Xenocide

Xenocide (Ender's Saga (Publication Order) #3)

3.71 of 5 stars 3.71  ·  rating details  ·  54,002 ratings  ·  1,496 reviews
The war for survival of the planet Lusitania will be fought in the hearts of a child named Gloriously Bright.

On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans and pequininos and the Hive Queen could all live together; where three very different intelligent species could find common ground at last. Or so he thought.

Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all h...more
Paperback, 592 pages
Published August 15th 1992 by Tor (first published 1991)

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blake
TOO LONG. I grudgingly give this book a 3, based only on my affection for the characters and the creativity of the story. Most of the book suffers from overkill in one sense or another, which leads to its main problem of length. It´s impossible to deny that Card is brilliant, but I can think of no writers other than Dickens and presumably Tolstoy (although I have yet to read him) who can justifiably write 600 or more pages of novel. Card could have brought this one in at under 500 and lost nothi...more
Samantha Leigh
Oct 04, 2007 Samantha Leigh rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone.
Let me tell you the most beautiful story i know.
a man was given a dog, which he loved very much.
the dog went with him everywhere,
but the man could not teach it to do anything useful...
instead it regarded him with the same inscrutable expression.
"thats not a dog, its a wolf!" said the mans wife
"he alone is faithful to me" said the man
and his wife never discussed it with him again.
one day, the man took his dog with him onto his private airplane
and as they flew over the winter mountains
the engines...more
Ezra
This xkcd web comic makes for the best review of this book. http://xkcd.com/304/

I didn't hate it. The philosophy and science annoyingly reminded me of Tom Clancy's later stuff where he rambles on and on over minutia no one but him and his 7 true fans really enjoy. The rest of us start skimming hoping to find something to make continuing to read worth it. Only to depressingly read the last sentence wondering why successful authors stop using editors.
Stephanie
This is one of the most profoundly philosophical science fiction books ever written.

Humans have colonized the planet they call Lusitania, home to the "piggies," intelligent mammal-like animals with no technology. Then Ender Wiggin arrives, with the Hive Queen, the last remaining member of her high-tech species. Now three intelligent species must cohabit one world -- for if they leave it, they will take with them the ultimate biological weapon, the descolada virus.

The contact with not one but two...more
Jeremy Johnson
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Jacob
September 2009
Previously: Speaker for the Dead

Almost thirty years have passed since Ender first came to the planet Lusitania (although for his sister Valentine and his stepson Miro, thanks to relativity brought on by near-lightspeed travel, only a week has passed) and events are coming to a head. The descolada virus, fatal to humans but essential to the development of Lusitania's native life, is resisting all efforts to contain it--and the ships sent by Starways Congress to destroy the planet an...more
Sarah
Had this been a stand alone novel, rather than a continuation of the Ender Wiggins series, it probably wouldn’t have irritated me so much. In the interview with the author at the end of the CD, he pretty much verifies what I thought throughout the whole novel. The premises of this book is one that he had first thought of as an independent story line, but since Ender Wiggins was a ready made hit, rolled it into the trilogy instead. With each subsequent book, Card looses a bit more of the initial...more
Courtney
This may be my favorite of the Ender series. The dynamic with all of the different forms of alien life and the debate about when and whether it is OK to destroy such life is facsinating to me. I think that part of the reason I enjoy science fiction so much is that, not only does it force me to use my brain, but it can address real life issues in a setting that, although comparable to real life, does not have quite the same affect on my while still making me think about real principles. I am not...more
Debbie
Sep 13, 2007 Debbie rated it 3 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: science fiction fans
Shelves: sciencefiction
Xenocide picks up Ender's story on Lusitania. With a starship on the way to destroy the planet, Ender and his family race to find a cure for the descolada, a virus integral to the life cycle of the pequeninos, but lethal to humans. Jane, a sentient being who came to life as a result of the bugger's attempt to contact Ender through the fantasy computer game, may die as a result of her efforts to help Ender stop the destruction of Lusitania. A faction of the pequeninos decides they want to bring t...more
Kelly
Wow. It took me so long to finish this book after racing through the previous portion of this series. It's really too bad because Orson Scott Card's ideas are definitely worth exploring -- some of the most thought provoking and original of the ones that I have read in my limited science fiction repertoire. Card is truly one of the most brilliant writers I have had the pleasure of reading.

