Shadows

Orson Scott Card's books Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant continue the Enderverse's Bean fork. Card continues to have good ideas at a reasonable rate. Have i mentioned that what seems to draw me to a story is the ideas? Dense is good. The story changes as the characters age. Bean had already saved the Earth in Ender's Shadow, and now helps the Hegemon unite the world under a peaceful democratic government. Don't expect a surprise ending - that is repeatedly telegraphed. The surprises happen during the stories, early and often. Though Shadow of the Giant has huge ties to some future story, which Card seems to have designed, i'm not aware of any such story. OK, so Shadow of the Giant came out in 2005, which wasn't that long ago. All I have yet to read of the series are Children of the Mind, First Meetings, and perhaps the short story version of Ender's Shadow. This last, since it is available in clear text, is something that my computer can read to me in the car. It has already been rendered as audio, and awaits a slot between podcasts.