I'm all for exploring interesting ethical dilemmas, but when an author sacrifices all credibility to discuss tangential issues, it creates a tedious and underwhelming experience for the reader. My biggest issue with the book is the supernatural intelligence and skills he gives to his characters to get them out of impossible situations. In this book you'll find amateur physicists discovering how to break the speed of light (he just tried really hard and figured it out - and discovered that he only had to wish for it), xenobiologists defeating the descolada virus and then reeingineering it to fix the genetic defects of people who live on a planet many light years away (of course this happens during the course of weeks), and last but not least, Miro magically abandoning his crippled body for a new one in a fantastical voyage into a new dimension.

But Card didn't stop there... As Ender had become a tedious an boring character in this book, he chose to literally split him into three. Ender becomes Ender, a New Valentine and a New Peter, all created out of thin air during Enders first voyage outside of the universe... and these characters are real flesh and blood... I mean Card actually just pulls these characters out of thin air and expects the reader to accept it.

I could rant on and on, but I won't... there are some upsides to the books. The Godspoken characters on Path are quite good, and the Hive Queen / Piggies continue to be interesting, but it's hard to put up with all the remaining Ender/Valentine/Peter/Miro baggage to just enjoy those parts.

The characters in this book are weak, the plot is weak, and Xenocide simply doesn't live up to Card's previous books. If you read Enders Game, and Speaker for the Dead, and are looking for another Card book to read, try the Worthing Saga. It's a much better read, and you won't feel like you're totally wasting your time on Xenocide.


Card continues to escalate the difficulty and seriousness   July 18, 2000
 50 out of 54 found this review helpful

"Ender's Game" is a rapid-fire, tremendously adventurous novel with a rip-roaring end. "Speaker for the Dead" is more challenging, as it turns a murder mystery into a philosophical quest. "Xenocide" goes even further up the difficulty scale, and should not be read unless a copy of the final novel, "Children of the Mind," is close at hand. "Xenocide" takes the issues of religion, racism, genocide, love, family, insanity, redemption, and the nature of the universe as its subject matter; a truly amazing mix, as you might guess. But it's not really a stand-alone novel; when you come to the end, you may feel as I did that Card cheated with a deus ex machina at the end. He didn't; I think he just decided to chop the novel off and publish it, then publish the second half as "Children of the Mind." My anger at the ending quickly faded when I started "Children of the Mind"; clearly, "Xenocide" was not the end of the story. I loved the entire Ender Quartet, even if it was hard going for many readers to shift from "Ender's Game" to "Speaker for the Dead." Card has produced a philosophical masterpiece of science fiction in this series, and one that is only matched by his "Pastwatch Redemption" in its scale and importance in his writings. One of the few genre writers worth re-reading in his or her entirety, Card continues to amaze with the breadth and depth of his creations.


Philosophical and ethical issues---I loved it!   July 24, 1999
 40 out of 41 found this review helpful

It seems the reviewers of this book are divided into two camps. Some hated the book because it doesn't live up to Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, because the "plot" is boring and minimal, because it's too long and drags, etc. Others rate Xenocide highly because of its well developed characters and its treatment of ethical issues. Both views are valid to some extent, but if you're able to accept this book for what it is, then you'll find it's a superb book, well worth the time to read it.

Ender's Game is all about Ender's childhood development, as he trains to become the savior of humanity. Speaker for The Dead explores some larger issues as it tracks Ender's healing of Novinha's dysfunction family, and the plot is kept going partially through the mysteries concerning the pequininos. Xenocide is different from both of these in that there's no real main character, and very little plot; instead, the focus of the story is the dillema faced by the three sentient species of Lusitania. Within this framework, Card explores a number of unusual ethical questions, such as whether human survival justifies the extermination of another species, and whether fear of the unknown will always be a barrier when interacting with those unlike ourselves. He also develops the complex web of love and hatred within Novinha's family, and the nature of the relationships within it. At times it was almost painful to read about the emotional states of the characters, so well did Card depict it. Yet I was completely hooked from the start, and I marvel at his ability to write about some very abstract issues within a science fiction setting.

If anything, the situation Card created was too hopeless, and once things started resolving the plot became a bit incredulous. One reviewer suggested that Card wrote himself into a corner and had to resort to cheap plot devices to save himself, and that's certainly how it looks to me. Happily, this occurs so near the end it doesn't detract much from the overall value of the book. (However, the consequences are compounded in the final book, Children of the Mind, which is the only one of the four I do not recommend reading.)

