada virus.
Overall, this series has been one of the best meldings of science, romance, religion, philosohpy, action, and politics I've ever read.

Interesting... I just read over at www.philoticweb.net that OSC plans on writing a final book that takes place after Children of the Mind, follows Peter and Wang-Mu, and somehow connects to the Shadow series.
For right now, though, he's still working on Shadow of the Giant to finish up Bean's series.

Although I've been critical of the later Ender books, I'd read a sequel to CotM and I plan reading the rest of the Bean books.

Just read the Enderverse book - not bad, but he is starting to tell the same story over and over, just with a different spin.

I'm really looking forward to reading that one. Still gotta finish Shadow Puppets first, though, when I get a chance.

• Quoth einTier •<HR SIZE=1>Ender's Game is the crowning jewel of the entire series. Not one of the sequels measures up, though some come close.<HR SIZE=1>

Disagree, because I agree with most of this ...

• Quoth einTier •<HR SIZE=1>Speaker for the Dead takes place so far after Ender's Game, it's like a completely different book. Please don't pick this book up expecting Ender's Game. It's much more an intellectual and mature book, and there is much less action. I can't emphasize the changes in tone enough. While it contains the same characters, it couldn't be more different. That said, I really like it, and think it's the second best of the series. In some ways, it's a better book and better written than Ender's Game, but I find it's a lot colder and more removed, so it doesn't have quite the emotional pull of Ender's Game. The character Jane introduced in this book is, to me, the most interesting character in the entire series.<HR SIZE=1>

I actually think Speaker is the better of the two, but they both kick ass. I guess we're past the point of recommendations, but I would recommend reading them in the following order: Game, Speaker, Xenocide, Children, Game again, and then on through the Shadow stories.

das

Ender's Game was a classic. I read it in a day. Speaker for the Dead was pretty good, but took me about 2 days. Xenocide was okay but way too long. I finished that one after about 2 weeks. I exchanged Children of the Mind with I, Robot (along with Foundation) because 1) I could already forsee how everything would turn out by the end of Xenocide, and 2) I had heard so many bad things about Children of the Mind that I didn't even want to bother.