Ender's Game is a good kid's book.
Speaker for the Dead is an adult followup, and is much better, in my opinion. Xenocide is the somewhat bothersome middle book (I always skip the OCD episodes on re-reads) , and Children of the Mind is the mind blowing conclusion! I absolutely love the Speaker series taken as a whole, and his philotic twining theory has influenced my own view of reality.
Yes, Card always includes some sort of torture of
someone in all his books.
He's not as icky as SM Stirling, but there's always something terrible and painful that happens to
someone in his books. But it's usually soon over. If you just accept that and get on with the story, then you'll have an easier time appreciating the works as a whole which are usually VERY good.
I didn't like the Bean series as well. They were too political.
My other favorites of Card's is "Enchantment" and the Alvin Maker series.
We are listening to the fifth Alvin book right now on our commutes and it's really well done. I've read the books before, of course, but my husband hasn't and he's quite captivated by them.
Card's earlier works are more brutal on the characters and I never have felt the need to re-read any of them.
I'm an occasional visitor to hatrack.com, and sometimes Card talks to fans in the forums.
).
