Children of the Mind

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir, John Rubinstein

Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: the Pequeninos, a large colony of humans, and the Hive Queen, who was brought there by Ender Wiggin. But now, once again, the human race has grown fearful; the Starways Congress has gathered a fleet to destroy Lusitania. Ender's oldest friend, Jane, an evolved computer intelligence, can save the three sentient species of Lusitania. She has learned how to move ships outside the universe, and then instantly back to a different world, abolishing the light-speed limit. But it takes all the processing power available to her, and the Starways Congress is shutting down the network of computers in which she lives, world by world.

Soon Jane will not be able to move the ships. Ender's children must save her if they are to save themselves.

Children of the Mind is the fourth book in Orson Scott Card's The Ender Saga.

Browse more titles in the Ender Wiggin series.

©1996 Orson Scott Card (P)2004 Audio Renaissance

Critic reviews

"This is a worthy ending to what might be styled a saga of the ethical evolution of humanity, a concept seldom attempted before and never realized with the success Card achieves here." (Booklist)

"Card's prose is powerful." (Publishers Weekly)

A splash of Fantasy and Expanded Locations

Don't stop now this one's more fun than the last book and let's you enjoy new fantasy worlds and concepts. But the change to Peter's voice is odd, from a sharp razor to a walking stick a bit too dull compared to earlier book readings of his lines.

Weakish finish to a powerhouse series

This was easily the weakest entry the series. There were a lot of plot holes and the story straight up lagged through the middle. I understand that Card wanted to have a conversation about self, but he through logic and believability out the window to get there... Which resulted in this "if we want something to happen it will just magically happen" feeling to finally get to the conclusion. Still, a lot of interesting philosophical conversations and worth reading to conclude the series- even if he did wrap it up a little too fairy-tale-esk in my opinion.

Performances were all good aside from the constant switching that was jarring in parts. Same as in xenecide's recording- the broken English Asian accents are CRINGY AND RACIST... No thank you.

Fantastic journeys

Love love love the whole series this is a must listen to… you will not be disappointed

Great Story, some word salad

I loved this whole Ender series. What an incredible journey.
The only criticism is the lengthy pontification at times. Some of it was insightful, much of it was just blathering on like an overlong freshman essay on philosophy or comparative religion.
But overall it was a spectacular journey and highly recommended.

Eh... My least favorite OSC novel so far

This was a struggle. Not a bad read, but hard to stay engaged. The narrators in this series are excellent, but their pacing varies widely. While in keeping with the character profiles, the slow-read characters tend to bog bog things down. Adjusting playback speed would be effective, if not for the fast-talking characters becoming chipmunks.
Also some of the plot convolusions seemed a bit too arbitrary.
Still, the story was a fitting penultimate conclusion to the Ender series.

Favorite book of the series!

This book and this audio book in particular is my absolute favorite book by Orson Scott Card! Just buy and listen to it!
You will be glad you did!
I’m on my 3rd listen… in about 3 years.

Made me rethink space travel and reality.

It is so well written in the end your brain hurts some with how much he downloads into your head but when it finally makes sense they attempt the idea and it works. Makes you believe your actually in the book.

A Masterwork for Card

I have read some of the reviews here so far and I have to assume that they are mostly written by children. Card is one of the premier fiction authors of our age. In a genre such as science fiction, it is not common to find an author who can articulate the human experience while developing unique, interesting speculations on science and philosophy. In all of Card's works, he breathes life into the characters and creates palpable tension throughout the story. The acid test is this: do you care about the characters and find what they are doing relevant? There is no doubt that Card can pull this off with aplomb and style.

A little better, but still far too long

After a steady decline in quality from the masterpiece that is Ender's Game, to Speaker for the Dead, to Xenocide, Children of the Mind brings the level back up a bit after hitting rock bottom with Xenocide.

While the story is a little better, it still has the same problems. It is far too long, the characters, other than Ender, are extremely annoying and poorly developed, and the female readers of this audio book are the same.

I'll simply reprint my quote regarding the female readers in Xenocide:

The female readers are atrocious. The same whiney melodramatic voice reads Val, which is only just tolerable as it was in the first two, but now you have the most annoying voice in the history of readings with the "Hive Queen Voice". I would have rather listened to a thousand fingernails run across a chalkboard than listen to one more word from this readers mouth... unbelievable that they didn't change this after hearing the horrible performance in post production.

Good as expected

If you've fallowed the endervers this far, you really should here this one. I'm sure it was Mr. Card meaning, but the further in the endervers I get the more time I spend thinking of the deeper issues of self he raises. This is someing I think only a excelent story that maybe fiction, but contains a grain of real truth can do.