Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card

Shadow Puppets is the third book in Orson Scott Card's Shadow-series. I've been surprised how different the Shadow-series is compared to the Ender-series - in the Ender books the plots are very much story-driven, whereas in Shadow books need to work through the characters who - although in the middle of the important events - are B-plots. You could almost say book is not sci-fi - the events take place on Earth and there are no aliens and really no futuristic technology... there is a space station, but one space station doesn't make a genre book. Character -driven storytelling is however Card's definite niche, and it is quite typical of him to write sci-fi without actually writing sci-fi (I hope that makes sense - it makes sense to me).

So the story continues from the previous book: China is a major ruler over India and Far East and Hegemony has power in main only with it's 200 man army. Peter has decided to rescue Bean's arch nemesis Achilles from the hands of the Chinese and hire him despite all the warnings, and so Bean and Petra have to go underground. My main problem with the book is the change in Bean's character as there's virtually nothing in common with the character in Ender's Shadow. Yes, he's still intelligent and intuitive, but very little of the paranoia and desperate need for survival is left which is a huge shame as I loved the immensely intense character he used to be. It's also a shame the love story doesn't really work for me, so much is just words and I can't get the feeling that Bean and Petra really love each other. Peter's character is also something completely different from the tormentor he is in Ender's Game and he's way over his head in things that he doesn't fully understand - like he doesn't have any of the brilliance other Wiggin kids posses.

It's a good book. It's just not brilliant, or even great, like other books the in the series. One more to go, I hope it picks up from this.

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