The concepts are interesting enough, and I think it challenges a lot of ideas about religion, interracial tolerance, etc., but I felt it was too bloated.
For, I'd say, about 70% of the book, it's just people around a table talking about doing things, but not doing them. Not a literal table, but you know, in one chapter so and so are talking about a particular issue and how to try to resolve it. Then next chapter it's another pair of characters talking about basically the same issue but from a different point of view, and how to make it better. It's just a lot of talking about {what I think is} pretend science that nobody but the author understands. {then again, I'm not a scientist and I don't understand real science anyway, but when talking about pretend viruses and space travel, I have to assume the science isn't real}.

Yeah, I think I will be stopping here. Not a good look when every book after the first one gets more boring.

"Speaker for the Dead" was so good and so different from "Ender's Game" that I had to read this back-to-back with it. Also had to wonder how different was this going to be from its predecessor. Well, not much in this case. It continues the adventures of the fabulous alien species introduced previously, and the interactions between them and humans, but also brings to life new characters (mostly of Eastern Asian origins). These new characters are simply stunning! Add a very cool AI, some starships, and a life-threatening / life-giving virus to the mix, together with Card's beautiful style and you get the perfect science fiction novel. Will end kinda abruptly, leaving some threads to be continued in the next book, "Children of the Mind".

Re-read update 2023:
Yeap, still as good the second time around!

So the first half of this book was pretty entertaining. I was enjoying the tension in the characters and plot, but in the second half I was just so over everything. All the philosophical threads were talked to death and I was so bored with it by the end. I want to know how they were going to solve the problem rather than talking about random and very obscure ideas. Also I was confused by the ending. I'm not sure if they solved all of the problems introduced in this book and it left me hanging. I understand now that Book 4 is really Xenocide part 2 so that's good to know. Hopefully I'll get some answers there.

Another peeve I had with this book was the character Gloriously Bright. She made me so angry!! I loved her secret maid who's name I have no idea how to spell because audiobook.

9/10. Media de los 43 libros leídos del autor : 8/10

43 obras que me he leído de Card y media de 8/10. Tela. Creo que eso lo dice todo, y liarme a hacer alabanzas de este autor es superfluo. Además "El juego de Ender" fue la primera novela que leí suya y caí enamorado.
Le he puesto nada menos que 10/10 a siete de sus novelas y 9/10 a otras ocho. Casi merece más la pena decir cuales de esas 43 suspenden; solo hay dos: Ruinas (Pathfinder#2) y Esperanza del venado.
Además solo otras 5 se llevarían tres estrellas. El resto, 4 o 5.
Un crack,vamos.

A weak 4* but deserves more than 3*. There were several disappointments in this book, but the main one is that so much of the book was spent on detailing the OCD actions of the 'godspoken', that the author decided to write a part 2 Children of the Mind rather than dealing now with resolving the problems of Jane's survival and the splintering of Ender's adopted family - in fact, those problems just kept getting bigger! And I'm not sure i'm optimistic enough to want to read the 4th book of what should have been a trilogy.

I was mostly enjoying this one, until a plot turn 60 pages of the end really ruined the book for me.

Xenocide almost completes the Ender saga, and what a thoughtful and powerful book it is. 5 Stars. Card tackles some big themes and questions here. (This is not a standalone book, you have to read Speaker for the Dead to really understand this book.) Card does not do space battles in the book although a fleet has been sent from “The Hundred Worlds” to destroy Lusitania with the “Little Doctor” weapon first used in Ender's Game. Valentine, along with her family, is on her way to Lusitania to reunite with Ender. The Hive Queen has been set free on Lusitania and is building spaceships for her survival, as well as spaceships for the pequeninos so they may spread in space. Ender, the humans and the pequeninos are desperately trying to find a way to prevent the descolada virus from killing the humans. Ender’s adoptive family—he married Novinha—is key to the survival yet they are tearing each other and the world apart. We are introduced to a colony world where a superintelligent girl is enlisted to find out what happened to the mysteriously missing fleet. Three intelligent species, two of which are facing “Xenocide” if the fleet arrives and destroys the planet, set the stage for some really interesting ethical dilemmas.

Religion: the Lusitania colony is Catholic and has converted many of the pequeninos. What happens when the church’s doctrine is interpreted in favor of the pequeninos over the humans is fascinating. The potential of organized religion to do good or evil is dealt with masterfully in the book. A gut-wrenching series of events happen between the humans and the pequeninos.

The meaning of courage is a central organizing theme throughout the book. Many characters are faced with choices that reveal heroism among cultures, races, aliens and other populations.

What actions are allowable if you face extinction? What if your enemy is intelligent and, possibly, able to be persuaded to not destroy you? What if your enemy is merciless and implacable? How do you deal with a stranger?

What is free will? If we don’t have free will, how should we act? Where does intelligence or a “soul” come from? How do our genes drive our behavior? How does civilization temper our primordial impulses?
How do you handle good people who believe in and enable bad things to happen? What about bad people who do good things?

