Taken in Halves

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Initially, I started Children of the Mind directly after finishing Xenocide. Whilst the narrative flow makes sense, the heavy narrative style became tiring. I stopped listening halfway through CotM; as there is much in-depth philosophical musing about the nature of philotes and aiúa's; 'who is who'; how the characters should classify their relationships; soul vs. memory, and genetic codes.

Don't get me wrong- I enjoyed this aspect of the CotM, I love knowing as much as I can about the lore of a universe, but it was a lot of speculation and information, and even though it's told from the view of the characters, they almost faded into the background; facilitating the musings rather than driving the plot.

However, a few months later I have finished CotM and I am enchanted by the Enderverse all over again. The performance by Gabrielle de Cuir and John Rubinstein was stellar (though there was an odd, phonetic pronunciation of the Samoan word: Papāalagi), it was grand to have the same voices throughout the Ender Series. The characters re-engaged and although I missed the usual, central involvement of Andrew, his withdrawal allowed some of the other characters to develop in interesting ways. Andrew was still a central aspect of all of their lives; his actions, morality and legacy were evident to the end.

The final thing that I want to say about Children of the Mind is that even though I needed to split it in two; when I finished the second half I felt somehow more whole.

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the end of the enderverse :(

loved the entire series. this one wasn't up to par and felt like it rushed to the conclusion of the series but I guess everything needs to end at one point or another.

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It just keeps getting better

Orson Scott Card, Please please write the next book. I'm dying to continue this journey

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A good wrap up of Ender's Story

Thoroughly enjoyed the entire series of Ender's story, yet I eagerly anticipate the revelations of the next book! Great performance and overall production!

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Mixed feeling about the story but still recommend

Would you consider the audio edition of Children of the Mind to be better than the print version?

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How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

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What does Gabrielle de Cuir and John Rubinstein bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

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Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

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Any additional comments?

Well, the story has even more schizophrenic lines/thoughts than Xenocide. Sometimes I wanted to fast forward those conversations between Miro and Val because they really did not make sense to me. But who am I to judge, in the end this is me not getting the author's ideas. Still, the story makes sense overall and is thrilling, making you want to keep following it. There's another thing troubling me -- the narration. Since the narrating team had a few men and women wouldn't it make more sense to read in a woman's voice for a woman character and in a man's voice for a man character? I didn't get it at all why while having as team they were splitting the story in a weird way.

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Disappointing

I have enjoyed this series up until this book. Unfortunately the relationship between Jane and Miro was just so uninteresting and a kinda weird male centric fantasy that I couldn’t get into it.

There are some cool ideas in this book but they are on the periphery and the bulk of the book focuses on the dull relationship of an unlikeable dude and a perfect (simple and pretty) woman.

Give it a miss.

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Disappointed.

Any additional comments?

I really, really loved Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead - Speaker for the Dead was so good it got me back into "reading" fiction. I was hoping that after Xenocide (and the complaints about it being full of long, unnecessary discussions on philosophy, and feeling like you're being fed Orson Scott Card's world views) there might be some changes to how the book was presented. Unfortunately, it still seems to have these unnecessary discussions (which, again, feel like you're being fed the author's personal opinions all the time), the 'kinda' racist fake Asian accents, and the stereotyping of different races and religions is also increased (big, fat and loud Samoans, honorable Japanese etc).

I didn't enjoy the last two books, even though I was really hoping to. Characters were made even more annoying, and the plot-line was also hard to follow and seemed a bit... mystical. I don't regret listening to them, but I'm disappointed in them.

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