Xenocide by Orson Scott Card

After years of being a hardcore Clarke and Baxter fan, I decided to go out on a limb and read Card's "Ender's Game" and "Speaker of the Dead". Initally I was stunned to see such excellent writing and decided to read "Xenocide".

To my dismay, Xenocide was a collection of ideas and characters mashed together into a 500+ page high school quality journal w/o any depth, coherence, or true storyline. I was so saddened to see Ender portryed as a shallow character, upset to read that "belief" is the way to travel superluminal speeds, confused on how religion would be so prevalent in a scientifically advanced society, and the poor attempt to write dialogue between characters that should have had really deep and philosophical conversations.

In addition, the Jane character was given a human persona (a major manifestation of OSC's laziness) and appears only as an almost non-person in the story. (Come on OSC, you really botched her character!)

As for the ending, I was stunned that the editors allowed it in the text. It was disjoint, ill thought, and short sighted.

In the end, I want my money back. What a way to kill a stunning character and potential future.

As different a book as "Speaker of the Dead" was from "Ender's Game", "Xenocide" continues the saga of Ender but in a much more metaphysical direction. Like Speaker, Xenocide takes a couple chapters before you accept that you are about to read a book that's about new character's and not about the characters you've spent a novel getting to know (and love, no doubt- otherwise you wouldn't be reading another sequel). And just like Speaker, you will soon be interested in these characters. Card's greatest skill is characterization and that skill is demonstrated here in abundance. Again we are meeting inhumanly gifted people in unbelievable situations, but Card is still able to keep it VERY readable and interesting (unlike this review).