102. Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card (Science fiction) 358 p.

Sadly, Children of the Mind is the conclusion of the Ender quartet. Although OSC has two new Enderverse books planned (one of which, Ender in Exile, is due to be released on November 11), they are both set earlier in the timeline.

Card originally conceived of the stories told in Xenocide and Children of the Mind as one book, but realized that there was too much going on for just one novel (much as he did with Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets.) Writing two novels instead of one was undoubtedly the best option (and I’m not just saying that because I think two Card novels are better than one!), but it meant that the conlusion of Xenocide was a little weak, because the true resolution of the threads started there had to wait for the end of Children of the Mind. And not just plot threads–a lot of character development hadn’t reached a good stopping place by the end of Xenocide, by which I mean that a lot of annoying characters were running around unchecked.

As I said, Children of the Mind is not so much a sequel as a continuation of Xenocide, and any summary of its events will necessarily contain spoilers for that novel. I did like it much better than Xenocide, not so much because it was a superior novel, but because for the most, none of the characters got on my nerves. It was a much less frustrating read.

Now that I’ve finished both the Bean quartet and the Ender quartet, I’m not really sure which I liked better. The Bean books had more action and more sweeping consequences, while the Ender books felt quieter, more thoughtful, more focused on ideas and discovery. Children of the Mind definitely has a lot of ideas to chew over; even the ones I don’t agree with are interesting to think about.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Pages read: ?

Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Ender quartet, Enderverse, Orson Scott Card