Xenocide: Volume Three of the Ender Saga

It’s a shame that the follow up books pale in comparison to the original. Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow are brilliant. None of the other books in the universe--I’ve read them all--measure up. Oh, I mean in Card’s bibliographical universe. I mean I’ve read all his books and these two are the ones you should pay attention to. Sure, you’ll get some extended stories about Ender and Peter and Valentine and Bean. Some of these are occasionally tense or fun or sad, but they are lost in a sea of philosophy and politics. Ender’s Game works because it is story and character forward with just enough undercurrents of the deeper structures at work. Xenocide and subsequent iterations fail because they become preachy and whiny. It’s unfortunate, but in no way diminishes the greatness of Card’s two best books. If you want to know what happens to Ender and Bean, read the Wikipedia page and skip the books.D+

Xenocide is book three in the Ender's Game quintet. Ender is in his sixties now, has a family and is a respected member of the community. He is still on the planet Lusitania and the perils that the Lusitanians were facing in book 2 (Speaker for the Dead or SftD for short) have intensified in Xenocide. Xenocide gave us some things that SftD didn't that made it better and a few things that made it worse. Xenocide had more science fiction, more dire circumstances and less of Ender's infallibility. I did not like SftD and the way Xenocide started it seemed that I would equally dislike it. By the end of Xenocide I marginally appreciated it more than SftD. Xenocide has more science fiction than SftD, which is good... until it wasn't. Orson went too deep with the science fiction. He started dabbling into concepts so far out there and so esoteric that it became cumbersome to read. Orson introduced us to the ansible (instantaneous communications) and relativistic speed (traveling near light speed) in Ender's Game. Both ideas were science fiction, but both concepts he sufficed with stating that not many knew how it worked, they just knew it worked. It was a perfectly acceptable explanation. Most of us don't know how our T.V. works, we just know it works. Well, in Xenocide he attempts to explain many science fiction theories and occurrences, some within the realm of possibility and some not so much so. It was some of those scientific and philosophical conversations that lost me. Maybe that's an indication of my own weak intellect, but I prefer to think not. I toiled to keep up with talk of philotes, philotic connections, InSpace, OutSpace, and other concepts. All of the scientific talk was centered around rescuing Lusitania from it's dire situation. There was more drama and more conflict in Xenocide than there was in SftD which was a plus. But, again, there was too much. Ender and the Lusitanians were in an impossible situation. The Starways Fleet was coming with the M.D. Device which meant certain annihilation once it arrived. The Piggies wanted to leave the planet with the Descolada virus within them which meant certain annihilation for mankind. The scientists on Lusitania wanted to transform or kill the Descolada virus which would mean certain annihilation for the Piggies. Jane, the omnipresent computer program, was facing being discovered which meant certain annihilation for her. And, as a breather, there were some people on the planet Path that had a genetic defect that needed to be fixed. Let's recap: annihilation, annihilation, annihilation, genetic defect. Do Piggies die, do humans die, or is Lusitania wiped out? What to choose? It was almost as bad as the movies in which the protagonist is hopelessly doomed. It was at this point that the science fiction became more mysticism. Xenocide is a 600 page bridge from book two to book four. 600 pages of which at least 150 could have been deleted. Orson tied in another planet and another people that he clumsily connected to the plight of Lusitania. The converging stories, as they would be, eventually connected in the most curious fashion. I got the impression that he wanted to write a separate story but didn't think it could stand on its own so he added it to Xenocide. As boring as the parallel story began, it was somewhat interesting towards the end and far more believable than a lot of other events that were going on. Still, I saw it as largely unnecessary and adding too much undesirable content to a story which I was struggling to like as it was. Xenocide ultimately brings forth many quandaries that can make for great discussions. The characters are very clearly defined and hold hard and fast positions on various sides of the myriad of issues. Sure, each of them tries too hard to sound wise and prophetic, which only causes me to dislike them more, but whatever opinion you hold about the political, scientific, social and religious conundrums the Lusitanians face there is a character that you will side with. I didn't particularly like any of the characters, Ender included, until the end. But the book isn't readable because of the likeability of characters or even a real deference to their peril. The book is readable because--even though the events take place on a remote planet with a small population of people and aliens, even though I didn't like any of the characters and some I wished would have been summarily executed, even though I didn't like the metaphysical route the book took--"Xenocide" will give you a lot to talk about.

