Book Review: Xenocide
Just finished reading Xenocide, the third book in the Ender’s Saga series by Orson Scott Card.
I had mixed feelings to start — almost everyone told me that this book was definitely underwhelming, almost a disappointment after Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead, not to mention the xkcd comic on the topic.
Yes, the story was a lot different than I would expect after reading the first two, but in the end, that’s all it was — different. I understand where people are coming from — if you’re expecting an awesome military strategy novel, or an exciting exploration of a ramen alien culture, well, you’ll be disappointed.
The book focuses on two seperate, but eventually intertwined, locations — a world called Path where the ‘Godspoken’, who are forced by ‘gods’ to undergo intense purification rituals whenever they stray into unrighteousness, rule the populace — and our favorite, Lusitania, from Speaker for the Dead, where the pig-aliens live, and where Valentine Wiggin has decided to visit in an attempt to stave off the arrival of warships from the Starways Congress equipped with a ‘Little Doctor’ device capable of the complete annihilation of entire solar systems.
Basically, if you liked the first two books, you need to read this one to see how it all turns out. As for me, I would definitely re-read it voluntarily.
