Set between Card's Hugo and Nebula–winning Ender's Game (1985) and Speaker for the Dead (1986), this philosophical novel covers familiar events, but puts new emphasis on their ethical ramifications. In the wake of his victory over the alien Formics, 12-year-old military genius Ender Wiggins is hailed as a hero, but governments opposed to the International Fleet, which trained him, intend to portray him as a monster. Ender winds up as titular governor of one of the new human colonies, where he struggles to adapt to civilian life and ponders his role in the deaths of thousands of humans and an entire alien species.
Card's latest installment in his Shadow subseries (Ender's Shadow, etc.), which parallels the overarching series that began with Ender's Game (1985), does a superlative job of dramatically portraying the maturing process of child into adult. The imminent death of Bean, a superhuman 20-something Battle School graduate who suffers from uncontrolled growth due to a genetic disorder, leaves little time for Peter the Hegemon, Ender's older brother, to set up a single world government and for Bean and his wife and former classmate, Petra, to reclaim all their stolen children.
In Shadow Puppets, Orson Scott Card continues the storyline of Shadow of the Hegemon, following the exploits of the Battle School children, prodigies who have returned to an Earth thrown into chaos after the unifying force of the alien invasion they stopped in Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow has dissipated. Foremost among these whiz kids is the brilliant Bean who, in Shadow of the Hegemon, rescued his comrades from his nemesis-the dastardly Achilles. Now, the down-but-not-out evil genius is again scheming towards global domination and vengeance against the irrepressible Bean. It's up to Bean and his newfound love, Petra, to outwit the young psychopath and save the world.
The fascinating character of Maggie Tulliver and her relationship with her brother Tom is at the centre of this moving story of rural Victorian England. As she grows up, the intelligent and imaginative Maggie is oppressed by the limited role offered to women and is eventually ostracised by her family and local society. George Eliot gives a deep psychological insight of the different characters, exploring their feelings, their moral worth and motivations.
Wuthering Heights is home to the Earnshaw family, who adopt an orphan called Heathcliff. When they grow up, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff fall deeply in love. But Catherine decides to marry Edgar Linton from the big house across the moors. Heathcliff runs away in despair. When he returns some years later, a series of terrible events destroys the relationship between the Lintons and the Earnshaws.
