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A review by son_of_battles
Xenocide by Orson Scott Card
3.0
Xenocide has already received a whole lot of negative reviews on Goodreads already, so I'm gonna start this off by saying that I liked this book, but that doesn't mean that I don't have some reservations about it. I'm sure it was incredibly difficult to continue a story that began with "Ender's Game", followed by an even better book, "The Speaker for the Dead". With such a strong foundation set in place, the expectations on this book would've no doubt been massive for Card to live up to. It's not that I was disappointed with this book as a whole, it was only a few aspects of it that made it lose a few stars.
First off, the good things about this book for me were Jane, Path, and the buggers. I fell in love with Jane in "Speaker" and she has only grown more interesting throughout this novel. She stands as a solid, reliable force of reason in the midst of a maelstrom of chaotic human emotions and brokenness. Her storyline was the highlight of this novel for me and the final reveal about where she came from and how she exists was a satisfying twist in a novel already rife with twists. I started off hating the Path storyline and all of the characters associated with it, but all of them, even Qing-jao, began to grow on me through the course of this novel. I know the whole government-made virus conspiracy has been done to death in the Sci-fi genre, but this was a new and refreshing take on it. I really enjoyed the descriptions of bugger-controlled territory and the buggers themselves. It was a very visceral, dark place and the writing reflected that in a powerful way. Also, I just think the buggers are just plain cool and would love to read more about them later.
I really had a hard time with the Ribeira family as a whole. That was strange for me because of how much I liked them in "Speaker", but maybe that was because their actions were acceptable then because they were children. The fact that most of them behave the same even though 30 years has passed is definitely something I didn't see coming. It would have been much more interesting to see how they grew and changed over the decades since Ender came into their lives and changed everything by healing their brokenness. But did anything really change after he came? it's difficult to know, but since the majority of "Speaker"'s plot revolved around the family's dysfunctional tendencies, I came into this book thinking that the family would be different. Instead, everybody has just grown more and more stuck in their ways and remain even more stubborn about their views than ever. I know that this was probably because Card wanted to have a bunch of characters with widely different voices, but it felt slightly redundant.
And of course, Card uses his characters to talk about his own beliefs and philosophies which was alright at first, but after 5 pages of Wang-mu's or Miro's inner monologues about life and what it is or isn't, it grows stale. I preferred when the characters actually engaged in dialogue with each other on these issues, but the inner monologues sounded a bit too much like Card's own voice.
So, this is my first foray into Ender's universe (multiverse?) and I have enjoyed all three of these books in different ways. It is good Sci-fi for me because I don't need an astro- or quantum physics degree in order to be able to enjoy them. The plotting of this book is good, but I didn't really believe that the characters were ever actually in danger from the fleet, and so it felt less urgent to me than "Speaker" did. This book is leading up to "Children of the Mind" and the ending definitely makes the book feel like a middle book. The story is what will make me keep going in this series when I have time for it, but there are just so many books and so little time. I would recommend Xenocide to Sci-fi fans with a warning about not having too high expectations.
First off, the good things about this book for me were Jane, Path, and the buggers. I fell in love with Jane in "Speaker" and she has only grown more interesting throughout this novel. She stands as a solid, reliable force of reason in the midst of a maelstrom of chaotic human emotions and brokenness. Her storyline was the highlight of this novel for me and the final reveal about where she came from and how she exists was a satisfying twist in a novel already rife with twists. I started off hating the Path storyline and all of the characters associated with it, but all of them, even Qing-jao, began to grow on me through the course of this novel. I know the whole government-made virus conspiracy has been done to death in the Sci-fi genre, but this was a new and refreshing take on it. I really enjoyed the descriptions of bugger-controlled territory and the buggers themselves. It was a very visceral, dark place and the writing reflected that in a powerful way. Also, I just think the buggers are just plain cool and would love to read more about them later.
I really had a hard time with the Ribeira family as a whole. That was strange for me because of how much I liked them in "Speaker", but maybe that was because their actions were acceptable then because they were children. The fact that most of them behave the same even though 30 years has passed is definitely something I didn't see coming. It would have been much more interesting to see how they grew and changed over the decades since Ender came into their lives and changed everything by healing their brokenness. But did anything really change after he came? it's difficult to know, but since the majority of "Speaker"'s plot revolved around the family's dysfunctional tendencies, I came into this book thinking that the family would be different. Instead, everybody has just grown more and more stuck in their ways and remain even more stubborn about their views than ever. I know that this was probably because Card wanted to have a bunch of characters with widely different voices, but it felt slightly redundant.
And of course, Card uses his characters to talk about his own beliefs and philosophies which was alright at first, but after 5 pages of Wang-mu's or Miro's inner monologues about life and what it is or isn't, it grows stale. I preferred when the characters actually engaged in dialogue with each other on these issues, but the inner monologues sounded a bit too much like Card's own voice.
So, this is my first foray into Ender's universe (multiverse?) and I have enjoyed all three of these books in different ways. It is good Sci-fi for me because I don't need an astro- or quantum physics degree in order to be able to enjoy them. The plotting of this book is good, but I didn't really believe that the characters were ever actually in danger from the fleet, and so it felt less urgent to me than "Speaker" did. This book is leading up to "Children of the Mind" and the ending definitely makes the book feel like a middle book. The story is what will make me keep going in this series when I have time for it, but there are just so many books and so little time. I would recommend Xenocide to Sci-fi fans with a warning about not having too high expectations.