Shadow Puppets

Peter Wiggin is now Hegemon of Earth, and the former children of Battle School are scattered across a world still at war with itself. Peter sends a Battle School graduate to rescue Achilles de Flandres, a dangerous prisoner in China whose network Peter hopes to take over. Bean and Petra, who have seen Achilles at his most vulnerable and know what he is, go into hiding rather than trust that plan.

When Bean learns that a message he trusted was a setup, Peter's family is forced to flee the Hegemon's compound. A former comrade from Battle School has risen to lead a largely unified Muslim world, and nations and factions maneuver against one another as the balance of power shifts.

Shadow Puppets is the third book in Card's Ender's Shadow series, after Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon and before Shadow of the Giant. It runs alongside the events of the Ender's Game saga and works as a political and military thriller more than a space adventure. Readers who enjoyed the strategy and the rivalries among Ender's former classmates will find both here, though some reviewers found the politics dense and the pace slower than the earlier books.