Rating: 
Summary: third...a charm!
Review: Xenocide is a brilliant piece of work. After "Ender's Game" and "Speaker For The Dead", Mr. Card shows us that he is still able to take the plot and thicken it. After all, it's hard to take Sci-Fi story, and cover it with philosophic dilemas and moral cross roads. Mr. Card takes us again thru the path of Ender Wiggin while throwing more charcters and more information and enables us to imagine a world on all it's aspects. The decription's are so full and rich in details, and the charcters seems so alive that by the end of he book you feel as if you had known them. It is recommended to read the previos books before reading Xenocide in order to get familiar with the charcters. There is one thing that disturbs the full enjoyment of the book: the fact that the characters haven't grown up! even though it's been 30 years since the last book, they behaviour remained as if they are still little kids. But besides this little thing, Xenocide brings the serious to new hights. Well Done again, Mr. Card!
Rating: 
Summary: Quality of the writing is still suffering
Review: Surprisingly enough, Xenocide proved to be of a bit higher quality than Speaker for the Dead. While Card still manages to ignore his gift of characterization, the plot proves to be original enough to somehow keep the book on steam. In my opinion, Card's biggest flaw with Xenocide is practically ignoring the 30-year gap between the last volume and this one - it is barely dealt with. Furthermore, while all the characters (except Miro) have aged that amount of time, Card very rarely plays upon that. They still speak, behave, and move like they are the children of Speaker for the Dead, and when their ages are mentioned I felt somehow cheated. Whenever they are mentioned, instead of active, eye-catching personas they become slow-witted dewy familymen and familywomen Nowhere to be found is the general life expectancy for the humans - I didn't find Ender to appear any older than in the previous book. Also, some of the conflict is a bit contrived - why does Novinha loathe Ender so much, even after thirty years of marriage? Similarly, Card shows that his way of dealing with problems in his own writings is to ignore them - didn't he write that Jane was the one to alert the Congress about the cultural exchange between the species? Are we to forget that? Most plot twists seem to be thought of on the spot. Returning to the characters, I found them to be quite a disappointment. They are just so uniform in their whining and squabbling, I just felt a great urge to reach into the book and just try to put them to some use. Nowhere to be found is Ender's mind-boggling intelligence or inter-personal wisdom. Is he becoming senile? What attracted readers to Game and Shadow was that all of the characters displayed amazing intelligence - those who thought themselves as intelligent finally found someone to identify with, and those who thought the characters to be above them found great role models. Most of all, the characters were children. Here we have squabbling, inefficient, and quite unintelligent adults who cook up off-the-wall things in their minds. The narrative is enthralling, but where is it coming from? Not the characters, for certain. Lastly, the only original and fresh characters in the book seem to the inhabitants of the Taoist world of Path, where the gifted citizens are invariable hampered with OCD (which is interpreted as hearing the Gods' will), but the way in which they are tied to the rest of the story seems to be a bit clunky. The theories and the theology are certainly unique - if only they could make the book that much better. Alas, they do not. Xenocide proved to be a certain improvement upon the Speaker for the Dead, but it is still miles below the quality of either the Game or the Shadow.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite disappointing.
Review: I first Ender's Game when it was a short story. I was blown away; in fact, I read it twice in one sitting. It was a very tight, very cool story. When Ender's Game the book came out, I was first in line. Once again, great story. In fact, he took the spartan plot and characters of the short story and flesh out a great novel, which is pretty rare in SF. Speaker For The Dead was the first sign that this wasn't going to last. Less action, more sitting around, talking and philosophizing. That's a neat trick to pull in the sequel to an action novel, but can fall flat. Personally, I thought Card failed. Xenocide was one of those books that made me re-evaluate my opinion of the rest of the series. This book was so much worse that I couldn't believe it was part of the series. There are some clever ideas, but the ending is drop dead dumb. Card has taken himself into a corner where only a ridiculous Deus Ex Machina can save him. It ceases to be science fiction at that point, and becomes science fantasy. I haven't worked up the courage to read Children of the Mind yet, especially because it appears to focus on the elements of Xenocide that I hated. I did read Ender's Shadow, which once again is pretty cool. I feel a bit uncultured here, because we're back to a lean, mean action story, instead of the high-and-mighty pseudo-philosophy of Xenocide, but Card does action better than he does pompus preaching.
Rating: 
Summary: Time.. think about it
Review: It's time. People's lives are boring sometimes. Xenocide is really good and interesting how she finds where the fleet disappered. For all you people who say the book is boring.. of course some of it is. If Orson Scott Card was writing a book about you it would be boring sometimes. In fact probably no one would read. Just think about that all you people gave it 3 stars or lower.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book...cept for the side plots.
Review: This book is equally as surprising and invigorating as the first two in the series...it delves even more deeply into metaphysics and theology than the others. Very intriguing. It stays interesting throughout it's near 600 page length, except for everything on the Path world. Is it just me or did absolutely none of that have to be included? That would've cut the book down a good 200 pages, and more could've been added about the more interesting main plot. All and all, I consider Orson Scott Card one of the literary gods and did love this book.
Rating: 
Summary: A Tiresome Rant
Review: Gaaack. I just finished the book after reading _Speaker For The Dead_ yesterday. Not a total waste of time, but really disappointing. OSC had nothing new to say, and his continuous bashing of religiosity was pathetic. Yeah, sure, religious people are to be pitied for their stupidity and closed-mindedness, but the author rubs it in much too stongly. Yeah, sure , Catholicism is silly; but he rubs their noses in it. There are uplifting moments in this book, but he makes them (the people involved) seem stupid. The emphasis on familial conflict is unbelievable, and that makes the story unbelievable. The lame plot devices get in the way of the story, such as it is. The invocation of Deux Ex Machina at the conclusion is pathetic, the false injection of Chinese culture is annoying at best, and the story crashes to a poorly constructed conclusion without resolution. If you want to be annoyed and disappointed, go ahead and read this book. If you want to despise Catholics, read this book. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
Rating:
Summary: Read ENDERS GAME and ENDERS SHADOW skip the rest
Review: Read ENDERS GAME and ENDERS SHADOW skip the rest ENDERS GAME and ENDERS SHADOW are two of the best science fiction books ever. The other books in the series are all bubble gum for the brain
Rating:
Summary: Ponderous at points, intricate storytelling throughout.
Review: Xenocide seems like a book that would read good with the moonlight sonata playing in the background. Forgive the pun but, what it lacks in depth it makes up in width. The epic storytelling is truly classic and the characters, if not real people, are sympathetic and understandable in design while the writing is actually quite rich. The parts on the Japanese world were particularly resonant because I personally know what its like to have OCD and to live as a slave to meaningless compulsion. Xenocide is detailed and reflective, but for some reason it just never flies. It is a very good book and it is definitely worth reading, just don't expect a celestial work like "Ender's Game".
Rating:
Summary: a OK third book
Review: Xenocide introduces a new world and three new characters. They made the book worth reading. Unfortunately, the characters from Speaker for the Dead were not nearly as interesting. They seemed to have been neglected. I would say that only one half of the book (the part with Qing Jao and Wang Mu) lives up to Card's previous books. Go ahead and check the book out from the library- don't buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Good Sci-Fi!
Review: Great book! Lives up to SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD. A MUST READ
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