Xenocide by Orson Scott Card

Book Title: Xenocide
Author: Orson Scott Card
Book Series: Ender's Saga (book 3 of 9 total works)
Reading Level: Young Adult (YA) (but it felt like an adult book to me)
My Rating: 3/5 Stars
Content Rating: PG-13 for some language and mature themes
Tidbit: When humans feel threatened by the happenings on the faraway planet of Lusitania, they send a device to destroy the whole planet and all species on it.  Andrew "Ender Wiggins" and others on Lusitania must find a way to prevent this xenocide.

On the planet of Lusitania, a human colony has begun to build. They discovered a sentient species there, one with whom they also eventually discovered they could communicate and come to understand. This species is called the pequeninos, because they are small pig-like animals. The survival of the pequenino species depends on a virus the humans call the descolada. While it is vital for the pequeninos to live and reproduce, it's detrimental to humans. The only way the humans have survived being infected by the virus is by consuming food with antivirals in it daily. But the virus is smart and adapts quickly. It's only a matter of time before the virus can mutate faster than the humans can create a new antidote. As such, the humans in the Starways Congress have decided to destroy Lusitania to protect the rest of humanity from the descolada. A fleet has been dispatched with a device that will wipe out the planet and every living creature on it. Now those on Lusitania, humans and pequeninos alike with some help from the Buggers, the species which Ender almost annihilated 3000 years previously, must race against time to find a way to destroy the descolada without destroying the pequeninos AND prove that the Starways Congress has been responsible for it all.

This book is very philosophical. Which I should have known after reading book 2. That's not a bad thing. It just requires more thought than I was ready to give it. So many things to think about regarding relationships and science, and I think there are a lot of religious overtones as well. The author has a gift for creating a very complex story. The details are phenomenal. And there's some convoluted kind of stuff. Like I couldn't even begin to describe it all here because it's kind of crazy.

Now to decide if I should read the 4th in the series (according to publication date)... if I do, it won't be any time soon. My brain is tired.

Speaker For the Dead -- Orson Scott Card

For most of the human race, it has been 3000 years since the Bugger Wars. 3000 years since Ender Wiggin became notorious for the xenocide of the Buggers. But for Ender Wiggin and his sister Valentine, who have spent the intervening years between his worst nightmare and the present day traveling from planet to planet at speeds near the speed of light, it has only been a couple of decades. Everyone believes -- no, knows -- that Ender is dead. And Ender is happy to leave them in ignorant bliss. His name has become profane, and feeling the guilt of his actions and their result, Ender accepts the burden of his infamy as well-deserved. In time, he authors the story of the Buggers, revealing to the humans the real intentions of that alien species. And humans come to understand the horrors enacted by the human race. To prevent the same events from ever occurring again, the Starways Congress enacts laws governing interactions between humans and any other intelligent life they may find on distant planets. Strict rules which, when broken, are a sign of absolute rebellion.

And so it is that, when intelligent life is discovered on the planet of Lusitania, the humans colonizing the planet are allowed to send only their xenologer outside their colony gates, who studies the species -- a pig-like species many thousand of years behind humans technologically, without asking many questions and without sharing any human knowledge. When one of the xenologers dies at the hands of the piggies, the humans begin to fear. When a second one dies, the fear begins to turn to terror. And someone on Lusitania calls for a Speaker for the Dead -- to speak the death of the first killed xenologer. The nearest Speaker is none other than Ender Wiggin, the original speaker. His arrival on Lusitania (two weeks later for him, 22 years later for Lusitanians), stirs up secrets for humans and piggies alike. And soon, nothing will ever be the same.

**An excellent read. I was very enthralled.         

Ender's Game -- Orson Scott Card

After having endured and won -- though partially by luck -- two wars against aliens whose aim was to colonize Earth, humans have begun to breed geniuses in order to be prepared to face the third invasion. In a society where most families only have two children, being a third child is a stigma. And Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is a third. But Ender exists because the government of Earth allowed his family to have a third, because both of Ender's siblings were brilliant, but unsuited for being chosen to go to Battle School. Where both Peter and Valentine, Ender's brother and sister, failed by being either too callous or too soft, Ender succeeds in being their average. And so Ender is requested, at the age of 6, to attend the Battle School and to leave his family behind in the interest of Earth's future. Though a hard decision, Ender decides to go, because it means he may be able to save Earth, and most importantly his sister Valentine, from sure death in the impending invasion.

Throughout Ender's five years at the Battle School, his future is shaped by the school administrators, who make sure he is despised by many of the other children and isolated from friendships. Yet, in the face of all opposition, Ender succeeds. He excels at all the games created to teach the students to command armies, and he is quickly moved up in rank until he is the youngest leader of an army of children. When given command over his army, he finds that his army is made up of young and inexperienced "soldiers." But before long, Ender has them performing the impossible and beating the odds.

In the midst of his continued success, though, comes complete hatred from some of the students. In every level of his ascent, Ender makes enemies who hold intense grudges, and before he is able to leave the Battle School, he is forced to resort to self-defense in order to save his own life. And so Ender struggles with his own actions, all the while performing those things that are necessary to propel him to a higher level of responsibility; not because he desires it, but because he feels obligated to help the world. Thus, Ender is soon graduated from the Battle School, and finally decides to acquiesce and attend Command School where he will learn to lead entire fleets. Only then does Ender's education really begin, for only then does he learn the truth about the third invasion. And during the grueling years at Command School, Ender begins to wear down, physcially, mentally, and emotionally; because, although is body is that of a child, his mind and his actions are not. And he begins to wonder if he will be able to save the human race after all -- and whether or not he even cares.