Philotic Web

Releases two weeks from today, maybe I should re-read the series again!

I'm excited, I hope Ender and Bean meet up again. I don't think OSC would be writing these novels if he didn't intend for that to happen.

My guess is that perhaps Bean's kids will meet Ender's "Children of the Mind".

My guess is that perhaps Bean's kids will meet Ender's "Children of the Mind".

That's a good guess and it seems plausible.

My guess is that perhaps Bean's kids will meet Ender's "Children of the Mind".

Somewhere on Lusitania...

"Ender Arkanian, meet Ender Wiggin."
"Actually, I'm Peter Wiggin. Sort of."
"I thought Peter was dead..."
"He is dead. This guy is Ender. In disguise."
"You mean like my brother is Ender in disguise?"
"Ender's dead."
"Which Ender?"
"Your brother Ender."
"Whose brother Ender?"
"Ender Arkanian. Ender Wiggin is still alive."
"But I'm Ender Arkanian, and I'm still alive."
"And I'm Peter Wiggin. Ender Wiggin is dead."
"But Peter Wiggin died thousands of years ago!"

...etc... etc...

On a more serious note, I think SiF and Shadows Alive will establish a relationship between the Delphikis at lightspeed and either the Godspoken of Path or the Ribeira family on Lusitania.

The Godspoken are the result of genetic manipulation. Why couldn't that genetic manipulation be a more advanced version of Antons Key, with the non-stop physical growth aspect counteracted somehow?

The Ribeira family is also clearly the smartest family on Lusitania, far smarter than any other Luso. How did that happen?

I'd wager more on his descendants (and/or Peter and Petra's) left on Earth becoming the Ribeira family. After all, the colony is Brazilian.

That would explain why the Ribeira females are so strong-willed and stubborn, while the males are much more pragmatic and analytical. Fits Bean and Petra to a tee.

One more day! Who's excited?

Me. I'm ditching school and honor band auditions to buy it and read it.

On a random note, according to Amazon my copy shipped on Dec 31 1969... (actually, it shipped yesterday).

Me. I'm ditching school and honor band auditions to buy it and read it.

That's something I would have done in high school! I picked up my copy on the way home from lab! Hooray!

On a random note, according to Amazon my copy shipped on Dec 31 1969... (actually, it shipped yesterday).

Mine shipped yesterday as well. And evidently "Shadows Alive" will wrap up the threads from Children of the Mind. What I've read about this one sounds like it will be somewhat reminiscent of the kids-on-the-spaceship family drama in the Homecoming quintet.

I would have my copy right now, but evidently my local mail carrier mis-delivered it, so it's probably sitting at one of my neighbour's houses.

Coincidentally the same thing happened with my copy of "Ender in Exile". It sat at a neighbour's house for nearly a week while I wondered where it was, and I was really worried because it was autographed and personalized.

From OSC's Facebook page:

"If anybody's watching, Shadows in Flight comes out today. It's a short novel, but a full story. It introduces Bean's brilliant children - the ones with the same short-life giantism that gives them savant-like abilities in every area. There's no ebook for a year, but there'll be an "enhanced ebook" for Kindle and Nook within a couple of weeks, fully illustrated by Nick Greenwood (and deftly abridged by Jake Black.)."

From OSC's Facebook page:

"If anybody's watching, Shadows in Flight comes out today. It's a short novel, but a full story. It introduces Bean's brilliant children - the ones with the same short-life giantism that gives them savant-like abilities in every area. There's no ebook for a year, but there'll be an "enhanced ebook" for Kindle and Nook within a couple of weeks, fully illustrated by Nick Greenwood (and deftly abridged by Jake Black.)."

Finally the definitive word. My Kindle copy has said "release on Feb 1, 2013". I thought it was a typo.

In any case, I just got my physical copy of the book from Amazon.

From OSC's Facebook page:

"If anybody's watching, Shadows in Flight comes out today. It's a short novel, but a full story. It introduces Bean's brilliant children - the ones with the same short-life giantism that gives them savant-like abilities in every area. There's no ebook for a year, but there'll be an "enhanced ebook" for Kindle and Nook within a couple of weeks, fully illustrated by Nick Greenwood (and deftly abridged by Jake Black.)."

I AM NOT HAPPY.

I had mixed reactions about this book. Spoilers ahead!









Why were Bean's last words, "I love Petra," instead of, "I love you?" Is it because he hadn't said it to her in SotG? That's silly. He just made the same mistake twice.

Also, I didn't like that the book called the Hive Queen a liar. How did the one jn the ship they found die anyway? Why didn't she make a daughter Hive Queen?

*Sigh*... I am so disappointed with this. This book is even worse than Ender in Exile, in my view. It's a novella with lots and lots of filler inserted to make it somewhat closer to full-length.

