I prefer this book to the first, more famous one. It's deeper, and more powerful, and doesn't rely on one cheap trick.

Rereading Ender's game six years later, I found it better than I remembered it. Sure, you'll never see the twist coming the way you saw it the first time, and when I read it the first time I didn't know about OSC's personal politics. But regardless: The book sucked me in, dragged me through a story as relentlessly cruel as it was enjoyable, and then spit me out three hours later, not without delivering a last minute kick straight to the feelings.

Xenocide is too long, too full, and starts showing where the series goes wrong. But there's still a whole lot of good in there … somewhere.

Re-reading Ender's Game before reading Ender's Shadow – the book that tells the same story, only from the perspective of Bean – was not the best idea. I think I would have liked this book better if I had had only a hazy memory of Ender's Game.