Am I the only one who didn't like Speaker for the Dead? To me it felt like a big let down after Ender's Game.

You'll like the "Shadow" books then.

Enders game is a space battle thriller with a great twist.

Speaker is all about what do you consider "human" and what do you consider "alien". It was very mind expanding when I was 14.

The alien-vs-human issue was covered in the beginning setup and then the end of ender's game, when ender realized what he had done. Do you need a whole other book to drive the point home?

I think that is the point--to show that situations that seem like inspiring hero stories from one perspective, are actually more complicated from a broader view.