Shadow of the Hegemon

Ender Wiggin has won the war against the Formics, and he is kept in exile away from Earth. The children who fought beside him are not safe at home. With no alien enemy left, the nations of Earth return to their old ambitions, and the Battle School graduates are now prized as military talent.

Achilles de Flandres, a psychopath who is both brilliant and ruthless, starts seizing those graduates for his own conquest. Bean, who was the smallest soldier in Ender's army, sets out to find them. Sister Carlotta, the nun who found him on the streets of Rotterdam, helps him.

The search draws Bean into the politics of Ender's brother Peter Wiggin, who writes as Locke and wants to unify the world by persuasion instead of force. Bean distrusts Peter. He has to decide whether he can still serve as Peter's shadow.

The action travels through Europe and South America, then reaches Asia, where border conflicts have old classmates serving in opposing armies. This is the second book of the Shadow saga, which retells and extends Ender's Game through Bean's eyes, and it reads best after Ender's Shadow. Strategy, politics and loyalty drive it far more than battle-room action.