Rating: 
Summary: Ender's Game the Sequel
Review: "Speaker for the Dead," the most anticpated second book from Orson Scott Card that follows the Great Ender Wiggin series. I went into the "Speaker for the Dead" looking for starship travel, intergalatic war, and aliens and all I got was a grown up and more serene "Andrew" Wiggin. Don't get me wrong, this book has great writing and a good storyline, but I got the totally wrong picture from just reading the back."Speaker for the Dead" follows the discovery of a new race of aliens in another world about a million years from the killing of all of the Buggers. The first book revolves around Ender Wiggin being a child commander and totally killing off all of the race of alien Buggers and soon finds out everyone misunderstood the Buggers. Now, a million years later, Ender is still alive, due to light speed travel and is in for a whole new challenge. After the colony of Luistania suffers the brutal killing of one of their Xenologers by the alien race deemed the piggies, everyone is in a state of terror. It is up to our friend Ender to travel there and sort out the mess that has erupted before the humans kill all of the piggies in ignorance. The book was a very well written peice of literature, but you know what they say about the sequel not being as good as the first, well it applies here. Orson Scott Card has great imaginative abilities and wonderful setting are displayed, but if you want to look for his better works, look elsewhere. I suggest this book to all science fiction buffs out there, but if not, you will not like it. The characters are strong and symbolic and the plot is alright, but is just doesn't have what it takes. I was originally going to give it 3 stars, but the imagination that went into a work like this was incredible, so I'll give it 4 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Again, Card is magnificent.
Review: Card maintains his throne in the oligarchy of good modern fiction. Speaker for the Dead is a marvelous continuance of Ender's Game. It is gracefully followed by Xenocide, then Children of the Mind (which I'm finishing now).
Card is wonderful both for a great read and for providing true insights on life and living together.
Perhaps what I'd most recommend, however, in Maps in a Mirror: the Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card. The hardback is out of print, but it's being re-released in four softbacks. There are stories are from all genres, and he provides his inspirations and insights for the stories, which is wonderful. Imagine - Card doing horror!
Rating:
Summary: Lusitania: a Brazilian viewpoint
Review: As basically any other Brazilian science fiction reader, I was always curious about Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead", famous in my country as one of the few American scifi books making any reference to the Brazilian culture. My review will focus on this particularity of this book - I think that I have a privileged viewpoint to write about that, and I think that other readers have already commented well enough more universal aspects of the book, like psychological diving and cultural conflicts. Well, overall, I would say that O.S. Card was convincing while creating an extraplanetary colony with Brazilian flavor. In many parts of the book, I felt myself immersed in a small Brazilian countryside town - not exactly my expertise, for I've always lived in major Brazilian cities. And so, in many ways, cultural aspects of the Lusitania colony, like for instance the massive influence of Catholicism, are completely alien for me. Anyhow, O.S. Card visited Brazil twenty years ago, when things were very, very different. However, Card often slips when using the Portuguese language. Although he may speak Portuguese fluently, and although he even has a perception of the language deep enough to make sophisticated word games in some points, he sometimes make the mistake of trusting too much in literal translations, resulting in inevitably weird expressions. (Nothing wrong with that. Probably, this text is littered with language oddities written by someone whose first language is Portuguese.) The most prominent of all is the very title of the book: he translates "Speaker for the Dead" as "Falante pelos Mortos", a literal translation that makes little sense to Brazilians. Here, the book was actually published as "O Orador dos Mortos" (and "O Porta-Voz dos Mortos" would also be an acceptable translation). Also, the importance of the Portuguese language and culture to the Brazilian culture is kind of overestimated along the book. Brazil is a country formed by racial and cultural mix, and five hundred years of mixing left a population with little ethnical and cultural resemblance to its original components. So, naming Lusitania a planet colonized by Brazilians makes less sense than naming Britannia a planet colonized by New Yorkers... Finally, I must emphasize that that's just a critique to the Brazilian culture portrayed in the book. But "Speaker for the Dead" is much bigger than that, and if this aspect has some weakness, the rest of the books is yet another AWESOME story by O.S. Card...
