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Ender-GAF: 'Shadows Alive' to wrap up both Ender and Bean sagas.

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http://www.hatrack.com/osc/bibliography/index.shtml#progress
For years now OSC has been planning to wrap up the Shadow and Speaker series with a book called Shadows in Flight. Recently, in working on a short novel that follows Bean and his children into space, it became clear that Shadows in Flight was the perfect title for that book, while the big wrap-up novel that brings Bean's children together with Peter and Valentine from Children of the Mind will now be entitled Shadows Alive.

So when you see Shadows in Flight announced as "coming soon," you should be aware that this is a completely different book, a short novel in which Bean and his children encounter an ancient Formic "ark" in space. It's definitely in the main line of the Shadow series, but it is not the end!

So what I want to know is whether 'Shadows in Flight' will be worth purchasing by itself, or - like The Gold Bug and other short novelettes, will it act as a part and be included in 'Shadows Alive'.

I had been waiting for Shadows in Flight for fucking ages. I'm still not sure how I feel about OSC returning to the characters on Lusitania etc, since I don't think these days he's the writer he once was.
 
Scullibundo said:
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/bibliography/index.shtml#progress


So what I want to know is whether 'Shadows in Flight' will be worth purchasing by itself, or - like The Gold Bug and other short novelettes, will it act as a part and be included in 'Shadows Alive'.

I had been waiting for Shadows in Flight for fucking ages. I'm still not sure how I feel about OSC returning to the characters on Lusitania etc, since I don't think these days he's the writer he once was.

I feel ya on the Shadows in Flight thing. It feels like an eternity since Giant was released. But I can't complain when I hear more stories in the Enderverse.
 
Summit picked up the rights to the film back in April with Digital Domain signing on to co-produce. There are three big issues with the film that have kept it in development hell for so long.

The first is creating an authentic Battle Room sequence faithful to the book in a live-action format.

The second is the aging of the children over the course of the book and the issues they deal with in the book. Remember for many of these films and tv series that handle young children in very adult situations they've had to make the children older for the audience "sensibilities". The two biggest examples of late have been the "Hunger Games" films and "Game of Thrones".

The third contains the previous two and that is what method do you use to produce the film and make it a viable box-office draw for the audience you want. You go live action and can't do a proper Battle Room sequence as well as making the children older and basically cutting out a major ideological statement in book that is one of the driving factors to it's story. You go animated instead and lose the adult viewers and it's seen as a children's film when it really isn't one at all. The biggest example of that is "Titan A.E." It was an animated sci-fi film meant for an older audience, but because it was animated it didn't draw the older crowd and the story was too dark for children so it became a box office failure and led to the demise of Fox Animation.
 

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
DarthButcher said:
I feel ya on the Shadows in Flight thing. It feels like an eternity since Giant was released. But I can't complain when I hear more stories in the Enderverse.
I dunno. The last Ender book was a waste of time.
 

Esiquio

Member
I freaking LOVE the Ender/Bean series, so whatever OSC has written up, I will read.

Sculli, that post you link depressed me, what a perfect idea that will never happen... :(
 
Freshmaker said:
I dunno. The last Ender book was a waste of time.

It is the weakest Ender book (well, maybe that belongs to Children of the Mind), yet was still a great read that I was glad to have.
 
Esiquio said:
I freaking LOVE the Ender/Bean series, so whatever OSC has written up, I will read.

Sculli, that post you link depressed me, what a perfect idea that will never happen... :(

Yep.

And Hanks' role in Catch Me If You Can should be enough to convince anyone he balance the necessary cynicism and sympathies of Graff.
co2.jpg
 

iavi

Member
What the hell... The Ender saga was done as far as I knew. I'm still on Shadow of the Hegemon with Bean, so I dunno, that line might need a final closing.

I'll take an extra book, regardless.
 

GavinGT

Banned
Freshmaker said:
I dunno. The last Ender book was a waste of time.

I absolutely felt it was a waste of time. I really wish I had stopped reading this series after Ender's Shadow. Nearly everything after that has bored me to pieces.

As soon as it started focusing on international politics on Earth, with various countries vying for control of the kids, that's where I lost interest.
 

Ratrat

Member
, while the big wrap-up novel that brings Bean's children together with Peter and Valentine from Children of the Mind will now be entitled Shadows Alive.

I willfully skipped all Ender sequels after Speaker and picked up the Shadow series instead. I'm currently on Giant and have no idea what this quote means. Peter's still alive*!?

*don't tell me if its related to Giant's ending.
 
Ratrat said:
I willfully skipped all Ender sequels after Speaker and picked up the Shadow series instead. I'm currently on Giant and have no idea what this quote means. Peter's still alive*!?

*don't tell me if its related to Giant's ending.

It's really not something that can be easily explained, except to say that you should read Xenocide if you've read Speaker for the Dead.
 

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
Ratrat said:
I willfully skipped all Ender sequels after Speaker and picked up the Shadow series instead. I'm currently on Giant and have no idea what this quote means. Peter's still alive*!?

*don't tell me if its related to Giant's ending.
Well, *spoilers ahead for the Ender side of the spectrum* Tried to keep it fairly vague so if you do decide to read those they won't really be all that ruined.

Ender decides that the only way to save the colony he lives on is to develop faster than light travel. He figures out how to do it, but one of the side effects is that he inadvertently wills a copy of Peter and his sister as a kid into existence while testing the theory since FTL travel = imagining yourself into a new location.

But then Ender's wife turns out to be a psychotic bitch and Ender loses his will to live, so he dissolves into dust as does the copy of his sister, but Ender's consciousness migrates fully into the Peter aspect, so now he's Ender's perception of Peter with Ender's consciousness who can think two thoughts at the same time.
 

Ratrat

Member
Freshmaker said:
But then Ender's wife turns out to be a psychotic bitch and Ender loses his will to live, so he dissolves into dust
well that kind of makes me want to read it now...thanks for the briefing!
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
I've been reading his latest books and man, he has really lost his touch. His new stuff is thoroughly mediocre. Holding out hope that when he gets back into a universe he cares about it'll pick up again (and Ender in Exile's major problem was that you could tell it was a half dozen stories designed to wrap up loose ends)

Actually, his recent The Lost Gate book was half very good, so I know he can still be good. Its just that the half set in an alternate fantasy world was awesome, and the half set in contemporary America sucked balls.
 
He's definitely not the same author he was when he wrote Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. But I enjoyed the Shadow series and I'll be anticipating this.

Since he's already said its a shorter novel for a lower price, he's revealed its 54, 000 words, as opposed to the normal 80, 000 or so he would normally write. Shadows Alive will apparently be the big wrap it all up book.

Also, the Homecoming series is especially great (except the last book) if you haven't read it.
 

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
The_Technomancer said:
I've been reading his latest books and man, he has really lost his touch. His new stuff is thoroughly mediocre. Holding out hope that when he gets back into a universe he cares about it'll pick up again (and Ender in Exile's major problem was that you could tell it was a half dozen stories designed to wrap up loose ends)
Its main problem was that it never needed to be written. All those supposed loose ends were stuff that was mentioned in passing in other novels. It was filling in the gaps of Ender's back story that had already been explained.
 

gdt

Member
Give it to me. I enjoyed Ender In Flight, a lot.

He's not what he once was, but I still dig the universe, and the storylines he set up years ago.
 
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