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I just got my copy on Saturday and finished reading it this morning at 2:00 a.m. I absolutley( I have no idea how to spell this word and am too lazy to look it up) loved it. A great read. But one thing nagged me. Card brings us all this suspense around Bean's departure from Earth. But after Bean has left we get a message from Bean to Graff. And thats it. Bean is totally dropped. Isn't the book supposed to be about Bean? It turns out more about Peter Wiggin, as do Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets in my opinion. It could be percieved by the title that the book is about Peter. In a way Peter was always shadowed by Bean. And, in Petra's eyes, Peter is just the shadow of her beloved husband, Bean, the Giant. But Bean seems to take a seat on the bench. I mean all of it about Earth and Peter is just dandy. But I bought the book for Bean. So more than anything I wanted his story. I got a little about it, but mostly I was disappointed. And too with the ninth child, being cared for by Randi, that is sort of left unconsidered. I mean yes she leaves the planet with her baby, Achilles Flanders II, but what does he accomplish. I just felt that some things were left out.
posted
The point of Bean's decision is that he's taking the trip one the slightest possibility they'll find a cure. He's facing uncertainty plus the pain of loss an the pain of knowing how much Petra will hurt.
We get to feel the pain of loss in the letters. We get to feel the Petra's pain in the scenes where she goes back to the babies. We get to feel the uncertainty because we don't know what happened. We know there's a tie-in novel which takes place after CotM, so things will be clearer after that.
One question: Did Peter and Petra have children of their own?
posted
Peter and Petra had five children together along with the five normal children Bean and Petra had together. But I still would have liked a chapter from Bean's point of view as he rocketed into space.
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posted
I was hoping for a final goodbye between Petra and Bean. She found out about his faked death, and then suddenly he was gone. Did they even say goodbye?
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No, Bean was just forgotten.........I don't mean forgotten forgotten.........I just mean that Card didn't show us Bean's side of the story anymore........
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There'll be another book, Steve, that should answer some of these questions. But, then, I thought Uber-Bean sucked as a character, so I'm not on pins and needles in the same way.
That said, it's precisely because Bean didn't have as much to do in this book -- and we focused on Peter, who's much more interesting -- that I liked this better than any other Shadow book.
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posted
You also have to consider that Bean's lack of ambition was being illustrated in the book. For the first 3 of this series, he's trying not to be killed. With Achilles gone, he's just there to help people. And they guy who just wants to help finally overshadows the guy who wants to run everything.
I think Bean's character was a lot improved from the last book, though I like the last book as well. It just seemed wrong for him to be hoodwinked by Volescu.
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quote:it's precisely because Bean didn't have as much to do in this book -- and we focused on Peter, who's much more interesting -- that I liked this better than any other Shadow book.
I feel the exact same way.
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posted
But what I mean is that I wanted a chapter from Bean's point of view while he was on the spaceship. I knew that it was highlighting Bean's lack of ambition. I hadn't said anything about that though.
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