Card, Orson Scott. Shadow Puppets. Read by David Birney and Stefan Rudnicki. Macmillan Audio, 2002.
Reason read: to finally finish the series started in October in recognition of Science Fiction month way back in October.
We pick up where we left off in Shadow of the Hegemon. Bean married Petra and they are trying to have children, ones without Bean’s mutated genes. As an aside, I found Petra’s fawning behavior a little unsettling considering how much of a badass she was in Shadow of the Hegemon. Did love make her mushy? Where was the smart warrior from before? Anyway, back to the characters. Achilles is somehow still terrorizing the universe despite losing his most of his backers. Peter Wiggin is trying to unite the planet Earth for survival. Peter’s parents insist on going with him everywhere (and are hilarious, I might add). A few other battle school grads pop up in interesting places with even more interesting roles.
The geopolitical parts of Shadow Puppets were more interesting than the didactic Mormon sections. I appreciated the return of Alai, an old battle schoolmate, despite his convoluted character. I think it is safe to say this was my least favorite of the Shadow series.
Author fact: Orson Scott Byron Walley Card studied theater.
Book trivia: Shadow Puppets is the third book in the Shadow series and the seventh book in the Enderverse series.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 214).
~*LunaSea*~ 