I definitely didnt enjoy this story nearly as much as the original quartet. The writing style in the beginning at times seemed to infantile and then later changed to this immediately intelligent style. Though once we reached this point at battle school it was a better read (I will admit the early years of Bean was not without its interest despite the style). I didnt particularly care for Beans attitude nor his the way he overthought everything. It seemed the author needed fluff to increase the size of the book. The cannibalization of Enders Game into this book seemed to go fairly well and the added insights to the stuff behind the scenes I enjoyed. The ending was a nice touch and I cant wait to see how that effects the story of the next book in the series.