They're really not that good. While his personal beliefs are way way more conservative than his novels, he does keep a pretty good separation.

He really hasn't written anything that good since the late 90s.

The Red v Blue wars in America? Weird. The latter Enderverse novels could have been cranked out by current AI. Treasure Box? Enchantment? Snoozers.

You can actually see the progression in the original Ender quartet, since it spanned pretty much his entire career as a good writer.

"Ender's Game" in '85 and "Speaker for the Dead" in '86 — It's hard to decide which one was more awesome. They're very different, but both are really gripping and create two fascinating worlds. When I read those two books, I thought I had found my favorite author of all time.

"Xenocide" in '91 — Sadly, not as good as the first two, but still a pretty compelling book. Veers a little too close to becoming a paean to the wonders of marriage and fatherhood, but constantly course-corrects and is pretty successful overall.

"Children of the Mind" in '96 — It's a readable novel, but as the conclusion to the previous three books, I couldn't help but ask, "WTF?" It's way too involved in its own ideas to bother with compelling characterization, and it has this weird tunnel vision that essentially reduces all human interaction to marriage, divorce or some analogue for the two.

I read most of the books in the Ender's game series a few years ago, only having read the original before. There was a significant decline in quality in the later books, coinciding with more propaganda.

I really enjoy "The West Wing". Not fond of some of the politics and I regard Martin Sheen as a serious nutcase, but I still like the show. If you don't take the art on it's own terms then you will have to avoid a lot of stuff in this life.