That said, certain portions of the book I just found to be tedious. I finally finished this only after borrow...more
aPriL MEOWS often with scratching
I adore the Ender series. This is really part one of a two book set in the series. On to the Children of the Mind next which will finish what was started in Xenocide. There are a lot of ideas in the story as everything related to the psychology and philosophy of prejudice is explored in a dramatic speculative fiction setting. Religion and politics, as well as basic species survival imperatives come into play throughout the complete Ender series. Generally the book is very realistic and true to h...more
Kate
Very good exploration of how others perceive your acts; you can actually save the world and be pegged a villan; but it helps the reader understand the self interest in demonizing others.
BJ Rose
A weak 4* but deserves more than 3*. There were several disappointments in this book, but the main one is that so much of the book was spent on detailing the OCD actions of the 'godspoken', that the author decided to write a part 2 Children of the Mind rather than dealing now with resolving the problems of Jane's survival and the splintering of Ender's adopted family - in fact, those problems just kept getting bigger! And I'm not sure i'm optimistic enough to want to read the 4th book of what sh...more
Jen
Aug 09, 2011 Jen added it
I began reading this series because my boyfriend said my philosophy of human connection resembles Card's philotes. I enjoyed Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, but I was impatiently waiting for philotic connections to be described. Xenocide finally delivered, and I will never forget the AHA! moment when I read that passage.



Xenocide's fully-developed characters seem real because they act in response to deeply-felt emotions. In particular, I was surprised by Card's sensitivity toward Novinha....more
Peter
A wealth of emotional, scientific and philosophical conflict: Third in Orson Scott Card's "Ender" cycle, "Xenocide" charts the events on the planet of Lusitania, home to all three sentient species in existence, two of which are not represented anywhere else in the universe. All living things on Lusitania are subject to a virus, the Descolada, which attacks and modifies the genetic information of the host and is evolving rapidly to the extend that combating it requires constant alteration of viri...more
Ashley
"So let me tell you what I think about gods. I think a real god is not going to be so scared or angry that he tries to keep other people down . . . A real god doesn’t care about control. A real god already has control of everything that needs controlling. Real gods would want to teach you how to be just like them."

The third part of the Ender Quartet, the sequel to Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, which takes place on the Brazilian colony of Lusitania -- the habitat of all three known spe...more
Joy
Jan 18, 2009 Joy rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Ender fans
The Congress fleet is on its way to destroy Lusitania. Their order was already sent to the fleet to disintegrate the planet. That's not just because of the rebellion of the Lusitanian humans, who have formed a community with the other species. It's also because the virus that transformed the biosphere of the planet will probably be fatal to all life forms in the Hundred Worlds.

Then the fleet disappears. The search of a brilliant girl on the planet Path for the missing fleet leads to the discove...more
Sharon The Cat
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Jake
Let me tell you the most beautiful story i know.
a man was given a dog, which he loved very much.
the dog went with him everywhere,
but the man could not teach it to do anything useful...
instead it regarded him with the same inscrutable expression.
"that's not a dog, its a wolf!" said the mans wife
"he alone is faithful to me" said the man
and his wife never discussed it with him again.
one day, the man took his dog with him onto his private airplane
and as they flew over the winter mountains
the engines...more
Gary
Extremely compelling and gripping read. From the way way the chapters are composed to the capitulating way Mr Card draws you completely into the character of the brother, the sister and most especially Ender (Andrew Wiggin), himself!

I have prayed long and hard for them to turn this film into a movie, but I almost gave up ever seeing this manifest itself in my lifetime, I first read the book when I turn 18 years old and to this day think its my greatest ever fictional read. I finally got the news...more
Al

The war for survival of the planet Lusitania will be fought in the hearts of a child named Gloriously Bright.

