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.

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

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.