Xenocide is the third novel in the Ender's Game series

Ender's Game series

The Ender's Game series is a series of science fiction books by Orson Scott Card. The series started with the novelette "Ender's Game", which was later expanded into the novel Ender's Game. It currently consists of eleven novels and ten short stories...

 of books by Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...

. It was nominated for both the Hugo

Hugo Award

The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...

 and Locus Awards for Best Novel

Locus Award for Best Novel

Winners of the Locus Award for Best Novel, awarded by Locus magazine. Awards presented in a given year are for works published in the previous calendar year....

 in 1992. The title is a combination of 'xeno-', meaning alien, and '-cide', referring to the act of killing; altogether referring to the act of selectively killing alien

Extraterrestrial life

Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...

s.
The plot alternates between characters on two planets: Path and Lusitania. Lusitania is an alien planet home to a curious species known as the piggies.
Following the events of Speaker for the Dead

Speaker for the Dead

Speaker for the Dead is a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card and an indirect sequel to the novel Ender's Game. This book takes place around the year 5270, some 3,000 years after the events in Ender's Game...

, we find a story of another set of characters living as a member of a Brazilian Catholic human colony on Lusitania, a unique planet inhabited by the only other two known species of sentient alien life: the Pequeninos

Pequeninos

The Pequeninos , or piggies, are a fictional alien species in the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card. They are first introduced in the book Speaker for the Dead. The Pequeninos are written as forest-dwelling and technologically primitive, but incredibly intelligent, able to learn languages...

 "little ones" and the Hive Queen

The Hive Queen (Ender's Game)

The Hive Queen is a fictional character, the central consciousness and physical embodiment of the group mind the Formics from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series....

.