Xenocide is the third novel in the Ender's Game series of books by Orson Scott Card. It was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards for Best Novel in 1992. The title is a combination of 'xeno-', meaning alien, and '-cide', referring to the act of killing; altogether referring to the act of selectively killing aliens. The plot alternates between characters on two planets: Path and Lusitania. Lusitania is an alien planet home to a curious species known as the piggies. Following the events of Speaker for the Dead, we find a story of another set of characters living as a member of a... Brazilian Catholic human colony on Lusitania, a unique planet inhabited by the only other two known species of sentient alien life: the Pequeninos "little ones" and the Hive Queen. The pequeninos are native to the planet, while the Hive Queen was transplanted to this world by Ender, partly in penance for his near-total destruction of her Formic species in Ender's Game. Unfortunately, the Lusitanian ecosystem is pervaded by a complex virus, dubbed 'Descolada' by humans. The Descolada breaks apart and rearranges the basic genetic structure of living cells.
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| Author: | Orson Scott Card |
| Genre: | Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Speculative fiction |
| Year published: | 1991 |
| Number of editions: | 19 |