Rating:
Summary: The thinker's Ender
Review: Lovers of Ender's Game are in for a different kind of treat in Speaker for the Dead -- a far more philosophical book that deals with the complex and tragic interactions between a misunderstood alien race known as the Piggies and the humans. Ender has transformed over the eons from a child-general into a sort of new-age minister. His ministry is to combine the healing power of brutal honesty with a loving heart. Fascinating, thought-provoking stuff. Card's second-best novel, after Ender's Game. Just don't read it expecting Ender's Game Redux. The action is far more subdued here, and it is about personal relationships and prejudice more than spaceships and buggers (although they are still around). Definitely read this, but take your time. You probably won't be reading this at 4 a.m. like you were with Ender's Game, if you know what I mean... After this, the Ender novels start drifting into four star territory, until the arrival of Ender's Shadow (5 star story of Bean's journaey from childhood to Battle School).
Rating:
Summary: A dazzling, great book
Review: This book is one of the best Ender books I've read. The plot is how this disease is killing all this people, and a couple of scientists are trying to get rid of it, but at the same time they want to save a alien species known as "piggys". There are some graphic parts in this book, but not much. Though this book does have its boring parts, I still liked this. I think you should read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible.
Review: Okay, so I'm a fan of sentient trees. Aside from that, this is an amazing novel. Ender's grown up, but hasn't lost his charm or lovability. In fact, life has giving him a unique ability to understand people, and why they do the thing they do. A wonderful novel.
Rating:
Summary: Dazzling Literary Work
Review: I was blown away by "Ender's Game" and simply had to find out more of what happened to Ender. "Speaker for the dead" was certainly no let down (how could it be with a hugo and nebula award?). Ender himself is not the same person he was in the first book and I missed his childhood persona. There was less action in this book and less sense of danger but that was to be expected. Card traded these things for philosophical questions that leave you thinking long after the book has been read. I wish the relationship between Ender and Novinha had been explored further but it doesn't take away from the book. Another excellent story by Card.
Rating:
Summary: Very nearly as good as Ender's Game
Review: First of all, I loved this book. I liked the way Ender and Valentine both had developed, and I loved the introduction of Jane, who is just plain cool. Anyway, this book takes place nearly three thousand years after Ender's game, but through space travel and relativity, Ender and Valentine have only aged about twenty years. Meanwhile, human kind has discovered yet another sentient species, the Piggies, on the planet Lusitania. A group of scientists are studying them there, but when one of them is killed, misunderstandings arise, prompting Ender to travel there, this time alone to speak the deaths of several. It's far too intricate a plot to try to explain here, but trust me on this one, this book rocks! I guarantee you'll be hooked for the series. Anyway, happy reading!
Rating: 
Summary: Hmmmmmmm
Review: Coming on the heels of Ender's Game, this book is a little bit of a let down. The story is interesting, but no where near as intense as Ender's Game. Lot's of politics and philosophy here... Kinda' makes you stop and think about your own values and the values of our society. If I had not already read Ender's Game and I had just picked this one up, I probably would not have finished it. My respect for Card is so great that I finished it up even though I was not very interested. If you have already read Ender's Game, this one will be ok. If not, steer away. Card has better books that you can read.
Rating: 
Summary: Very distrubing and destroys what the first book sets up
Review: The character Ender has grown some 20 years while the universe around him has aged 3,000 years since he fought in the Bugger War. What I loved about the first book is the strong connection of love between Ender and Valentine, which had moved me to tears. However in the second installment, this bond between brother and sister is ripped apart when Ender again decides to travel, leaving his sister behind. I couldn't stand to read the book any longer, and put it away. That bond that I looked forward to reading about was ripped apart, and I couldn't continue. It is a lousy book, which i do not recommend.
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