| Schmaltz | 6 |
| Violence | 7 |
| Romance | 2 |
| Nudity and Sex | 2 |
| Plot | 8 |
| Buckets o' Blood | 4 |
| Terror | 1 |
Plot synposis: A strange ol' Bean is born to povery and squalor. Using his Incredible Cognative Mind, Bean helps to civilize the child gangs of the streets and comes to the attention of Achilles, once more proving that absolutely no main character in any of Card's books can have a normal name for longer than Plank time. The Flying Nun discovers Bean's potential and takes the youngster under her wimple, eventually sending him to the Battle School and thus to rendez-vous with the main plot of Ender's Game. He settles into his niche as fifth-business in another book and ultimately reaches the conclusion of the plot with his skin intact.
Commentary: My feelings about Ender's Shadow are currently more mixed than a screwdriver. On the one hand, taken on its own, it's a darned fine book with interesting things to say and good characterization. Sadly, however, the plot does ramble in places and the Flying Nun (okay, she never really flies, but I just could not get the image of Sally Field playing this role out of my head) did advance our plot, but unfortunately did more to make the book ramble than to draw it together as a finished whole. Hm, I'm getting really negative here, but this is supposed to be the good 'on the one hand'. Right, let's analyze why I'm getting negative about this book.
Essentially, Card's books strike me as having all the same basic Look and Feel. Interesting characters... check. Interesting situations... check. Good plot twists... check. Rampant-yet-dealable philosophy... check. However, we also have tendency to forget to land that point that's been circling the runway and is fast running out of fuel... check. Ender's Shadow does a lot of runway circling -- and being a retelling of Ender's Game from another POV, this hurts twice as much since we already know where some of the more major plot points are going.
Now, are you all ready for my 'on the other hand'? Good, because here it comes. Ahem. Mi-mi-mi-mi... on the other hand, this book is pure fanfiction. Yes, I know, it seems counter-intuitive for published work (and the author's own work at that) to be fanfiction, but to me the feel is there. Let's break down my assertion and analyze it...
First, published works can be fanfiction. Even good old Robert A, the grandaddy of... well, everything... was unashamed in using his World As Myth principles to bring some of his favorite literary devices and characters into the Heinlinian fold. As an aside, I absolutely adored the use of Oz in Number of the Beast, proving that to me, good fanfiction is still good fiction.
Further, in using Sherlock Holmes in his work, Fred Saberhagen has also commited an Act of Premeditated Fanfiction. Yes, we could talk about iconic figures and Reinterpretations, but in both cases above, the authors did their level best to import the characters exactly from their established works. I would contend that both Saberhagen and Heinlein (successfully) utilized existing iconic characters rather then reinterpreting them so fit their own prejudices, which does ultimately lead into the notion of some of their works being fanfiction (whew).
Now the problem which remains is how can Card fanfic himself? Isn't the chracter of Bean his and available to be used in his own works, however he wants? If he wanted to write Bean Does Dallas, is there any reason why that shouldn't be? The answer.. my answer... is that all of this is valid, but really it's not author's rights or their lack on which I'm basing my fanfiction assessment. What I'm basically commenting on is that Ender's Shadow follows a very typical fanfictional structure, to wit: you take a work, whole and complete as a story in of itself. You then take your character (say hi there, insertion character!) and Insert that character into the story, letting wackiness ensue. The character might do things behind the scenes, not changing the narrative structure of the story (as in Ender's Shadow) or the character might disrupt the flow entirely, prompting a rewriting of the tale.
Wait, I hear you say. Bean was already in Ender's Game! How then can this fit your definition of fanfiction? Well, darn it, you caught me. And yet I repeat: this has the feeling of fanfic. Bean existed in Ender's Game, yes, but he was the aforementioned Fifth Business in that book. In this book he attains a new import to the story and ultimately casts around for the little nooks and crannies in Ender's Game's narrative structure, searching for crevacies in which to hide his own plot so as to provide the reader with an enjoyable and engaging time, but ultimately adds little to the overarching legend of Ender.
And there's not a darned thing wrong with this. I enjoy reading fanfiction if it's well-written and I have no beef against it. I do not come to bury Ceaser, but to reveal him -- Ender's Shadow is a worthy book with a few flaws. I just felt like spending the bulk of this review defending an ultimately meaningless point because that, my friends, is what makes life have meaning.
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