Xenocide

Rating:
Summary: Card gets better and better after each book!
Review: It really is interesting to see how many people disapproved of this book. I thought it was absolutely excellent. Ender's game was an excellent peice. He created several great, thought provoking characters. Speaker For The Dead took it to another level. Now, Xenocide. I finished it a day ago and treasured every word. Card has really outdone himself this time. He answered so many questions and raised so many new ones. Children of the Mind should be great. For all you readers out there who are disgruntled by Card's idea for faster than light travel, don't be so close-minded. If you read closely, the characters have to do quite a bit more than just wish in order to travel between outside and inside space. Card, I applaud you for bringing back some old, important faces from EG.

Rating:
Summary: Card's Best
Review: I don't know how people could say that this book was a let down. I couldn't even understand a person who gave the book 5 stars and said, "the charecters are three-demensional". they're not, they're four demensional. Not only all them life like, they progress. The story deals alot with physchological barriers and deep thinking. It is more of a struggle of the mind than a struggle of weapons. Anyone who doesn't like this book must not be capable of abstract thought in any form. It was a magnificent book that carried me through it in under 3 hours. Once you start the book th 592 pages will just prolong you'r happieness.

Rating:
Summary: Needs Whittling
Review: You know the saying "inside every fat person is a thinperson waiting to get out"? Well, this is a wonderful 250 page story trapped in a nearly 600 page book. The first two novels of the series were delightful because of a trait that Card, unlike SO many other sci-fi writers, posseses: his ability to create diverse, multidimensional, characters. But in this attempt, all the characters devolve painfully into nothing more than various mouthpieces for different trains of Card's philosophical musings. Musings which go on. And on. And on. And on. Even then it wouldn't be so bad if they were at least original or profound musings, but no, they are pretty much complete drivel. I will, no doubt, be accused of having a "closed mind" for this conclusion by the credulous faithful. Another nice thing about Ender's Game and Speaker were that they were SCIENCE fiction. No faster than light travel, with all the social and personal ramifications that entailed - fertile ground usually ignored by sci-fi writers, for some reason. Now Card has abandoned this formula to create what is certainly the silliest pretext for a warp drive this reader has ever encountered: An empty shell that is WILLED through "Out-space" by a sentient computer. Yeah, and reverse the polarity on the matter-antimatter transplookifier while your at it, Scotty. To make it even worse, this device, and several more of the plot variety, are inserted at the last minute, very deus ex machina, to solve problems that have been building into unsolvable dilemmas through the book. A crisis of imagination that is dramatically very disappointing; It also leaves us with promise of worse to come in the fourth book which will certainly try to stagger on from here. After Ender's Game and Speaker For The Dead, this book was a letdown. There IS a subplot on the planet Path which was up to Card's previous standards as far as creativity and character development go. If we could have had that without the rest, it would have been good read.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: It is simply amazing to me how people could not read this book and be waiting for the next page to come. It was awsome; people who speak of the plot not being unified are missing the meaning of it all. Card made the plot very complex because he wanted it that way, many things were going on at the same time and they all got into theological/philosophical ideas that were cleanly expressed. When Quim and Grego come up with the Theory of the "Outside", it makes me think back to when I was young and how I had those thoughts; I could identify with them. Although I couldn't comprehend the many negative reviews, I guess its safe to say that this novel is a "love it or hate it" depending upon whether you like deep thinking or shallow action, respectively.

Rating:
Summary: The most thought-provoking and well-orchestrated of the set
Review: I don't understand why people dislike Xenocide or say it doesn't measure up to Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Each of the intertwined storylines in the book forces the reader to think in new ways and open his or her mind to all of the possibilities. It's a break from the style of the first two books, but the characters are still three-dimensional and their problems are thought-provoking and make for fascinating reading. The best of the four books.

Rating:
Summary: I was not impressed.
Review: As with many others, I started this book with great anticipation. I had figured it couldn't miss, after how good the first two were. I was, however, sadly disappointed. It turned out to be long and preachy, lacking the "fire" of the other books. Also I came to dread every chapter that contained "Gloriously Bright" and her Godlike Father. Very disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: Why do people not like this book so much?.......
Review: Xenocide was an awesome book. So many loose ends and mysterious happenings came together. It was one of those things that made you say....Hmmmmmmmm. But, why do many people hate it, or not like it, or not care for it? Because they couldn't open there mind or expected one thing but experienced another, and hence were disgusted with the writings of a science fiction genious.

Rating:
Summary: I wish I'd stopped after Speaker for the Dead....
Review: I loved Ender's Game and appreciated Speaker for the Dead, so I started Xenocide with enthusiastic anticipation. I was completely let down! Card has moved so far away from what made Ender's Game brilliant: a simple, elegant, unified story with universal themes and enough left unsaid to let the reader think for herself. I think of Ender's Game as a beatiful silken braid, then I imagine Card thinking, "That braid is beautiful, let me combine (or should I say "twine") it with another braid...hey that's Speaker for the Dead...let's keep adding to it"...by the time we've reached Xenocide, Card has fused together an unwieldy rope. The reader can hardly hold it in her hand, much less appreciate the beauty of the indivdiual threads. I didn't feel intellectually or emotionally invested in the story until I'd forced my way through almost 300 pages, and then only marginally so. I had several hundred pages to go, and I slogged through as quickly as possib! le to fulfill my obligation to myself to finish. This is completely the opposite of how I felt reading Ender's Game, and even Speaker for the Dead, when I couldn't wait to turn each page and watch the character's lives unfold. In Xenocide, Card betrays his own legacy by turning his characters into insufferably selfish, endlessly pontificating mouthpieces. For those reviewers who found fulfillment in Xenocide I am happy for you, but I have to honestly say that reading it dimished my ejoyment of the whole series. To mention a final irony, in my local library Ender's Game is shelved under Young Adult fiction, but I felt that its honesty and simplicity reflected a respect for the reader's intelligence. It is Xenocide that treats us readers like children by hammering us over the head with so much heavy-handed philosophy.

Rating:
Summary: Very Good, and Very Thought-Provoking
Review: Honestly, this book was excellent. It makes you think a lot more than the other novels though. It's not exactly written in the same spirit as the other two but still very well written. Good book, probably the worst of the series, but that's still saying quite a bit considering the company it's in. Keep reading the series. Children of the Mind may have a slow start, but well paid off with the rest of the book. Overall, awesome series!

Rating:
Summary: Not up to the standard of Speaker for the Dead.
Review: The series is becoming too philosophical, much like Herbert's Dune sequels. Those, however, were a little more adept at getting the philosophy in. Here, rather than letting the plot and characters speak for themselves, Card throws in endless dialogues about theology and philosophy which seem forced and almost childish. Some cane be tolerated, but others have no resemblance to how people actually talk. The story on China was good, and most of it on Lusitania was good too. However, the similarity of the godspoken's and pequenino's plights was a positively juvenile touch. It was necessary to the plot, but did he have to stress it so much? I give it four stars because of the suspense and brilliant plot.