Djuna's Reviews > Children of the Mind

These books are a great combo of sci-fi and philosophy, but I feel like the Ender series begins with the best book and then they gradually lose appeal. The first book in the series was skillfully crafted to weave complex strategy lessons for a child, and I was very pleased with how clever the author was, with only a few areas that were a bit heavy-handed. The subsequent books got a bit more convoluted, and lost some of the brilliance. It seemed like Card spent most of his effort on coming up with the species and characters and fascinating theories, but not as much on the plot twists and fine detail as he did with the first book. I still enjoyed them, but I can imagine some people would rather stick with the first book and not read further.