Rating: 
Summary: Skip it
Review: No don't read this book. Stay with the first two and you imagination for nothing is worse then when a writer just can't let a character pass gracefully on. Not even close to the first two so please don't read it unless don't belive me and the other twenty people reviewing this book.
Rating: 
Summary: OK, but still doesn't quite measure up
Review: I think that Scott is over-rated as a scifi writer. WHile there are some imaginative details, I just can't get myself to believe in any of his things while I read them - they lack that unmistakable quality of an alternative reality, becoming instead more like a comic book. The science isn't very good, the world and its ecology too simplistic, etc etc. If you compare this to Dune or even to the Foundation Trilogy, it pales by comparison.
Rating:
Summary: Not on par with the first two...
Review: First two books in Ender series are wonderful reads with a gripping storyline and excellent writing. Well, the third book has the same excellent writing but lacks the storyline.No wonder Mr.Card is a great writer; whatever he writes he writes it good. Unfortunately Xenocide serves the purpose of bringing up a number of muddled ideas rather than telling a story. As a matter of fact there are so many ideas (overcoming an intelligent virus, how to save Jane, the Godspoken, Novinha's frustration against Ender, Ender's "split" personality, piggies' rights, virus rights, Bugger's way of thinking, Inside and Outside, faster-than-light-travel and some more minor things) that all comes to frustrating complexity and since the author does not have enough "time" (number of pages) to devote to each idea, almost everything except a few becomes muddled. At the end, since the author creates more problems than necessary for a book - that can be handled in a single book - in order to neatly tie all that mess up, he has to resort to deus ex machina by means of hard sci-fi. Well Mr. Card is a great writer of characters, but he's not that great in hard sc-fi; thus his attempt makes you feel kinda cheated. Overall this is an inescapable book. If you've started Ender Saga you'll have to read this. Thanks to Card's writing, it is still a fun read but especially with its ending it is unsatisfactory.
Rating:
Summary: Overshadowed by the first two books of the series
Review: The series has been wonderful through the first two books, and about half of Xenocide. However, the last portion of Xenocide just feels pushed out. I don't know if OSC had his FTL explanation all worked out beforehand, but it just seems like it's something he solidified at the last minute to help his plots reach some culmination. Furthermore, he ruined Novinha as a character. Her paradigm shift, and personality shift at the end of the book is unreasonable. Likewise, Qing-jao's spiral into narrowmindedness. OSC doesn't give enough justification for either. Also, there was so much potential with Plikt, and I thought for sure she's play heavily into the novel, but she remained a background character at best the entire time. What a waste. I did find Warmaker's interpretation of Catholicism a hoot though. Hopefully book four will return to the heights of books one and two.
Rating: 
Summary: Takes you to the top only to drop you.
Review: This book really surprised me. It also really dissapointed me. As I was finishing Speaker I began to read some reviews for Xenocide. Those reviews and some word from other friends of mine indicated this installment to be the worst in the series. And as I read the first 400 pages of this book I simply couldn't imagine why. Card had this fascinating element in this book, and it started to make me think he was a genius. I would be reading the Ender side of the story, and when I got to the end of it, I didn't want to leave it. Then when the Qing-Jao story ended, I didn't want to leave that. It was simply that good.
Starting at about page 400 though, the book really takes a dive. I found myself reading it just to get to the end. Once they figure out how to travel faster-than-light it picks up again, but that 125 page or so valley really hurt the quality.
The ideas contained within this book are just too complex, and don't enhance the story much. The mystery of Jane's existence was interesting, though I couldn't get into the whole philote concept.
In Speaker for the Dead, we were given a great sci-fi story that was easy to follow but still provided an excellent story. In this book, it seems Card just had to throw in his opinions of the universe. The Ender series is not the place. As for the ending...there isn't one really. Make sure you have Children of the Mind in close proximity before you finish this one.
Don't pay attention to the synopsis on the back, the actual story does not rest around that at all.
Rating: 
Summary: good
Review: not as good as the first two, but a good read for science fiction fans .
Rating: 
Summary: Fantasy pretending to be Science Fiction
Review: _Ender's Game_ and _Speaker for the Dead_ were both EXCELLENT books. Mainly because Card focused on the characters and their dilemmas. The characters' solutions to their problems were all resonable, consistant with the characters' personalities, and well within the laws of physics. In _Xenocide_, Card allows the characters the ask their fairy god-mother (Jane) to solve their problems. She puts them in a magic pumpkin (spaceship) and wisks them around the galaxy, fixing things for them, when the rest of the human race is still confined to slower-than-light ships and limited by the laws of physics. This book should have been labeled 'fantasy,' so I would have known to avoid it and spend the $... on a Robert Forward or Greg Benford. Card is an excellent writer, but this one just wasn't up to his normal snuff. It was a horrible let-down -- I had expected something equal to Ender or Speaker. _Xenocide_ soured me from reading any of the other books in the Ender series, and it is one of the reasons I now prefer to read Sci-Fi by authors who have physics, math or engineering Ph.D.'s. If Card were to take a physcis course and then re-write this book, it would be five stars.
Rating:
Summary: A great book.
Review: Not quite on the same level as Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead (in my humble opinion), but still a wonderful novel. I'm convinced that Card is a genius. He has a stunning talent for telling a story and making you think in ways you haven't thought before.
Rating:
Summary: Almost as good as it's predecessers
Review: First of all, I wouldn't recommend this one to those of you who haven't been following the series. The book is great, but not understandable on it's own. Besides that though, this book is excellent, very well written and excellent character development. Anyway, in this book Ender has married and settled on Lusitania, when the Starways Congress decides to send a fleet there to destroy the planet, and the human killing virus, Descolada, that has manifested itself there, but that the Piggies need to complete their unique life cycle. Now Ender and Novinha's children must fight once more to prevent another xenocide... Anyway, once again this book is excellent and I guarentee it will have an emotional reaction out of you one way or another. I would most definitely have rated this one five stars, if not for some extremely sexist dialogue and inuendo, which takes a lot out of a book for me. I was also surprised by how many people didn't like this book because it was too long! Why? It's only six hundred pages. Reality check please! This is how long good books are! Gosh, I've honestly read Star Wars books that were longer than this one! Anyway, read the book, and love it, but start with Ender's Game or at least Speaker for the Dead.
Rating:
Summary: Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Review: It was ok. Again, I read this book hoping for the excitement of Ender's Game. It was not here. More politics and philosophy... But, it was still a good story. A little long (even boring in places), but good overall. You definitely need to read Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead before you begin this one.
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