The character development of Bean's children was good, I suppose. But the whole Ark storyline was boring, confusing and made no sense whatsoever. Not even a little bit. The characters were one-dimensional, the narrative conflict almost completely non-existent. There's no suspense (despite OSCs ham-handed efforts at generating some.) The pacing was wildly inconsistent--important scenes are almost glossed over in a few paragraphs, while uneventful sequences plod along for several pages. And the lack of conflict or suspense resulted in a payoff that fell completely flat.

I hate to bag on this book, but I really feel like it was a near-total waste of time. There is so much stuff that OSC could have done with this, and he didn't do it.

I liked EiE. A lot more than this book. But I could just be biased toward Ender. I mean, in SiF, I paid so much more attention when Ender was mentioned than Bean, including Ender Arkanian. Sergeant and Carlotta could've died, and I'd only care about Ender's death just because of his name.

So somebody tell me: what exactly killed the Hive Queen? Is it supposed to be the Descolada? Is that what OSC wants us to extrapolate?

So somebody tell me: what exactly killed the Hive Queen? Is it supposed to be the Descolada? Is that what OSC wants us to extrapolate?

I think she just gave up living out of a sense of extreme empathy with her sisters.

That would mean she had a whole lot of empathy for her sister Hive Queens and next to none for her drones.

That would mean she had a whole lot of empathy for her sister Hive Queens and next to none for her drones.

I think that's the whole point of the Queen/Drone relationship... I mean, she eats the drones sometimes; could she do that if she had empathy for them?

If anyone is interested, the audiobook publishers were kind enough to send me a clip of the Shadows in Flight audiobook. I posted it at the end of this post http://www.endersansible.com/2012/01/sh ... today.html.

There is so much stuff that OSC could have done with this, and he didn't do it.

More importantly, there are so many other things that he could have been writing instead of this. Like the last Alvin Maker book. Or the next Pastwatch book. I haven't read SiF yet but I'm not expecting much.

The audiobook clip did not entice me. At all. I'm still waiting on the 'enhanced' ebook I preordered. Tempted to cancel after reading the comments in this thread... Perhaps it will be better abridged.

I don't think it was so bad. Certainly not my favourite Enderverse story, but not a bad tale.

I am happy to have anything new to read about Bean and his family but feel a bit let down as I hoped for so much more.

My guess is that perhaps Bean's kids will meet Ender's "Children of the Mind".

Somewhere on Lusitania...

"Ender Arkanian, meet Ender Wiggin."
"Actually, I'm Peter Wiggin. Sort of."
"I thought Peter was dead..."
"He is dead. This guy is Ender. In disguise."
"You mean like my brother is Ender in disguise?"
"Ender's dead."
"Which Ender?"
"Your brother Ender."
"Whose brother Ender?"
"Ender Arkanian. Ender Wiggin is still alive."
"But I'm Ender Arkanian, and I'm still alive."
"And I'm Peter Wiggin. Ender Wiggin is dead."
"But Peter Wiggin died thousands of years ago!"

...etc... etc...

Yeah, I don't like that there's another character named Ender.

(And he's Ender Delphiki, not Arkanian )

Yeah, I don't like that there's another character named Ender.

(And he's Ender Delphiki, not Arkanian )

Yeah, for some reason I went through a period back there when I was completely confusing "Delphiki" for "Arkanian" in my head. No idea why.

On a random note, I couldn't help but notice that this is the first Enderverse story (to my knowledge. I haven't read the comics) that mentions an actual year based on our calendar. If Bean and his kids left Earth in 2210, I figure Ender's Game takes place sometime in the 2190s. I'd always wondered about that.

Well, in SiF it implies that Been is around 22 and was around 16 when he left earth with the kids, right? So, would that make EG take place right around 2200? Or am I calculating something wrong?

I guess if Ender was 12 during the final battle, then Bean was about 10, right? If Bean left Earth at age 16 in 2210, then the final battle was in 2204, and the events of EG up until the end of the war would span about 2198 to 2204 since Ender was 6 in the beginning, so we're both right.

I suggested the 2190s because I was trying to reconcile it with a statement made in Xenocide, where Valentine says that she and Peter created their online identities in the 22nd century, which is as far as I recall the only other reference to an actual date in the series.

Yeah, I've put too much thought into this.

ETA: This also means that we could put actual years into the EG/ES timeline.

There is so much stuff that OSC could have done with this, and he didn't do it.

More importantly, there are so many other things that he could have been writing instead of this. Like the last Alvin Maker book. Or the next Pastwatch book. I haven't read SiF yet but I'm not expecting much.

Or maybe because he is writing all this other stories SiF wasnt more elavorated... I liked it, I was expecting something more than a 6hrs reading, but its good... Hated what happend to Bean... Dont think it was necesary yet, unless he is just tired of writing about this story...

I liked the book, but its not my favorite. and I feel Bean's death was a little rushed.

It seems that SiF debuted at #8 on the NY Times bestsellers list. Not bad at all.