We are in the book review section, and this one is my all time favorite. Fiction, not spiritual in nature, but extremely well written and inspiring. Plus it was a New York Times best seller. It's an easy read and very entertaining.
I love the idea of philotes, which, if you read the rest of the series become extremly important. The rest of the Ender series is excellent as well, but not as action packed. Card makes beautiful use of moral delimas in his novel to creat suspense. Sometimes they become slow, but still very enlightening.
I agree, I think Jane is one of the greatest characters ever thought up. I have read a few of the others as well, and the only ones I really like have Ender in them, like "Speaker for the Dead" and "Children of the Mind". Thought the political aspect of the others involving Peter or Bean were kind of boring.
I haven't read any of the Enders Shadow novels, but I think just for fun I will one day. Also, have you ever heard the Advent Rising story that Card was wokring on? It was originally a script written by him for a video game (a very good one at that which I love to play) which I believe was turned into a comic book series, but I'm not sure...
Ender's Game is one of my all-time favorites. I've read it more times than any other book. The first book in the Ender's Shadow is pretty good, but man, did they get boring after that. Even though Card is one of my favorite authors, he hasn't impressed me much in the last few years. Except "Magic Street" - that one was kind of fun.
Certainly Ender's game was his finest. The Advent Rising story had an incredibly epic feel to it, and its a shame he never really took it anywhere.