Count me as another one who liked the Bean series better. He seemed smarter, and less of his power was due to black-box people skills. Bean was a somewhat low-status, somewhat socially inept kid who used intelligence (and a willingness to break the rules) to succeed at what he did. And I liked the sections from the other kids’ POVs.
Did you read Bean’s parallel novel?
Yeah.
I liked that one more actually, but I haven’t reread it recently.
Bean seemed waaaaay smarter (and less mopey) than Ender when I last read it, but I’m not sure how well his thinking was shown.
The other characters in it had far stronger personalities than in the Ender series, though.
Count me as another one who liked the Bean series better. He seemed smarter, and less of his power was due to black-box people skills. Bean was a somewhat low-status, somewhat socially inept kid who used intelligence (and a willingness to break the rules) to succeed at what he did. And I liked the sections from the other kids’ POVs.