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I'm surprised that CoTM was the last book to get a vote. Aside from EG/ES, CoTM was my favorite.

I think CotM is my favorite, not by much though. I love Xenocide and CotM: just the way they fixed everything but in a way they didn't expect. I love Jane, and the fact that she's part of Ender's life, maybe even his first "child". Just a lot of things I like.
SARA

CotM was my favorite for a while, but after subsequent readings, I started to see the depth in SftD. One of the things I still really like about Children, is how open the ending is, how Card isn't afraid to just leave the entire escaldores situation unresolved. I think that's also one of the things that really bugged me about the shadow series: suddenly Card felt like he had to tie up all the loose ends, and make everything connect in a nice little bundle. It's like Lucas having Anakin build C-3P0. It makes it feel less real, and more like a story.

I'm surprised that CoTM was the last book to get a vote. Aside from EG/ES, CoTM was my favorite.

I don't think it has anything to do with it's quality, it's just that it wasn't drastically different from the others. It seems similar to Xenocide for me, and well, there's more of Xenocide.

In EG Peter was said to be charming. The kind of person that everyone loves. But his description in Shadow Puppets on the other hand made it seem that he was mean and off-putting. Like he looked down upon the hired help, which although he might have, the Peter described in EG wouldnever have done that.

Furthermore, he was made to seem extremely stupid in Shadow Puppets. He would never leave himself open to the attacks that he did if his character was written the same as it was in EG.

Even if the person described in CotM is not what the original Peter was like, the EG version of Peter was still very different from what has been portrayed in the Shadow series.

In Shadow of the Giant I found that Peter was more accurately portrayed. He once again was shown the respect that a person of his intellect should get and he finally matured into a man that we could see being the Hegemon, which was particularly apparent towards the end of the novel *not going into details because I want to avoid spoilers*

Personally, I think that when Card wrote the stories he had lost touch with his characters. Instead of basing the stories on the people who he had originally created, he wrote the stories based on slightly warped caricatures of them.

I previously would have said Xenocide, but I learned a lot the last time I read Speaker. But I'm hoping to read Xenocide again soon, and maybe I will like that better by the end. But there are trade-offs. The forbidden lusts didn't have the snap for me that they used to, since I realized where that snap came from (a movie I saw when I was 14 where a guy was so obsessed with his wife, he killed her when she tried to leave him.) I don't actually consider that a trade-off, just it used to be something I liked about the books that doesn't interest me so much. But it was fascinating to realized that it will probably be a different book each time I read it.

Odd, not many people like the Shadow series. Shadow Puppets is my favorite, but with CotM close behind. I really liked the charecter of Peter, as both the Hegemon and as a bit of Ender.

I'll do better than just state my favourite (which I did previously), I'll rank them all in order:

1 ) Ender's Game
2 ) Ender's Shadow
3 ) Xenocide
4 ) Shadow of the Giant
5 ) Speaker for the Dead
6 ) Children of the Mind
7 ) Shadow of the Hegemon
8 ) Shadow Puppets

That's right, I ranked SftD as 5th, with two (count 'em, two!) Shadow books ranked ahead of it. You may proceed in lynching me and revoking my Pweb membership now. Sorry Starlooker, I guess you and I can never be .

As for #7 and #8, it's kind of a toss up for those positions. It depends on my mood, but at this very moment I have to say I like SotH more. Of course, I love all 8 books. Even my least favourite Ender saga book ranks above many other sci-fi novels I've read over the years.

In EG Peter was said to be charming. The kind of person that everyone loves. But his description in Shadow Puppets on the other hand made it seem that he was mean and off-putting. Like he looked down upon the hired help, which although he might have, the Peter described in EG wouldnever have done that.

OK, well, we are talking about two different Peters here. Not person-wise, but age wise. The Peter is EG was a child and later an adolescent. In my and I am sure everyone else's experience, people can change drastically from 8 to twelve to fourteen to eighteen to twenty-two. (these ages are approximate btw, just how old i imagine Peter to have been at many of the times described in both EG and the bulk of the Shadow Series) I myself have chaged quite alot in the four and a (little more than a) half years since i was 14. As well, one must consider the weight of the position that Peter has taken on in Shadow. What kind of stress would such a position impose on a person so young. Yes he had the ambition and ability to hold the position, but you cannot say that such a young person so high up would not have extreme dillemas, moral and practical, relating to it. If anyone here who is that young were to hold such a position, many would not be able to carry out the tasks needed due to the mental stress or the possibility of corruptiojn. At that age, a feeling of failure is attached to most important things a person does. So to be so young and the leader of the free world, it would be quite hard on a person. So it is possible that the 'charming' and 'loveable' Peter in EG and the 'mean' and 'off-putting' Peter in Shadow were the same person.

Go Speaker for the Dead!

I'll go for that.

That's right, I ranked SftD as 5th, with two (count 'em, two!) Shadow books ranked ahead of it. You may proceed in lynching me and revoking my Pweb membership now.

My exact thoughts after reading that list (and before reading the preceding paragraph) were something like "How could you put two Shadow books ahead of SftD!?" I see you are well aware of your misguided ways.

