Shadow of the Hegemon
- 444
- Pages
- about 8 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Shadow of the Hegemon” trades the space setting of its predecessors for a geopolitical thriller played out on Earth. Card sets ambitious leaders to outmanoeuvre one another, with Bean at the centre and frequent nods to real history, and the scheming is believable enough to carry the book; a few tender moments soften it. Readers who want futuristic science fiction may find little of it here, and the earlier volumes are needed first.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Shadow of the Hegemon (2000) is a science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card, the second novel in the Ender's Shadow series. It is also the sixth novel in the Ender's Game series. It is told mostly from the point of view of Bean, a largely peripheral character in the original novel Ender's Game but the central protagonist of the parallel narrative Ender's Shadow. Shadow of the Hegemon was nominated for a Locus Award in 2002.
Reading order · Shadow hexalogy
Full order & progress →- Ender's ShadowStart here
8.48.4 / 10 - Shadow of the HegemonThis book
7.77.7 / 10 - Shadow Puppets
7.57.5 / 10 - Shadow of the Giant
7.87.8 / 10 - Shadows in Flight
7.67.6 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.6 across 451 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 75% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Science fiction average of 7.8. That is how 7.7 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.9 | 38 | 8% |
| Hardcover | 7.6 | 413 | 92% |
Frequently asked
How long is Shadow of the Hegemon?
It has 444 pages — shorter than 51% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 7.6 and 7.7, closest to this book.
