The Giant in the cargo bay

And so I’ve reached the (current) end of Orson Scott Card’s Shadow Series. Allegedly, he has another novel called Shadows Alive in the works — but no idea when that will be released. I enjoyed Shadows in Flight, but it definitely feels more like set up for the next book than a novel in its own right.

“What I want,” he said softly, “is to stand in this meadow and walk in the light of the sun.”

After the events of Shadow of the Hegemon, Bean and his three super-intelligent children (Ender, Carlotta and Sargent/Cincinnatus) board a spaceship. They hope to use time dilation to their advantage — they will age slowly (especially important to Bean, near-death from giantism) and allow hundreds of years of research into their syndrome to occur on Earth while they spend (hopefully!) just a few years in orbit. Unfortunately, after 5 years in orbit and 400 years or so on Earth, research has gotten nowhere and the children on board have pretty much given up hope. Then they discover another ship, orbiting around a nearby planet.

The pacing of this book feels very strange, and Orson Scott Card seems to explain why in his afterword. Basically, the first third of the novel consists of bickering between the three siblings. Once their little fight for dominance shakes out, we spend a little time discussing the research on Earth, and then suddenly — a ship! Card explains in the afterword (which he narrates himself for the audio version, and and he pronounces his W’s like HWH — like Stewie on Family Guy — and it gets progressively funnier every time he does it and I’m a child) that he did not intend Shadows in Flight to be a full, stand alone novel. Instead, he meant to kill Bean off in the first chapter and then focus on the kids getting settled somewhere. Then he landed on this idea of the ark, and explored it. I appreciate that, as I love any extra time spent with Bean (referred to almost exclusively as “The Giant” here, and trapped in a cargo bay for 99% of the novel), but it definitely makes the story feel a little different.