Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card — the companion novel to Ender's Game that most people sleep on is arguably the better book. Visiting dignitary Mahlena Rae Johnson joins Space Admiral Kandas and Space Cadet Shane 2nd Class to discuss why Bean is the real hero of the Enderverse.

Bean is the kid who did the work while Ender got the credit. He was smarter than everyone in the room, nobody wanted to acknowledge it, and he was perfectly fine with that. Sound familiar?

We talk about why Bean resonates in a way Ender never quite does, what it means to own a name someone gave you as an insult, and what a street kid toddler has to do with saving the universe.

We also get into the stuff that doesn't hold up. Orson Scott Card's anti-LGBTQ record is well documented, and we don't skip over it. Neither do we skip over the naked children, the child prostitution, and a few other choices that somehow made it into what people call a kids' book. The movie quietly fixed some of it. Card never did.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, Shane introduces the R2-D2 Effect, we figure out why sci-fi always lands on the Catholic Church, and Mahlena makes a point about the gatekeepers of American storytelling that none of us could argue with.

This is Season 2, Episode 1. We made it, y'all.

Sci-Fi Book Pod is the show where our visiting dignitaries pick the book, we all read it, and then we gather to talk about it. No summaries. No lecture. Just a real conversation about sci-fi and what it says about the world we're actually living in.

Purchase Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4coKRUY (affiliate)

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