Recently Read

1. Speaker for the Dead: Orson Scott Card. ****
Second of the Ender series. Ender Wiggin arrives to Lusitania and ends up saving it. This is more of a look into moral issues than sci-fi. Ender has been asked to come up to the planet as a Speaker for the Dead for xenologist named Pipo who was brutally murdered by the alien species Piggies. Ender makes the pact with the piggies not to kill anymore humans. Also he sets up the Hive Queen in Lusitania.

4 stars.

2. Xenocide: Orson Scott Card. **
Third of the Ender Series. This is kind of let down from the previous two books. Again Card dwells into the moral responsibility of the humans. Ender and his gang (actually his family) has to come with a solution to save
- Lusitania - Starways congress has already send a fleet to destroy it
- find a cure for descolada virus which is deadly for humans but the piggies depend on them
- find a cure for the god spoken of the planet Path
- save Jane who lives in ansible networks and the starways congress is about to shutdown the ansible networks.

How does Ender and his family getting things done? It's simple.
I still like Card's writing style but only 2-stars.

3. True Names: Vernor Vinge ****
Collection of 5 stories.
- Bookworm, Run! - A highly intelligent Norman the Ape escapes from the NSA's experiment with lots of secrets. NSAs agents and Russian agents are in his heels.
- True Names - Keep your identity secret or you dead on the cyberspace. Very interesting.
- The Peddlers Apprentice - Jagit the peddler comes out of the cave after ten thousand years. He was expecting the world to go through the cycles of ups and down. But finds that the worlds affairs are mostly controlled by the government. And he meddles with it.
- The Ungoverned. When there is no government how would the people defend themselves when an aggressor comes marching. Another very interesting.
- Long Shot - Humans sends a space shuttle with a highly intelligent program(Ilse) on board to find another livable plant. On it's way to the new planet she observes the huge explosion on the sol sys. But her voyage continues and lands in the planet to her disappointment she forgets the task that supposed to done on the planet. Or does she?

4. Eastern Standard Tribe - Cory Doctorow. ****

Very interesting. Art Berry is User Experience designer works and lives in London. Even though he is in GMT, he is a hard core EST. Accused of being mentally ill, he founds himself in the Boston asylum. Now he has to untangle the web that he is in.