An urchin is picked off the street by a nun and sent to war school to become a brilliant space-war strategist. He is Bean, so called because of his diminutive stature, the result of an illegal genetic experiment

As the nations of the earth attempt to control the children trained at Battle School, Peter Wiggin continues to consolidate his power with the help of Bean and Petra

Ender's Shadow explores the stars in this all-new novel... At the end of Shadow of the Giant, Bean flees to the stars with three of his children-the three who share the engineered genes that gave him both hyper-intelligence and a short, cruel physical life. The time dilation granted by the speed of their travel gives Earth's scientists generations to seek a cure, to no avail. In time, they are forgotten, a fading ansible signal speaking of events...