content: This was my least favorite Orson Scott Card book to date, by far. I've read all the Ender's Series, the Shadow series up to the end of Shadow Puppets, and the Empire series.I could barely finish this book; it grated me. If it were a movie, only 40 minutes of 4 hours was any good. The only reason I finished it was b/c it's essential to understand the next book in the series.-Finished on 2012-08-27 (116,804 words in 7 days; 16,686 wpd).