I gotta go with the original in Ender's Game here. Speaker is a close second, and Shadow of the Giant a distant third.

Salaam

i agree with wigginboy on many points...

in eg he was a i guess like 9......... then maybe 14 and 19 and then like 82 or something....(when it says he talked to ender before passing away)...... you know....... anyways.....ok.... but alot of the time in shadow his hands were tied.. constantly.. he had to take a worthless job (at the time) because of his age... not his mentality... yes he seemed a bit dull in shadow at certian times, but only because he was constantly engaged in conversation with bean..... shadow series peter is the same peter shown in all eg, even the bit of ender peter....... sue me?

yeah in eg they said he was the kind of person everyone loves... everyone meaning his teachers and peers...
he matured throughout the series and even you haters can agree that by the end of it he grew into the peter you all expected him to be from eg alone.

top 5?

Ender's Shadow
Ender's Game
Children of the Mind
Speaker for the Dead
Shadow Puppets

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I went with EG over SftD and ES primarily because it's always the first book I recommend if a conversation happens to turn that way. "Oh, you like Science Fiction... have you ever read EG?"

That being said, I love the fresh look that ES gave us, and I love the SftD's complexity. EG, though, is one of those books that can be appreciated by SF lovers AND non-SF lovers... as my mother proved when she read it (and, much to both of our surprise, liked it!).

I'm gonna have to go with EG above all the others since it was the first real sci-fi book I ever read and ended up influencing my decisions on what to read for years to come. In fact, EG still ranks as my fave book of all time.

Top 5?

Speaker for the Dead
Ender's Game
Xenocide
Ender's Shadow
Shadow of the Giant

Something about CotM is just... charming for me.

Something about CotM is just... charming for me.

I will agree with you on that, it was a great book. When I met Card this past year, he said that CotM was most peoples least favorite book. I handed him my copy of CotM shortly after to sign, and told him that I loved the book. He grinned really big and told me that he really appreciated the comment on that, because he doesn't get as much positive feed back about it. His wife was very excited that I liked the book as well. He signed my book "to Sarah, Thanks for caring about my children." (which may be his generic response, but I don't care. )

I thought that was cool.

I'm not a savvy New York woman and yet I loved the Shadow saga, and since I'm new to the forum I'm not afraid of getting the most savage virtual beating of my life for saying it

Also, I agree with Wigginboy as well, Peter was older in the shadow saga, and we were better able to see how lonely and unloved he felt, like no matter what he did his parents would never come close to loving them as much as they loved their Andrew. Lets not also forget that people make mistakes! Peter was quite power hungry, with such an enormous ego, he thought he could control Achilles and use him when in fact he was the one being used.

Excuse me if I dont make a whole lot of sense or if I contradict myself, its almost 5 in the morning and my mind isnt exactly at full attention.

P.S. - Why dont you try telling the squirrel that Peter isnt crazy. Oh wait, ya cant, because hes a skinless corpse!

I will agree with you on that, it was a great book. When I met Card this past year, he said that CotM was most peoples least favorite book. I handed him my copy of CotM shortly after to sign, and told him that I loved the book. He grinned really big and told me that he really appreciated the comment on that, because he doesn't get as much positive feed back about it. His wife was very excited that I liked the book as well.

That saddens me. CotM isn't my favourite book in the series but I think that every single Ender/Shadow book is a great read to say the least, and they all deserve praise. It also saddens me when people say that the Shadow series sucks.

It saddened me too, neo-dragon. I would never say the shadow series sucked. I've only read Ender's Shadow, and am currently working on Shadow of the Hegemon--but so far I really like the writing. I think it's still in keeping with the characters and world that OSC created, and we all grew to love in our own ways.

I'm just glad I could make him smile when I told him that I love CotM.

Ender's Shadow tis be meh favorite.... I know, crucify me for them words.

I mean it though.

Ender's Shadow rocks my socks.

For me, it's a tie between Ender's Game, Children of the mind (I cried when Jane was cut off from the ansibles and almost died), and Ender's Shadow. I think the reason I liked Ender's Shadow was because I got to go back to battle school, and it was fun seeing it from a different perspective.

i love Shadow of the Hegemon

Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are my favs. Maybe I'm really stupid, but I struggled with Xenocide and Children of the Mind. I found them slightly boring. I was a lot younger when I read them though, so maybe I'll re-read them now. The Shadow series is all right. They were entertaining enough, but I felt like the characters were kind of contrived.

Ender's Game is the entire reason we're all here and Orson Scott Card is a well known author. It's a classic staple of sci-fi and a great book.

That being said, I picked Speaker for the Dead. I don't know, maybe it's because I was "spoiled" about the "twist" of Ender's Game before I actually read the book (someone in one of my literature classes picked that book to report on). So when I read it, I knew all along where it was going. Don't get me wrong, it still works, even knowing the ending. It would have to, or else it would be completely useless after the first reading.

