Roy Tang

The biggest jump is between Ender’s Game and Speaker of the Dead, not only in terms of time (since Speaker takes place way in the future where only Ender and Val are carried over from Ender’s Game’s cast), but also in terms of story style.

I would recommend reading first Ender’s Game, then Ender’s Shadow. After that, decide whether you want to follow Ender branch (this is far future space exploration, dealing with aliens stuff) or Bean branch (this is more of post-Ender’s Game earth politics/warfare)… I would guess that if you liked the battle school aspect of Ender’s Game with the kids being all smart and tactical, you would prefer Bean branch first. if you prefer the sci-fi aspect of it all, then you would probably prefer the Ender branch.

Ender branch is (in order of the story timeline): Ender’s Game -> Ender in Exile -> Speaker for the Dead -> Xenocide -> Children of the Mind

Bean branch is Ender’s Shadow -> Shadow of the Hegemon -> Shadow Puppets -> Shadow of the Giant -> Shadows in Flight