Xenocide

The third Ender book, and the one that turns the saga into a problem of competing obligations rather than a war story. A human colony on Lusitania shares the planet with an intelligent native species and with a virus that is lethal to humans but is part of that species’ own life cycle; a fleet is on its way with orders to sterilise the planet. Every available solution kills something, and the book spends its length refusing to make the choice easy.

Context: Listed under the a16z Ender’s Saga entry. It is much longer and slower than Ender’s Game, and largely a novel of argument — several species, several religions and one artificial intelligence trying to reason their way out of a trap. a16z’s framing of the sequels is that they cover Ender “living with and making amends for his actions as a soldier.”

Connections

• a16z Infra Reading List — where this is listed, in the top tier.
• Orson Scott Card — the author.
• Ender’s Game — volume one.
• Speaker for the Dead — volume two, already carded.
• Children of the Mind — volume four, which continues the same crisis.
• Ethics — the book is an extended exercise in it.
• Science Fiction — the genre.