Ender's and Shadow's series

[rocklobster]

I've been reading Orson Scott Cars's Ender saga and its parallel sequel, The Shadow Saga. (it's not a true sequel because it focuses on a different character rather than taking place after the Ender saga) Has anyone else here read them?

[bigsleepj]

I'm going to start Ender's Game soon. I bought the book but I want to finish A Case for Christ first.

[Nate]

I've heard so much about them and I kind of want to read them, but considering Card copped-out on the true meaning of the series, I've lost a lot of interest in them.

[Radical Dreamer]

I read Ender's Game a year or so ago and loved it; it's a seriously excellent science fiction novel. I picked up Speaker for the Dead earlier this year, and read about 100 pages before I put it down and could go no further. XD I didn't care for it nearly as much, partially because he introduced a whole new, somewhat less interesting set of characters, and partially because it just got off to a really slow start. Maybe I'll finish it one day, but I can tell you that as of my knowledge of the series right now, Ender's Game is the best, and definitely worth reading. XD

[Davidizer13]

I love Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead is all right, but from there they just get worse very quickly. Xenocide is just...well, it spends most of its time focusing on another character on another planet that doesn't link into Ender and the Portugese colony's story until about 2/3rds of the way in. The fact that most of it is made up of her pseudo-theological internal arguments doesn't help, and that the whole thing goes on for upwards of 700 pages. After slogging through that, I tried to get into Children of the Mind, but couldn't work up the interest.

Part of the problem is that anything past Ender's Game was meant to be a separate story, but Card put Ender into the stories because he needed a better protagonist for them, and it just gets messier the further you get into the series. The first couple are still worth the read, though.

[ich1990]

Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide are all very good books that should not be in the same series.

Everybody likes Ender's Game, because it is an intelligent story about Machiavellian child genii killing each other and doing super-genius stuff, so when they get to Speaker for the Dead or Xenocide and find something entirely different, they are disappointed. Taken in their own right, those two sequels aren't bad. To the contrary, they are quite good, with interesting ideas about varying levels of consciousness, the morality of wiping out semi-sentient species, the prospects of using genetic manipulation and religion to create the perfect army, and the use of literature over time to affect social change. Great stuff, but not little child genii murdering each other or space invasions.

So, my recommendation is to look at the Ender series as stand alone books, all good and all different, and stop comparing the latter ones to the first, because they have totally different genres and purposes.