A Worthy Sequel

Orson Scott Card has continued to dazzle and impress readers and critics alike with his excellent stories and intelligent writing. What might be his most well-known work, Ender's Game, has spawned many sequels, including Speaker for the Dead, a winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and Ender's Shadow, a book which, along with Ender's Game, has earned him a lifetime achievement award from the Young Adult Library Services Association. He wrote "The Ender Saga" (Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind) and "The Shadow Saga" (Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the Giant), as well as other novels in the "Enderverse" (First Meetings and A War of Gifts: An Ender Story).

Xenocide, incidentally, is the book which I just finished enjoying.

The book takes place on Lusitania in about the 53rd century. Lusitania is the only known planet in the universe on which is found the pequeninos, the only living sentient species besides humans known to mankind. Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is living there with his family. Unfortunately, Starways Congress, the head of all humanity, sees it fit for Lusitania to be destroyed by a extremely powerful bomb.

As can be expected, no one on Lusitania favors this idea very much at all. So Ender's intelligent and almost living computer cuts off all communication between Starways Congress and the fleet sent to destroy Lusitania. It is as if the fleet just disappeared into thin air. People on Lusitania wonder if this is enough to save their lives and the lives of the pequeninos, while some people elsewhere, especially a young Chinese girl named Han Qing-Jao, are trying to figure out how to get the fleet back.

Card makes a book that lives up to Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. It is a worthy sequel that explores such philosophical questions as "When does a computer become more than a computer?" and "Should humanity sacrifice itself for other species?"

The characters in Xenocide are made realistic. They are believable people who seem to act just like most human beings in their capacities would. This all forms to be a book that should not be looked over.

http://www.amazon.com/Xenocide-Ender-Book-Quartet/dp/0312861877/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224356085&sr=8-1

Grade: 8.5