Ender’s Shadow runs in parallel to Orson Scott Card’s famous Ender’s Game, telling the story of genius children taken into ‘Battleschool’ to learn to fight the ‘Buggers’ (more pc-ly renamed ‘formics’ in this novel!)

Not sure how this work if you’d just read the first book, but with a gap of a few years it was very good. Ender Wiggins’ story is still the core, but this time seen from the point of view of Bean – a character I barely remember from the first novel. However, here the slant, the parallel events, are certainly intriguing, if unsurprising in outcome.

The best part of the whole book, though, has to be the disturbing beginning. The first few chapters introduce Bean before he reaches Battleschool, when he is a four-year-old surviving on the streets. Yes, four. It’s rather upsetting, but also compelling.