Speaker for the Dead

Rating:
Summary: Ender Saga continues with new characters and a tired plot.
Review: A ineffective plot with a few surprises. I barely finish this marathon of tedium

Rating:
Summary: A great book that deserved the honors it got and more...
Review: Speaker for the Dead, the compelling sequel to Ender's Game follows through as being just as good as its predecessor. Although more "cerebral," it keeps your attention through suspense, action and a superb writing style that makes even the longest dialogues and monalogues feel exiting

Rating:
Summary: A great sequel to "Ender's Game," but a different beast
Review: "Ender's Game," a fabulous novel, was rewritten from a novella specifically to allow the writing of "Speaker for the Dead," a considerably more complicated and challenging novel. Ender Wiggin has travelled from world to world, trying to find a new home for the Hive Queen whose race he eradicated, so that he can expiate his guilt. Along the way, he has become a Speaker for the Dead, a kind of professional eulogist who bares the soul of the corpse with all flaws revealed, so that we can come to truly know the dead. On the next world that Ender comes to, he becomes personally involved in the family of the deceased, and in the indigenous sentient species of this world, the Pequeninos. A far more difficult book to read than "Ender's Game," a very different narrative style drives the philosophical discussion of racism, family, love, and genocide. Readers searching for the same kind of adventure story as "Ender's Game" should read "Ender's Shadow"; anyone looking for a truly serious, marvelous philosophical novel that also moves with grace should read "Speaker for the Dead."

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Books Ever
Review: SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD, along with ENDER'S GAME both rate as some of the best books ever written.

I remember when I discovered SPEAKER as a freshman in high school. Ender's Game had been one of my favorites since childhood, and over the years I had heard rumors of a second in the saga. On a school trip I entered a book store and discovered not only was there a second book in the Ender Series, but a third. I felt like I had discovered a buried treasure. I rushed back to my hotel room, ripped open the front cover and was shocked by what I found.

Ender was no longer the child that I loved, but a 45 year old man. The book takes place 3000 years after the first (Ender is still alive due to almost constant near-light speed travel). Instead of being the savior of the world as he was in the first book, Ender is the equivallent of satan, and he is the one who wrote the "scripture" that is used against him. I wasn't sure if I was going to like the book.

To make a long story short...I loved the book, but it did take some getting used to, as I had grown very attached to a much younger and different character. The book had moved onto more of a philisophical tone, a tone that as a child I had completely overlooked (but is still present to a minor degree) in the first book. I can't say I completely understood the philosophy in this book, but the intrigue and mysteries that were unravled by Ender helped to keep my interest, and as I have read it many times over the years, social issues continue to emerge that I had not considered before.

After finishing SPEAKER, I tried to compare it to ENDER'S GAME. It is like comparing apples to oranges. Both book were great in their own way and it is extremely difficult to decide which book was actually better.

I leave it to you. Decide for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Great epic and story telling
Review: The tale of Ender's Game is sequeled greatly by this book Speaker of the Dead. I like the outside character development of Pipo, Libo, and Novinha where Card uses them well to tie Ender into his whole role in being speaker for the dead. There are times of lag but the over all it pushes through pretty well. I love the series of Ender Wiggins and speaker of the dead is one of Card's best.

Rating:
Summary: Blown Away
Review: I greatly enjoyed reading Speaker for the Dead, and highly recommend it to all readers mature enough to finish a book of such length.
This is the 2nd book in the Ender series written by Orson Scott Card, and I think this is partially why the novel is so great. The first book, Ender's Game, which provided an extensive background to the situations and characters in Speaker for the Dead, even though the events covered in the story occur 3,000 years after Ender's Game.
All of the characters in the story have distinct personalities and are real, living characters. This is the result of excellent writing by Card, as is the total believability of the unique story this novel contains. Card's style often entails these sort of qualities.
I especially enjoyed how the book can stand well alone, nearly as much so as when read in conjunction with the other books in the series. The story elements contained within are themselves entertaining enough to support the story, and the story's scope only expands exponentially when combined with the accompanying books.

Rating:
Summary: Hardly a Sequel
Review: This book is the second part of the Ender saga. For the first time since the destruction of the aliens called the buggers in Ender's Game (part one), intelligent alien life has been found in the universe, on a planet called Lusitania. The creatures are called pequeninos and have been nicknamed `piggies' because of their resemblance to pigs. Scientists called xenologers have been assigned to study the piggies, but under strictly controlled conditions, to protect piggy culture from human influence and corruption. But the piggies kill one of the xenologers assigned to study them, and so Ender Wiggin travels to Lusitania (a deeply religious community) to find out why this has happened. I found this book to be a much deeper read than Ender's Game, with many underlying themes: the nature of the difficult but worthy path towards unity between peoples; the importance of family; the choice between obeying authority and obeying conscience; the loss of friends; the nature of truth; the tragedy of alien misunderstanding man (to name a few). The characters in this book are all superbly realised and stick in the memory; especially the children of the character called Novinha; and the development of the character of Ender mirrors the developing maturity of Card himself as a writer. Running as a theme throughout this book is the fact that Ender is looking for a place where the buggers can be reborn. This is Ender's penance for his destruction of the buggers at the end of Ender's Game. Profound and powerful writing from Orson Scott Card. I loved Ender's Game, and before reading this was sceptical that it would be as good. It is a tribute to Orson Scott Card that it is even better.



Rating:
Summary: A good sequel to Ender's game
Review: Speaker for the Dead is a good sequel. Ender's game was powerful because of the stunning plot twist ending. This book is more subtle. There's more character development, more subtlety in the plot.

Rating:
Summary: Devastatingly Good
Review: Speaker for the Dead is one of those very, very special books. The science behind it (particularly the virology and genetics) is intriguing and original, and it stands comfortably on it's own, toe to toe with works like Darwin's Radio. But that's just the mechanics.

The real strength of this story lies in Card's ability to wrangle story line and generate tension not only from character interaction, but particularly from internal tension and moral dilemma. The refreshingly honest take Card has on how to treat the dead and contend with the living, and how to own up to all the choices or the lack thereof - that make up a life, is breathtaking in its power.

When you're done with this, go out and get the 1st and 3rd books, Ender's Game and Xenocide. Run, don't walk. It's rare to get intelligent and entertaining Sci-Fi that stands up so well in a series.

Rating:
Summary: Really lame.
Review: This story was most definately well written... But if you really enjoyed Ender's Game, you're far better off reading the "Ender's Shadow" spinoffs. Those were *awesome*. This book was enough to turn me off from all of the rest.