I’m grateful for the willingness of my good friends Erin Absher, Aaron Johnston, and Kathy Kidd, who set aside many other more important concerns in order to join my wife, Kristine, in giving me quick feedback on each chapter as it was written. It never ceases to amaze me how many errors—not just typos, but also continuity lapses and outright contradictions—can slip past me and three or four very careful readers, only to be caught by the next. If there are such mistakes still in this book, it’s not their fault!

Beth Meacham, my editor at Tor, went the extra mile on this book. Still in pain from major surgery and drugged to the gills, she read this manuscript while the bits and bytes were still sizzling, and gave me excellent advice. Some of the best scenes in this book are here because she suggested them and I was smart enough to recognize a great idea when I heard it.

The whole production team at Tor went to extraordinary lengths to help us bring out this book in time for a good publishing window, and I appreciate their patience with an author whose estimate of the time needed to complete this book was so laughably wrong.

And Tom Doherty may just be the most creative publisher in the business. There’s no idea too wacky for him to at least consider it; and when he decides to do something unusual—like a series of “parallel novels”—he puts everything behind it and makes it happen.

Barbara Bova’s creativity and dedication as my agent have blessed my family for most of my career. And I haven’t forgotten that the Ender saga first reached the public because, even before she became an agent, her husband, Ben Bova, found a novella called “Ender’s Game” on his slushpile and, with a few small changes, agreed to publish it in the August 1977 Analog magazine. That one decision (and it wasn’t a no-brainer—other editors turned it down cold) has been putting bread on my table and opening the door for readers to find my other work ever since.

But when the writing day is done and I come down out of my garret room, it’s finding my wife, Kristine, and my daughter Zina there that makes it all worth doing. Thanks for the love and joy in my life each day. And to my other kids as well, for leading lives that I’m proud to be connected with.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

SHADOW OF THE GIANT

Copyright © 2005 by Orson Scott Card

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Edited by Beth Meacham

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.­tor.­com

Tor^® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN: 978-0-7653-1422-2