Author | Title | Rating | Latest |
A book review by Steven Wu
http://www.scwu.com/bookreviews/
October 16, 2001
| Rating: 4 (of 10) |
But the biggest problem with Shadow of the Hegemon is that it is essentially a political thriller, with none of the imaginative elements that made Ender's Game (and Speaker of the Dead) so wonderful. Card is a mediocre political novelist (despite the laurels he heaps on himself in his bizarre afterward), and the machinations that occur in Shadow of the Hegemon feel simplistic, almost naive. It's also a problem that the political turmoil of this novel takes place in a world very different from ours. When the China in the book is not the China of our world, then the only way to make a political situation matter is to tie it in to the interests of the book's characters; unfortunately, the fact that none of the characters were compelling makes Card's political discussions boring.
According to Card's self-righteous and self-congratulatory afterward, two more books will come out in the Bean saga. I'll probably read them, but only because they require no thought and no emotional involvement to finish.
Steven Wu's Book Reviews |