This is the fourth of Card's Ender books I have read, and I think I like it best. It is not as focused as Ender's Game, but (almost) convincingly ties together a more complex story. Xenocide of species converges here: humans, Buggers, Piggies, intelligent virus, and Jane (a super-super-computer, of sorts)--all are at risk from one another (except for Jane, who is vulnerable but not a threat to anyone). Card is superb at rendering character (although Ender still eludes me), with considerable psychological insight. His writing is lucid and has the patina of believability, even when he discusses deep issues in genetics, ecology, physics and philosophy. I did find the denouement a bit contrived (the deus ex machina of instantaneous travel via something called "Outer" space, a transcendent dimension). Still, I was carried through a rich and complex story to a conclusion that ties up ALMOST all the loose ends.

I am not a Card die hard fan so I have no special emotional attachment to his books. I thought Ender's Game was fun and better than I thought it would be, and the sequel was quite different but still interesting. This one was simply not very good. By now Ender is some kind of pushover, treated like dirt by his horrible wife (we still don't get why they got married in the first place frankly) and taking the backseat to the story. His step children seem to do a lot irrational, and right down stupid, stuff again for no apparent reason. The parallel story line on the planet of Path that seems to irritate several other readers wasn't too bad in itself, but the characters are so unpleasant that I often found myself hoping Starways Congress would just wipe them out already. I am a big fan of hard sci-fi so the worst part for me is the whole thing about philotes and the soul, which was much too New Age-y for me and reached its ridiculous height at the end (I will not spoil it) which made me groan and roll my eyes. I will not buy the rest of the books in the series, I am done with it.

First let me clarify, I *loved* the first two books. They moved along at a good pace, with Ender filling the typical “chosen one” role, but bringing something new each time. In the first book he was a child prodigy, the second he was the Speaker of the Dead, a writer of wrongs… thoroughly enjoyable.WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!?Around 70% of this story was taken up with pseudo-philosophical debates that went in circles before going NOWHERE (GAHHHHHHHHH!), arguments between Ender’s step family that went NOWHERE, and normal conversations that went on TOO LONG. e.g:(Jane and Ender)Ender: Do itJane: I’m not sure I should do itEnder: Well [reason why you should do it]Jane: I’m not sure[See line 1, and repeat for several pages]Now imaging this formula done with philosophy in EVERY chapter, mixed in with family-feuds in EVERY CHAPTER.WHERE THE HELL WAS THE EDITOR!? GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!This piece of crap was around 20% longer than the previous installations, and it had about a quarter of the story!!!! GRRRRRRR!! I am so annoyed!Much like the second and third Matrix films, it seems as though the author has started believing his own press and tried to add too much philosophy and hidden meanings to the point where an “okay” story has become bloated and irritating.A favourite quote of mine (after I’d put up with all of this **** for about 75% of the book):“…my adoptive nephew, it is wild philosophy we need…”GAHHHH!!! NO… MORE… PHILOSOPHY! STOP MAKING EVERYTHING LONG AND BAD!!!!This has got to be the first time I have finished a book out of pure spite. I did it because there was a story buried in there, and unlike the second Robin Hobb book, good things did eventually happen, even if they did happen all at once at the very end (*fume*).Ironically, I AM going to read the next book (having already bought it when I bought book 3). I can only hope that he manages to rescue the series after this monstrosity.*spit*