This book is so much more than just a SciFi tale. The characters are vivid and you will be drawn into their lives. At the end of the book, some characters appear that will take you by surprise and I will have to go on to Children of the Mind of to see what happens.

My worst Orson Scott Card experience so far. The book just drags on and on without the plot moving forward, Card indulges in endless semi-philosophical internal monologues, and many of the characters (esp. the host on Lusitania) are nothing more than stereotypes. The dialogue is over large stretches longish and a bit construed, and more like trench warfare in that nobody changes their point of view during the discussion, which is quite testing in the long run. And Scott tops it off with a deus ex machina in the end.

It's a real shame, since: the problem the characters have to cope with is laid out quite well; there is, as usual with Card, moral dilemma abound and no clear solutions; the Asian planet with its crazy faith is a beautiful idea---on a sidenote: I will never understand how someone can write so lucidly about how religion in general works, and how absurd it is, yet himself be such an unwavering believer---; and with the resurrected Hive Queen and Starways Congress/their fleet, Card brings in powerful new players into the picture. But it just doesn't fly, not for me it doesn't.

After thirty years, Valentine and her family arrived in Lusitania. But instead of expecting a happy reunion with her long-time-no-see brother, she gets a depressing reunion with a problem she once set aside.

The Lusitania hasn’t yet resolved the problem of killing descolada. It’s still undecided if it’s a raman or a varelse.

At the same time, the Lusitania fleet is coming and every species in Lusitania is preparing for it.

A planet has dwelled by people who are genetically altered by Starways Congress.

Among the problem rising, Ender should choose which he must resolve first regardless of the problem of imminent death of Jane.

The concept of the last two books was different from each other. Thus it is not shocking to know that this book has a different shift of aspect from the previous books. Unfortunately, Card wasn’t able to make up or to elevate what the two previous books have achieved. Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead won the Nebula and Hugo Award. Though this book has been nominated, yet the fact that it hadn’t won the title shows how this book declined from readers’ interest.

The story in Xenocide has been dominated by studies of DNA. If Card had just focused on DNA, this could have been better. But because this book is a sequel of a sci-fi book, the sci-fi-ty of the Ender’s Game and Speaker for the dead had been dragged into this book. And it caused complexity and complications into the stories. The science terms and theories that Card made up weren’t able to stand perfectly. Furthermore, it deepens into reasons that are hardly understandable. A perfect example of biopunk.

When Card introduced Lusitania in his Speaker, he did somehow give a sense on why should they be introduced. But when Card did the same introduction in this book with People of Path, the world becomes complex and confusing. A complete failure. It’s also undeniable that his characters in the last books were likable but reading this one, Card made sure that some characters here are meant to be dislikable. The reader may burst into tears but mostly erupts into anger.

The twist Card made at the near end was intended for the story to be more interesting. Unfortunately, it leaves the readers disgusted.

I rate this book not through how I feel on this book but how this book evoked my loath and disgust.

Part 3 of the Ender series, and last of the trilogy, Xenocide displays all the classic symptoms of a trilogy going bad - the good plotlines and ideas have been used up, and the loose ends remaining are so complex now after remaining unresolved over the last 2 books that it would take a miracle to clear them up.
In a sinse, that's exactly what Orson Scott Card serves up - a straight-up miracle. There is a backstory and the reasoning for how it would work - but it's too rushed for something of this magnitude, and then you're also stuck with the aftereffects of 'nuking a city to kill a man' - you now possess something so ridiculously powerful it has the potential to change and wipe every plotline and story arc so far. Worse, it smacks of creationism.
The characters were... unlikable. They felt like a tv soap. Too many, too confused, too... same.
[SPOILERS]
There were some interesting ideas - the descolada as an engineered terraforming tool inadvertently turned into a superweapon, or even as a god; Jane's transcendence of reality; a planetful of controlled superintelligences (though I'm not very sure exactly how they were used); the Hive Queen's philosophy a struggle to reestablish her species in the galaxy; Warmaker and the changing pequenino society... all good stories, but poorly told by the human characters telling them.

I was throughly enjoying enders story, until i got to this book. I was really into the story and the characters and all that but then i came to the end of this story. Spoiler alert: all of a sudden, its like the writer hit a wall and just thought, oh- i know, i will just make up this completely ridiculous outside place to literally create new characters for me so i can keep writing. And thats what he did. I know this book is fiction and set in the future but that is far too unbelievable for me, you need to keep a bit of reality in there, it literally ruined the whole story for me. As soon as they went to the outside place, the disabled boy thought his body back to new and it came true and ender thought about his brother, now dead for about 3000 years and his sister, who was an old lady waiting for him to get back from the outside place and the both of them in the prime of youth turned up. Absolutley ridiculous! Conveniently these are the main characters of his next book. As soon as i realised this wasn't some ridiculous dream ender was having i literally stopped reading the book near the end and haven't picked up another book to do with the enderverse. Thats a first for me with a book.