Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Orson Scott Card's Xenocide is a space opera with verve. In this continuation of Ender Wiggin's story, the Starways Congress has sent a fleet to immolate the rebellious planet of Lusitania, home to the alien race of pequeninos, and home to Ender Wiggin and his family. Concealed on Lusitania is the only remaining Hive Queen, who holds a secret that may save or destroy humanity throughout the galaxy. Familiar characters from the previous novels continue to grapple with religious conflicts and family squabbles while inventing faster-than-light travel and miraculous virus treatments. Throw into the mix an entire planet of mad geniuses and a self-aware computer who wants to be a martyr, and it's hard to guess who will topple the first domino. Due to the densely woven and melodramatic nature of the story, newcomers to Ender's tale will want to start reading this series with the first books, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. 


From Publishers Weekly

Card returns to the highly popular, award-winning story of Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, the boy wonder who saved humanity from alien invasion and, guilt-ridden over his near-total destruction of the alien species, has now become a sort of traveling conscience. This third Ender novel picks up where Speaker for the Dead left off: on the planet Lusitania, Ender and the other human colonists strive to neutralize the "descolada," a possibly sentient virus that adapts itself rapidly to every attack. Meanwhile, tensions are rising between the colonists and the indigenous "pequeninos," who rely on the descolada for their survival; and the fleet sent by Starways Congress to destroy the rebellious colony closes in with its doomsday weapon. With the help of their family, their pequenino friends, and Jane (an artificial intelligence living in the galactic computer network), Ender and his sister Valentine race against time to resolve these crises. The plot is sometimes compelling, but the novel's many flaws make the book more often dull and irritating. Card's style is openly didactic, and when his characters do veer away from lengthy philosophical and scientific ruminations, they venture into contrived personality conflicts and endless self-deprecation. Some, notably Ender, Valentine and the wonderchild Wang-mu, are simply too good to be true--too smart, too reasonable, too kind and generous. The reader quickly tires of such impossible perfection.