Writing sequels to critically acclaimed masterpieces can be an awfully difficult task. However, Orson Scott Card, the author of the Ender’s Game series, has taken on the challenge time and time again.
Xenocide is a 1991 science fiction novel which delves deep into the philosophies of life and what classifies something as alive. It is the third book in the “Ender’s Game Chronicles” and is the direct sequel to Speaker for the Dead.
Speaker for the Dead was released in 1986 and was critically acclaimed, winning a Nebula and a Hugo award for best novel of the year. It takes place thousands of years in the future where humans have long become an interplanetary race. The book chooses to mainly focus on the planet of Lusitania where a sentient race of aliens has been found.
Though a fantastical and outlandish premise, Speaker for the Dead transcends the title of a simple science fiction book and tells a profound message of empathy. It beautifully illustrates the significance of seeing people through all of their actions instead of handpicking the solely bad or solely good ones. The novel manages to do this all while still maintaining a high stakes sci-fi plot which one could expect from other books of the genre.
Xenocide follows this up with a more slow-paced story and gives a more philosophical approach to the life that lives on Lusitania, human or alien. So far in my reading of the novel, it has explored themes of coming to terms with life far different from our own along with the theme of questioning our faith in the beliefs thrust upon us.
In the story, the humans living on Lusitania have committed crimes in interfering too heavily in the lives of the native species. The Starways congress, the controllers of all space travel, have sent a fleet of military ships to destroy the planet, essentially committing what would be an alien genocide (a xenocide). As the colony of Lusitania races to find a solution, they also have to find a way to control the deadly disease known as the “Descolada” from ending all human life on the planet.
From what I’ve read so far, I can tell that Xenocide has a powerful message to tell. It’s set-up characters and high stakes certainly have a lot of potential in displaying the themes of the book. However, it takes a long and boring way to get there.
A small contribution to this is the fact the mystery element is completely removed from Xenocide seeing as all the biggest questions were answered in Speaker for the Dead. This made it hard to get immediately interested to keep reading.
Another big reason for the boring start is the fact that the first quarter of the book is spent away from the main cast of characters and decides to focus on a new main character. However, though this might seem interesting at first, it is really hard to get invested in their story while the high-stake situation takes place with the main cast.
This above all else made Xenocide such a hard book to pick up and read when I knew that I would be reading stuff I had no interest in. While Speaker for the Dead is a fast-paced rollercoaster, Xenocide’s beginning is a slow and uneventful slog to get through. If the book was simply structured a little differently, it would most likely be much more enjoyable to read. Once the main plot finally picks up, however, it becomes a fun and interesting sci-fi book, even if it isn’t as good as Speaker for the Dead. The characters especially have such great relationships and dynamics with each other which is such a joy to read.
Overall, Xenocide is a good novel that has a lot to tell. It continues a creative and well written story with well written characters despite struggling to be super captivating at certain points. From what I’ve read so far, I can confidently say that it is a 3.5/5. I assume that my rating will go up once I’ve finished reading it. As of now, however, it is certainly not one of my favorites and definitely does not compare to the masterpiece that is Speaker for the Dead.
Comments