Bean's past was a battle just to survive. He first appeared
on the streets of Rotterdam, a tiny child with a mind
leagues beyond anyone else. He knew he could not survive
through strength; he used his tactical genius to gain
acceptance into a children's gang, and then to help make
that gang a template for success for all the others. He
civilized them, and lived to grow older. Then he was
discovered by the recruiters for the Battle School.
For Earth was at war -- a terrible war with an inscrutable
alien enemy. A war that humanity was near to losing. But
the long distances of interstellar space has given hope to
the defenders of Earth -- they had time to train military
geniuses up from childhood, forging them into an
irresistible force in the high-orbital facility called the
Battle School. That story is told in two books, the beloved
classic Ender's Game, and its parallel, Ender's Shadow.
Bean was the smallest student at the Battle School, but he
became Ender Wiggins' right hand, Since then he has grown
to be a power on Earth. He served the Hegemon as strategist
and general in the terrible wars that followed Ender's
defeat of the alien empire attacking Earth. Now he and his
wife Petra yearn for a safe place to build a family --
something he has never known -- but there is nowhere on
Earth that does not harbor his enemies -- old enemies from
the days in Ender's Jeesh, new enemies from the wars on
Earth. To find security, Bean and Petra must once again
follow in Ender's footsteps. They must leave Earth behind,
in the control of the Hegemon, and look to the stars.