On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans and pequininos and the Hive Queen could all live together; where three very different intelligent species could find common ground at last. Or so he thought.

Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all humans it infects, but which the pequininos require in order to become adults. The Startways Congress so fears the effects

...more
Stephen
I was throughly enjoying enders story, until i got to this book. I was really into the story and the characters and all that but then i came to the end of this story. Spoiler alert: all of a sudden, its like the writer hit a wall and just thought, oh- i know, i will just make up this completely ridiculous outside place to literally create new characters for me so i can keep writing. And thats what he did. I know this book is fiction and set in the future but that is far too unbelievable for me,...more
Samp
I really enjoyed Orson Scott Card's Ender series, however the books seem to take a long time to tell the story. It's excellent writing, in my opinion, with strong character development (which is appreciated). I realize why he spends so many pages building the story line, it's very complex futuristic science upon which the story hinges (and makes it somewhat plausible to the reader in a futuristic/scientific kind of way). However, it just goes on, and on, and on. In my opinion, he probably could...more
Deleen
I really liked this book. It made up for the emotional and arrogant tone of Speaker for the Dead by bringing Ender down a peg. It also introduced some unique ideas that take an imaginitive look at quantum entanglement by using the idea of something called a philote. I thought it was very imaginative to tie that in with a philisophical discussion on what makes a soul and what agency is.

Further, it was fun to think of space as a function of time and how that relates to our perception. It was some...more
Jeremy
** spoiler alert ** How many stars do you give a book that starts off good, wanders around dully in the middle, and then becomes offensively horrible at the end? Do you average 5, 3, and 1 star? Do you give it 2 because of the overall picture? Do you give it 1 because it's doubly bad to start out promising and then mislead the reader?

I'm in the last category.

I'm 90% finished, and I think I'm not going to make it much further. I loved the first two books, but this one is sort of awful. It started...more
Liz
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Chris
*** Card's open bigotry toward the LGBT community has crossed a line with me that will prevent me from ever reading any more of his works. It's a pity, because few writers in any genre handle topics of religion and the human condition as well as he. ***

If philosophy and mysticism are your thing, and you enjoyed the two previous novels in the series, "Xenocide" will blow your wig right off. Of course we get resolution to the cliffhanger at the end of "Speaker for the Dead." There's also a fantast...more
Eric Herboso
Xenocide, like most other novels in the Ender's Series, receives five stars from me. I know there are parts of it I strongly disagree with, and there are even a few portions that make me pause as a reader when it comes to my suspension of disbelief -- but if you can manage to read Xenocide as a description of an alternate universe where the philosophy and physics that Card posits really is real, then the story is amazing.

Nevertheless, I cannot stress how much I disagree with the concept of categ...more
Ashish
Part 3 of the Ender series, and last of the trilogy, Xenocide displays all the classic symptoms of a trilogy going bad - the good plotlines and ideas have been used up, and the loose ends remaining are so complex now after remaining unresolved over the last 2 books that it would take a miracle to clear them up.
In a sinse, that's exactly what Orson Scott Card serves up - a straight-up miracle. There is a backstory and the reasoning for how it would work - but it's too rushed for something of thi...more
Alexander
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Xenocide (Ender's Saga, #3)
Xenocide (Ender's Saga, #3)
Xenocide (Ender's Saga, #3)
Xenocide (Ender's Saga, #3)
Xenocide (Ender's Saga, #3)

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Orson Scott Card is the author of the novels Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead, which are widely read by adults and younger readers, and are increasingly used in schools.
Besides these and other science fiction novels, Card writes contemporary fantasy (Magic Street, Enchantment, Lost Boys), biblical novels (Stone Tables, Rachel and Leah), the American frontier fantasy series Th...more
More about Orson Scott Card...
Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, #1) Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga, #2) Ender's Shadow (Shadow, #1) Children of the Mind (Ender's Saga, #4) Shadow of the Hegemon (Shadow, #2)

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