But aside from that, I feel SftD is just a much more complex book. It's more epic, yet more personal than EG at the same time. It introduces a lot of new and very interesting characters. The crux of the plot with the piggys is fascinating. It even manages to have a few parts that just chill you to the bone. And other parts that make you tear up. All in the same book. I also felt for the first time, you actually get to know who ENDER is. In EG, he's used as a tool by so much people it's hard to figure out who the real Ender is. That was totally on purpose by Card since the whole point of the novel is about a kid finding out who he is. But by SftD, he's settled into his skin and is a more fleshed out character.

My order of favorites from the Enderverse novels would be:

1) Speaker for the Dead
2) Ender's Game
3) Ender's Shadow
4) Xenocide
5) Shadow of the Giant
6) Shadow of the Hegemon
7) Shadow Puppets
Children of the Mind

Keep in mind, I still love ALL the books, even my least favorite one.


My thoughts on the other books:

Xenocide is by far the most ambitious of the Enderverse novels, having two parallel stories, even more branching storylines, etc. It's the most difficult novel to get into, but once you do, there are moments when the story SOARS. There are some moments in the story where it outshines even the best parts of ES and SftD. The downside is that it can feel unfocused, sprawling, and slower than it should be at times.

Children of the Mind, I'm afraid to say, is my least favorite of the books. It's not that it's poorly written. But it just feels like most of the major conflicts were 95% solved by Xenocide and most of the novel was actually just finding a way to save Ender and Jane. Which is important, but the main plot of saving Lusitania felt less and less important, and that was the whole arc of the series supposedly. There were some great parts though that connected on a personal level when it came to the characters we came to learn and love, something which Card is always good at. But the general plot thing wasn't at its strongest here.

Now Ender's Shadow compared to Ender's Game, I think is a much better written book, technically. EG is still a classic but it was the first work of Card and even he said it is no way to be considered his finest writing. By the time he revisited the story years later in ES, his style was a lot smoother and clearer. The story of Bean also feels more like an underdog story which makes it more general. Sure, he was the smartest, but he wasn't the leader and he came from a really bad past which he had to crawl out of whereas Ender's story is of the gifted genius coming to terms with his power. It's tough though because although I know ES is a better written book, just for its importance, I might still place EG above ES.

When it comes to the other Shadow books, to me they feel a bit more consistant than the Speaker series. No introducing an entirely new parallel storyline in the 2nd book here. Instead if just feels like one long book broken up into 3 parts. So it's hard to judge each book individually. They're all written close enough in style and quality. It just comes down to preference of which part of the story they liked the best I guess. In that order, I guess it would be Shadow of the Giant first, because I think it finishes the series off really well unlike Children of the Mind where it felt anti-climatic. Sure, it left loose threads, but that's okay now that we know there's more Shadow books on the way! After that it would be Shadow of the Hegemon because I liked meeting characters like Peter and his parents for the first time and the whole Petra rescue arc was some tight, espionage type writing. Shadow Puppets would be below that I guess. It's not a badly written book or anything. It just didn't feel like it had much to offer to the storyline besides a couple obvious plot points. Besides that, it felt like it just was a bridge to the two other books.

Xenocide is by far the most ambitious of the Enderverse novels, having two parallel stories, even more branching storylines, etc. It's the most difficult novel to get into, but once you do, there are moments when the story SOARS. There are some moments in the story where it outshines even the best parts of ES and SftD. The downside is that it can feel unfocused, sprawling, and slower than it should be at times.

I agree that it's great at parts. However, I'm not turned off by the fact that it's never perfectly focused. I like that you can drift off into paying attn. to just one storyline, then switch to another, then get both, and so on. It's awesome!

i really cant decide there all part of the best storyline that the world has ever known...

It would have to be SftD for me, with EG a very close second. If only because I want someone to Speak my life when i'm gone.

I choose EG though it is essentially tied with SftD for me, I find SftD richer and more intimate but EG strikes a close personal chord of resonance that can't really be matched.

Xenocide =)

I liked them all as they were, but I'd have to say I like Ender's Game the best because that was what got me into the series in the first place, and I just liked it somehow. As for second favorite, I'd say that it would be either Ender's Shadow or Speaker for the Dead. Xenocide was kind of dragged a bit, and the science was absurd (in my opinion) and Children of the Mind was OK. Shadow of the Giant was likely to be my 3rd favorite, or something like that, because I liked the ending.

I personally have to choose Ender's Shadow.

I started on this series in High School as part of a class project. At the time, I picked up Ender's Game based on a book list without realized that it was a series of books that I would eventually fall in love with. After finishing EG and the project, the next free time I got was committed to reading EG again (I always get more out of books if I read them on my own time rather than for school).

It was almost a year (and 5 reads of EG later) before my father clued me into the fact that it was a series. Admittedly, I'm a tad slow on things like that.

After a trip to the local book store I was highly dissapointed to find out that for some odd reason Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind were not where they were supposed to be and couldn't be found. (Kudos to my crappy local book store) However, the staff was helpful enough to find a copy of ES.

For me it really opened my eyes to another point of view on a story that by this time I could practically read with my eyes closed. It made me realize that I didn't really get the WHOLE story in the first book, and really cemented my feelings of wanting to read the rest of the EG series, as well as the shadow series.

=D