Xenocide

A science fiction written by Orson Scott Card in 1991
Reviewed edition by TOR from 1992
A paperback has 590 pages
ISBN 0-812-50925-0

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Tied tightly to the previous volume. Stranded on the world of Lusitania, Ender and his friends frantically search for a way to stop the incoming fleet of the Starways Congress starships, bent on destroying the planet lest it infects the other worlds with the deadly descolada virus.

Together with Jane, the cybernetic life form that resides in the ansible network, they manage to cut the contact of the fleet with the Congress. This, however, comes at a price, for the disruption of communication gives the Starways Congress enough data to find out about Jane.

The Starways Congress delegates the investigation of the problem to an elite group of analysts at the world of Path. Bred to serve as a think tank, the analysts are crippled to remain bound to the Starways Congress. Slowly but surely, they are getting nearer the truth, which means that Lusitania is not only racing the onslaught of descolada and the incoming fleet, but also the analysts of Path ...

Review

The core of the story is nice, with the stakes high enough to keep you on the edge. It is, however, mixed with a religious undertone that was gradually growing stronger since the previous volume of the series. I am sad to say that the shift into the religious domain seems to be abused to patch the plot in several places. For one obvious example, take the new method of interstellar travel - while in the first volume, the author tries to provide at least a semblance of a scientific background for his molecular disruptor device and other gadgets, now the interstellar travel is done by just thinking about it hard enough. Overall, this makes the book seem a bit too wild, or imaginative if you will, even by the science fiction standards. Rated a hesitant good, bordering on average.

Rated as good by Ceres on 2000-10-07

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