Shadow Puppets

Author: Orson Scott Card
Original Publication: 2002
Started: 2010 Nov 23
Finished : 2010 Nov 30
Format: Kindle
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So, we’re now up to the 7th book in the Ender series. Shadow Puppets picks up soon after the last one ended up. But the main source of drama switches again, and the book seems to start moving back to the more philosophical sort of orientation as books 2-4 as compared to the more “things happening” sort of orientation of Books 1, 5 and 6. Which is OK I guess, but in this case a bunch of it seems to be pushing the whole “the purpose of life is to produce children” sort of agenda. Which actually started to get annoying.

The main plot point is that Bean, who is a genetically enhanced individual who gains great intelligence at the expense of abnormal growth patterns and an early death, initially intended not to have any children at all. But he is convinced otherwise. But they decide to create a number of embryos, test them for his condition, and only actually bring the ones without the condition to term. But, oh my, the people helping in this process are in league with the bad guy, and all the embryos, both with and without the condition, are stolen. Then we run around trying to get them back while also working to thwart the bad guy’s global plans.

I mean, I guess it is OK, but just a bit too much of it was centered around the “must have children, children are the meaning of life” thing. I’d say of the books in the series I’ve read, this was the weakest so far. I mean, it wasn’t horrible or anything, just not at the level of some of the others.