[littlemissattitude]

I think it all depends on which sequels you are considering, Brian. There are actually two threads of sequels that branch off from "Ender's Game". One thread consists of the follow-ups to Ender's story. Because Ender never goes back to earth, but ends up travelling the universe using faster-than-light travel, this thread covers millennia in earth time in several locations. The other thread is the alternate "Bean" series, which begins with "Ender's Shadow", which tells essentially the same story as "Ender's Game", only from the perspective of Bean, a character who shows up partway through "Ender's Game". After that, the "Bean" series tells a different story, that of Earth in the years after the final victory that is shown in "Ender's Shadow".

I have read all of these books, and I found the Ender thread of sequels much more satisfying than the "Bean" sequels, although with the exception of the most recent "Bean" book ("Shadow Puppets", which seemed to be quite superficial) I did enjoy them.

The original sequels, the books that follow Ender, are "Speaker for the Dead", "Xenocide", and "Children of the Mind". As far as I am concerned, these books have much more substance to them than the "Bean" sequels. They are not concerned with the immediate aftermath of the war, but set Ender on a path to redeem himself from his near-destruction of an entire race - something he has taken blame for back on Earth, partly through something Ender himself wrote that brought a more complete understanding of the enemy aliens to the people of Earth - and something he blames himself for. I won't go into detail here, as I wouldn't want to spoil those books for anyone who might still read them. I will say that Ender's story functions in these sequels as more of a background in front of which other stories of other colonists and other alien groups are told rather than as the main focus of the story.

I doubt that you would much like the "Bean" sequels, Brian, based on how you feel about "Ender's Game". They are much more similar to the first book than are the original sequels to that book, and much more of a cynical attempt to cash in on the franchise. However, I think you might like the original sequels more. According to Card, based on author's notes of his that I've read, "Ender's Game" was sort of a preface to allow the telling of the stories in the original sequels, which are much more philsophical in nature than the original novel or the "Bean" sequels.