This is the worst piece of trash I have ever read. Mr. Card needs medical attention stat. Don't buy this book...it's a waste of your money!

I read "Ender's Game" ages ago, so when I saw this at the library, I thought, "Why, not? Let's read it."
If you're a hard-core Ender fan then this will be a fun book for you. It fills in story-line gaps from the last couple of chapters of Ender's Game to the other Ender books. It gives interesting background on why the people and things turned out as they did.
On the other hand, if you really liked Ender's Game and are expecting another story like it, you'll be disappointed. There are a couple of gems (like the bug that eats rock and refines gold), but most of the book is rather boring.

It's times like this when I wonder if fellow reviewes are being serious- this book is pretty awful, and from a very objective standpoint. The argument against, to me, mostly boils down to Card writing in too much of his own beliefs and trampling any chance of a story ever happening in the process.

First off, the problems with exposition. In many places in the book, Card just spells out what he wants to get at rather than writing his ideas into a story. One character will turn to another, and just say in explicit terms exactly how they feel about any given situation, rather than Card bothering to actually write any of that into a story. Ender and his siblings, his father, Graff, and others all just turn to other characters and spell out the plot point-by-point. Card even breaks any attempt at a solid narrative just for characterizations, sometimes styling what is ostensibly the silent narrator's prose to be like that of the character so it seems to come from their voice and not his. He does this early on with the character Alessandra, for example. From the non-quoted text, "There was no chance that an unstable, irresponsible- no, pardon me, I mean "feckless and fey" person like Mother...". This would at best be an unwarranted shift between first- and third-person if it happened in a vacuum, but it leads into the second point...

Card's self-insertion. His obsession with the Portuguese language is less strong than it was in the latter part of the Ender series, which is very refreshing, but it pops up again here and there. Bits of Portuguese even started popping up toward the end of the parallel-running Bean saga. If you didn't know, Card spent time as a missionary in Brazil, and takes plenty of opportunity to write Brazil and the Portuguese language into this series. Even with this toned town, there's still too much of Card happening here. One example is a scene when two scientists casually state that monogamy is clearly the best way to raise children, and that this has been proven countless times. This is immediately backed up by the goodness of democracy- not only is monogamy scientific, but it was voted on. Why, monogomy must be right if it's both scientific and democratic! For those who don't know, Card has been a major mind on the front to "protect the sanctity of marriage" (ie: by denying gay marriage), and has written at length about the topic in a number of mediums, using very similar arguments, and the entire debate about monogamy is a sham to talk about the sanctity of marriage.

So in the end, you're left with the classic case of a sequel that's only worth the random errata it adds to the series. And even this is riddled problems. At some point, Card forgot critical points of what he wrote about the series, was perhaps too bothered to go back and read the books, and had to openly ask fans to fill him in. In his own words, from the Afterword, "I can't trust my memory about details in Ender's Game and the Shadow books". This has prompted some outraged fans to wonder if Card had a ghost writer help him with the original books, though I'd say that's taking it a bit too far. Card has been gracious enough to say that he's resolved these plot holes by rewriting Ender's Game, for an edition to be re-released at some point in the future. I wish I had this power over my own life. You might call this the "George Lucas" approach.

If you're new to the series, you should be starting with Ender's Game anyway, and personally I'd skip Ender in Exile entirely and just read the Bean ("Ender's Shadow") series to get the rest of the story. There's another book due in that line, "Shadows in Flight", that might hopefully provide a better resolution to the overall arc. If you've come this far into the series, reading the entire Ender saga and perhaps Bean's as well, you're probably going to read this book regardless of reviews. I only ask that you consider checking it out from a library, as it's an only passable read that you'll have to go through to dig out the answers you've always wanted regarding this chapter of Ender's life, and you might be glad to return it when you've gotten your fill, considering you'll have to repurchase Ender's game at some point to round things out if you continue on that path.

After finishing Ender's Game, a commenter informed me that the next book in the series, chronologically, was Ender in Exile. Thankfully, I did not read any of the other books in the series, and this one was read within a few months of finishing Ender's Game.

Andrew "Ender" Wiggins has led the Earth's forces to victory over the formics. Now, as his friends leave Battle School for Earth and the soldiers populate the former worlds of the formics, Ender finds himself in an interesting position - he can't go home to Earth. America wants him to lead their armies and other factions want to assassinate him. Further, if he did go back to Earth, what would he do? His experiences in Battle School aren't easily transferable to civilian life. Ender is given a position of Governor of one of the new colonies, and starts a life of travel to the many worlds that are now being inhabited by humans. However, this allows Ender to learn more about the species that he wiped out, which weighs heavily on his mind.

Reading this book shortly after finishing Ender's Game increased the enjoyment. It is a an excellent sequel, as it shows the ramifications of war from several viewpoints; Ender, who is trying to live with what he has done, the soldiers, who are trying to find a "normal" life as settlers, and Ender's superiors, who attempt to live in a time without intergalactic war. I think that Card has done an excellent job of describing the issues facing every warrior, but does not focus only on one character. Most of the major characters from Ender's Game are in this novel, or their lives after Battle School are described. While there are more entries in this series, Card does an excellent job by resolving some major issues from Ender's Game; Ender's relationship with his parents, Peter's rise to power, and Valentine's need to be with Ender. Card's Afterword is a very good explanation of his motivation for this book and also to tell faithful readers of coming changes in his other books. While it may be seen as "revisionist," Card does the reader a huge favor by creating a better flow within the Ender series as well as resolving some of the contradictions between the novels. Overall, a very satisfying novel.

While a decent read, the book seemed mostly filler material and background on what Ender was doing during the events of the Shadow Puppets series. As it turns out, he was not doing a whole ton. There is one semi sort of revelation towards the end, but again, it was not something that was know known from prior books. But mostly Ender is playing a rather pathetic colonist ship captain with delusions of grandeur like a fish on a line. Two fairly lightly written female characters round out the conflict plot line which more or less resolves itself by just fizzling out like a wet fuse. Ender's sister Valentine pops up throughout the storyline, but is relegated to the role of passive observer.