It reminded me of Frank Herbert's Dune series - stunning first book is head-spinningly brilliant, second book has maybe a little less verve and swagger but nevertheless delivers and then the third one starts to suffer from Lorenzian urges and just loses impetus under the increasingly suffocating swathes of irrelevance and invention for its own sake. It flies off to the left and right like a kid with Tourette's, barking here and howling there but never engaging or startling as Ender's Game did. By now I'm a little sick of Andrew Wiggins (and starting to think how sad it would be if the universe were indeed multiply saved by someone called Andrew Wiggins) and feeling he's something of a smug wee prig.I liked the Chinese girl idea, but again the execution became wearysome. By the time we discover faster-than-light flight (by sitting in a cardboard box and rubbing the side of our noses) I've seen visions of Paul as a sandworm - a book I last read over 30 years ago - and remembered the frustration of a legendary saga that hit the ground running and then just started digging until it ran out of steam.A shame, that...

I can't say for sure that each of the three Ender's Saga books I've read has been better than the last - they're all too different to really invite easy comparisons. I will say though that I thought Speaker for the Dead was much better than Ender's Game, and I think Xenocide is every bit as good as Speaker for the Dead. It has the same contemplative, introspective philosophising as SftD but with an entirely different focus. It also benefits from introducing a new thread of the story, centred on Qing-Jao and her father - the Godspoken of a colony planet called Path. I began feeling somewhat cold towards this part of the tale, but as it went on it grew to be my favourite lens through which to view the actions of the main protagonists. It offered a view of the bigger picture of the ongoing political context that deepened the more intimate portrayals of the main story.If the book suffers from anything, it's a kind of 'sequel fatigue' - at the end of the third Ender's book, I was ready for the whole thing to be wrapped up. I was somewhat disappointed that it continues onto a fourth book since it seems that it could so easily have been an extremely good trilogy rather than a somewhat stretched out quadrology. A particular 'plot twist' at the end removes any real hope of a satisfactory conclusion and sends the series spiralling off into a direction that veers dangerously into the territory of its own posterior. The final chapter of Xenocide is as poignant as any I've read in science-fiction, and it would have been a fitting capstone for a tremendously well constructed body of work. Whether I still feel that way after Children of the Mind remains to be seen, but I can't say I've started that with anything approaching the enthusiasm with which I started Xenocide.

The third book in the Ender saga takes a bit of a dive. It's closer to Speaker for the Dead than Ender's Game (Speaker being very different to Game to start with.)Set mostly on Lusitania, the strange near-failed human colony with two other sentient species (well, two at the start, anyway) it answers all the threads set up in the narrative arc but seems much more complex and confused. Where Ender's Game was a straightforward clear-as-glass sci-fi novel, Xenocide is a big-canvas. The Chinese-themed colony does have a reason to exist in the novel (two reasons actually - one to comment on the nature of religion, and secondly to throw Starways Congress into sharp relief) but they're not very big ones, and a huge chunk of the text is set on a world getting to know characters that don't really do much.Where it shines is in continuing the sheer nastiness of Novinha and her children, although it's a bit over the top to think this deeply troubled set of siblings can get over their squabbles after a few chats from the Wigginses (Ender being known to them for over thirty years by this time.) However, the character of Jane gets given more space, becoming more essential than in "Speaker".That said, OSC's writing remains absorbing and fast-flowing; he knows how to spin a yarn. Talking of yarns, though, the biggest flaw for me was a matter of personal taste: there's too much "magic" in the physics.The philotics, the Outside, Jane herself: good sci-fi takes today's science as its starting point, and there's no evidence at all to suggest these concepts could ever be real. Any writer who ignores physics is writing Fantasy, not Sci-Fi. So this was the hardest thing for me to accept. After all, OSC had already proven his hard-sci smarts in a very rare manner: by not allowing his starships to use magic (hyperdrive) to get around. With that gone, the universe's solid feel went, too.

This book is different from the previous two, it seems to have been written by someone other than Mr Scott Card.I have had to put it down and read another book. I will get back to it, I just found it difficult to get into at the present time.