I have to admit Card surprised me with this one. It is now apparent that the previous two books were a setup for this one. And while I retain some of my quibbles about the last two books--the politics and the military engagements played out with far too few complications, genius children or no--the stage that was set plays out with much more drama in this book than in the last two. Having already read Ender in Exile, some of the long term results of this series were already known to me, which probably siphoned some of my enjoyment. But I cared about Bean, Petra, Peter, Alai, and Virlomi much more here than in the previous books, and while I may not have enjoyed the setup as much as I'd have liked I did really enjoy this payoff.