And I've already read all the Bean books. I agree that the Ender books go downhill as they go, though I REALLY enjoyed Speaker for the Dead. Xenocide was when it started slipping, and Children of the Mind so far has just been meh.

The Bean books, on the other hand, I liked all the way through. I still think of Shadows in Flight as being only slightly connected, simply because of the large gap between when I read Shadow of the Giant and Shadows in Flight. On top of that, I feel like I should have read the Ender books before Shadows in Flight, at least, because there's a lot more I'll understand about the buggers now.