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.

The Atlantis Code -- Charles Brokaw

Thomas Lourds is a linguistics professor who finds himself in Alexandria as a guest on a British TV show. Lured there by the hopes that he might find something intriguing in Alexandria, instead he unwittingly finds himself embroiled in the hunt for the lost city of Atlantis and the secrets held there. He and several others find themselves traipsing across Europe and Africa following a trail of instruments engraved with a language not even he has seen before. But they are matching wits with a ruthless cardinal who seeks the power hidden in Atlantis. A man who will stop at nothing, even murder, to fulfill his egotistical dreams.

***I had a really hard time getting into this book. It eventually picked up, but never really was "can't put it down" good. And I don't agree with some of the review on the cover... There were a lot of things I found to be fake about this book, and I felt that the author included a lot of superfluous details (like the food they ate -- and I'm a foodie, so that's saying something that I thought it was rather pointless to include). This was another of those books I put on my to-read list when I worked in a library and came across it during work. Years later, I finally crossed it off my list. And it's definitely one I'd have stopped reading if I was smart enough to stop reading books that don't grab my interest... ;).

The Adoration of Jenna Fox --

When 17-year old Jenna Fox awakens from her 18-month coma, her memory is broken. She can't remember so much of her past, and it disturbs her. What she knows is that she no longer lives in Boston, but now resides with her mother, grandmother, and sometimes her father, in California. She knows she doesn't have friends now. She knows she was in an accident, but she cannot speak of it. And with the help of the videos of Jenna's pre-accident life, which her parents encourage her to watch, Jenna comes to know how very adored she was.

And her memories start to return. Memories she shouldn't be able to remember -- like the time she almost drowned as a toddler, or when she was baptized as an infant. As more memories surface, Jenna starts to realize she is a different Jenna than she was before. Different in ways that aren't legal. Different in ways that may even be highly unethical. But she's still Jenna Fox, right?

Burdened with her newly discovered secrets and all the new questions those secrets raise, Jenna tries to figure out who she is now. A monster? A human? A soul? And what will she do if someone finds out her secret?


***This was an interesting read, particularly in light of today's focus on genetically modified foods and what technology can allow us to do medically. Definitely had me thinking about things. I can't say it was a page-turner, but definitely a worthwhile read.

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.         

This World We Live In -- Susan Beth Pfeffer

It is April, almost a year since the asteroid struck the moon. Though she had stopped writing in her journal for a while, 16 year old Miranda Evans decides to resume her journaling and describes the goings-on of her family in this world they now live in. For the most part, things remain as they were before: rare moments of electricity, weekly food deliveries, and dark, ash-laden skies.

But soon things start to change. Rain begins to fall, and Matt and Jon, Miranda's brothers, bike ride to the river in hopes of catching the fish that should be running. They return with garbage bags full of fish... But they also bring along Syl, a woman they met in a motel and whom Matt has "married." While the family strives to adjust to its new dynamic, tensions start to rise and only become worse when Miranda's father, his new wife and their infant son, and three strangers (including Alex and Julie Morales) show up. With the food they had already being stretched thin and now being stretched thinner, tempers flare and the definition of family becomes re-defined.

Before long, Miranda and Alex develop feelings for each other as they pilfer houses together in search of food and other items for survival. But Alex plans to leave again with Julie, feeling it is wrong of them to accept the charity of others when they can not repay it. Yet each attempt to leave is thwarted, and Alex and Julie find themselves with the Evans family longer than anticipated. When plans are finally set with a hopeful future for several members of the group, a tornado strikes and, once again, life changes for everyone.

Pretties -- Scott Westerfeld

Having returned to New Pretty Town to become pretty and test the cure the New Smokies have found for being pretty-minded, Tally finds all her former dreams coming true by being turned pretty. She lives a life of constant parties and constant fun, and her biggest concern is whether or not she will be admitted into the "coolest" pretty clique known as the Crims.

But then she sees an ugly face from the past -- one of the Smokies -- and her memories from her time in the Smoke return unbidden and unwelcomed. With the help of Zane, the leader of the Crims, she finds the cure left hidden for her by the Smokie, and together she and Zane ingest half of the cure, determined to face a return to non-pretty minds together if the cure works; or to die together if it doesn't.

But as Tally now remembers, the Specials don't look favorably on the non-pretty-minded who do not conform to the standards of the city. And now she and Zane must pretend to be what they no longer are in order to buy enough time to escape New Pretty Town for good.

Uglies -- Scott Westerfeld

Everyone wants to be pretty. And in Tally's society, everyone gets to be. At age 16, everyone in Uglyville undergoes a surgery to turn them pretty -- a term defined over years and by determining the "ideal" look -- and they move into New Pretty Town where life is one big party. Nobody in New Pretty Town is jealous of anyone else, because everyone is pretty and nobody is ugly. And Tally can't wait to be turned pretty and make her move into New Pretty Town where she can join her best friend Peris who turned 16 a few months before she did. But then Tally meets Shay -- another Ugly who shares her same birthday. And Shay doesn't want to be pretty. Shay wants to be herself. And Shay wants to escape to the place called The Smoke, the place of legend where Uglies have run to in order to avoid the surgery to become pretty and where no one is "ugly" because no one is "pretty". When Shay leaves and invites Tally to join her, Tally is confused and frustrated that her new best friend wouldn't want to become pretty, and Tally turns her down. As Tally counts down the few remaining days toward becoming pretty, she misses Shay and their adventures, but she eagerly awaits her reunion with the now-Pretty Peris.

Tally's 16th birthday, which should have brought the coveted surgery, instead brings a thing of dread. Tally is transported to Special Circumstances and given her worst fate: a lifetime of ugly if she doesn't travel to The Smoke and betray Shay. With her life-long dream on the line, Tally determines to bring Shay back to Uglyville so that she can be turned pretty, but when she reaches The Smoke, she learns that her whole life back in the city has been full of half-truths and deceit. And she learns horrible truths about what all the surgery entails, and what all is changed on the people who become pretty. And she no longer knows if she wants to become pretty, because with the help of her new friend David, she realizes that, maybe, she already is.

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.