I enjoyed Xenocide as much as, if not more than Ender's Game and SftD. (One has to admit that Ender's Game, fantastic as it is, is much more simplistic and lightweight than Xenocide.) As long as you don't enter with undue expectations and you are willing to explore some tough ethical issues, then you'll see the merits of this book, perhaps the most human novel Card has written.


Part 2 of a trilogy   April 7, 2000
 14 out of 16 found this review helpful

Most people who have read "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the Dead" will like this novel, not for its content but because they love Ender. Card wrote Game as a stand alone novel and Speaker as the first of a trilogy, (he may not have meant to from the beginning, but that's how these books play out). Readers familiar to trilogies know that in most cases they follow a rigid pattern, 1) Setup, 2) bridge, 3) conflict and conclussion. Speaker set up the saga with more style than most trilogies, and is a great novel on its own. Xenocide is just a bridge which disappointed me, and from what I've seen from other reviews, quite a lot of people as well. I was expecting another great novel, but what I read had a "to be continued" feel.

The book is above average for a bridge or arc, which is usually a good thing. However, with our expectations so high from the first two books, this novel falls short of absolute brilliance, and is instead just a good read. We meet a supporting cast of new characters, some hateful and seemingly villianous, which is something new to the series. We are introduced to the dark side of Starways Congress who seem to act out of spite and anger for no real reason. This was the most troubling aspect of the book for me. The first books of the series gave us moral ambiguity and actions bourne of neccesity rather than evil. The story always gave us hope for the future, but the darkness introduced here dims that a bit.

The story still takes place on Ender's "home" world of Lusitania, where the three species are gearing up for the threat of destruction by Starways Congress. We still get the moral dillemas typical of the series, but they feel just a bit contrived at times. Ender's wife acts too standoffish to be true to life. One wonders how Ender ever fell in love with her, and stayed with her for so long. The Sci-fi/fantasy aspect of the book overtakes the human drama which made the series so great and feel so real to the readers. If you get through this book, the conclussion of the series waits on the other side in the novel "Children of the Mind", which gets a lot of the greatness back. If you've read the first two, stick with it. If you haven't read Ender before, please don't start here. If you start here, don't give up on it.


Fabulous story marred by absurd ending   April 16, 2003
 12 out of 13 found this review helpful

"Xenocide" continues the compelling storyline begun in "Speaker for the Dead". Having violated the strict policy of the Starways Congress regarding interference with indigenous species, the human colony on the planet Lusitania has been targeted for dissolution. The added factor of the existence of the killer (and highly contagious) genetic virus, Descolada, on Lusitania has led the Congress to order to the planet be destroyed before the colonists or other indigenous life can leave and spread the virus elsewhere. On Lusitania, a group of colonists, led by Ender Wiggin and his adopted family, are in a race against time to find an antidote to the Descolada (not just a 'fix' like they are using currently) and find a way to stop the Fleet that is being sent to destroy the planet. The official full partnership between the 'piggies' species and the humans threatens to break apart under the stress of the events surrounding the Descolada and arrival of the Fleet.

"Xenocide" is, on may levels, as equally captivating as "Speaker for the Dead" because author Orson Scott Card focuses on what he does best, character development and character interactions. Such focus is what made "Speaker for the Dead" and "Ender's Game" spectacular novels and Nebula award winners. "Xenocide" keeps much of that momentum going. The politics on the planet among the species (the Buggers have also been reborn there) are quite compelling. The efforts of the high-minded members of the human and piggie species to prevent the ignition of a bloody civil war caused by ignorant members of both species is both harrowing and suspenseful. The events take place 30 years after "Speaker for the Dead" and Novinha's children are all grown now and play major roles in the resolution of this conflict. Seeing how they have evolved from the broken children when Ender first arrived in "Speaker..." is one of the more satisfying aspects of "Xenocide". The paths in life they have chosen are wholly believable and the reader can see that, without Ender's intercession decades earlier, these children might never had the opportunity to make the choices they make here.

This book is nearly 600 pages long, but powers forward at a rapid clip until about the last 100 pages. It is there that "Xenocide" goes on an existential path that would continue into, and plague, "Children of the Mind". Without revealing any plot details, it can be said that this literary choice of Card's dramatically slows the momentum created by the previous 2 1/2 books. Since it only occurs over the last 100 pages, it doesn't slow the reader down so much that they would be compelled to put the book down. It does, however, make reading the sequel, "Children of the Mind", more difficult.

Card seemingly wanted to explore a higher meaning in the overall story arc with this development. It just seems unnecessary because the character-driven stories he had told up to this point clearly revealed a greater meaning that just simply science fiction novels would. Complaints aside, "Xenocide" is still an excellent book and a good read for anyone who appreciated what "Speaker for the Dead" stood for.