Card picks up the near-future launched in Empire (2006) a few years later, at first in Nigeria, where a 12-year-old monkey-catcher becomes the second victim and first survivor of a new, hypervirulent epidemic. Back in the postûsecond civil war U.S., President Torrent decides to quarantine all Africa and to send Empire's surviving hero's special-ops team to Nigeria to stop its government's genocidal operation against its non-Muslim population, among whom the epidemic started. Before long, and at the conscience-prodding of her 13-year-old son, Empire's nonsurviving hero's widow, a top presidential advisor, is spearheading a voluntary effort to nurse the sick and train caregivers, starting at the plague's ground zero. Such is the setup for an even more potent blend of high-tech military action, imperial politics, conspiracy, and practical philosophizing than Card whipped up in Empire. While the dialogue is often as cornball and Hollywoodish as before (particularly among the soldiers), the adult principals are sturdy, and in the African boy, Chinma, Card gives us a kid hero to rank with his sf immortals, Ender and Bean. Olson, Ray.

From BookList, November 15, 2009, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.