Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Xenocide (Full Analysis)

Xenocide really picked up in the last half.  There were a ton of things going on, but they were clear-cut enough to not get confusing.

Orson Scott Card's philosophical arc raised exponentially over the course of the first three books of the Ender Quartet.  Xenocide almost screamed its themes.  I really liked how it was done, although the endless dialogue was a little risky.  It didn't perturb me as much as it felt it should.  My general rule is no more than five lines of dialogue per character (and a max of twelve or so) before I need to get to the plot-moving description.  (Granted, I'm extremely brief.)

By the end I was perfectly fine with the mix of Chinese and Portugese societies.  I see now that the religious themes worked better from a character on Path than possibly anywhere else.

The oddities of the book started to pack on at the end.  The whole "faster-than-light travel" solution seemed a little like a deus ex machina (especially funny with Jane being said to be possibly a god), yet it was pretty brilliantly done, so I'll let it slide.  The book gets a 4/5.  The Child of the Mind will come eventually.

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