Speaker for the Dead

Rating:
Summary: Sequel to Ender's Game requires a different mindset.
Review: As a teacher, I have insisted that my high school freshmen all read Ender's Game. The fast pace and excellent character development engage the students and lead them toward discussion of serious issues, like how we treat those who are "different" and the ultimate goals and purposes of education. Speaker for the Dead has a different focus, and perhaps a different audience. Although many of my students have read it because they so loved Ender's Game, not many were ready for its sophistication. Speaker for the Dead works for me in its treatment of two major issues. The first of these, expressed through the interaction (and its disastrous results) between the piggies and the humans, has to do with cultural relationships and the arrogant assumptions often made by the dominant culture. The humans function at a level of cultural blindness hard to understand through most of the novel, and that blindness has tragic consequences. The second issue I love in this book is the concept of the Speaker for the Dead, the role that Ender Wiggin has taken on in his adulthood. A Speaker's job consists of traveling to places he is called to "speak" the life of someone who has died. These itinerant Speakers come to the person's life completely objectively, and thus they are able to speak the truth about that person--good and bad. The speaker helps the community deal with the person's death by allowing them to see that person completely; all the person's facets, foibles, and fortes are displayed. I found myself thinking that if mopre people read this book, we might have a whole new funereal ritual to deal with. In short, while of a completely different tone than Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead brings up some important issues, and it is well worth the time spent in reading it. Invest several days in this book; it deserves them. --Prudence Plunkett ([e-mail])

Rating:
Summary: Better than Ender's Game
Review: Ender's Game was a great book but did not have near the depth of character's and story of this book. I may go out on a limb here and say this is close to the best Science Fiction Novel I have ever read. I certainly rank it with Dune and 2001 which is pretty lofty company. Card writes in the forward of this book that Ender's Game was really just written in preparation of this book and as I look back on both books it is obvious that is the case. If you read Ender's Game and thought it was great be prepared for a totally different novel. Ender's game could have been condensed down to 10 pages to prepare you for the Speaker of the Dead but the latter could not. I enjoyed every single page. This book was a unique combination of mystery & Sci Fi that kept me turning the pages.

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: 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: solipsistic space opera
Review: Many of the reviewers who disliked this book feel it compares poorly with "Ender's Game," which they liked; I'm in the camp of people who dislikes everything of Card's they've read, and who are irritated by his popularity. All of the characters engage in endless attempts at intellectual oneupsmanship, when they aren't tearfully confessing horrible secrets from the long-buried past. Sometimes they even do both at the same time!

Especially irksome is whiny Ender. Despite being constantly mired in self-pity, somehow Ender comes to a strange town, and within a few months, uncovers all the festering, decades-old secrets (adultery! unintentional incest! Princess Diana's albino love-child!) the townsfolk are hiding from each other and starts them on the path to healing, unravels the mysteries of yet another alien race, revives the aliens he destroyed millennia ago, prevents the destruction of a planet, and gets the babe (though to be fair, she doesn't seem much of a prize). This makes Ender unique among the world's messianic figures: he's saved the world twice, while the others have only done it once (I gather he does it at least twice more, but I haven't read the other Ender books, so I can't be sure).

There are other obnoxious features: the idea, which Card adores, of the Speakers for the Dead. These are people who go around digging up the secrets of the dead, and who hold public ceremonies where they reveal the private, hidden lives of these people, holding nothing back. This Card calls a "humanistic religion." Leaving aside what an oxymoron that phrase is, let's now imagine that you're dead and in the afterlife, watching your loved ones go about their lives. Would you really want somebody prying into the most personal recesses of your life? all those eccentricities, failures, and dark desires you spent so much time and effort trying to correct and turn to better ends? And would your family enjoy having the public know that, in addition to being the loving parent, good spouse, and decent citizen that in fact you were, you also stole money from the mob and had an illegitimate child when you were young and desperate? Card seems to think so. Since he believes this is such a great idea, I expect he'll have someone Speak for him at his funeral. (I don't however, expect that it will be an honest account of his life).

Card has a webpage. One glance at it makes it clear why he's obsessed with his supergenius characters. The page provides, among other things, a weekly dose of Card's opinions on movies, books, media, and minutiae such as restaurants in his hometown. Another item is a rather strident column on global politics (shades of Locke and Demosthenes). Both reveal Card's secret: he secretly believes he is one of the supergeniuses he writes about. He thinks there's no better judge and jury than he. He burns to be executioner too, but deep down he knows that he doesn't have the guts to be. So he settles for writing about the executioner (i.e., Ender). But he grows dissatisfied: being merely a god of sci-fi is not enough. His longings to shape the real world resurface. But he can only do this through the written word. Hence, a compromise solution: his opinion pieces and political essays.

This digression is quite pertinent to the book. For Card's conviction that his judgment and insight is far beyond that of other men comes through every page of his work. He doesn't trust the audience enough to grasp the emotions and the motives of his characters; he spells it all out (the scene where Ender blabs all the village's secrets in the middle of the church is a particularly ugly example of this). This, of course, proves to the reader that he's so smart that he understands the two-dimensional cartoon characters he's constructed in his own mind.

He has contempt for all his characters besides Ender: they serve merely as clueless plebes enlightened by Ender, enigmatic ciphers whose mysteries are exposed and explained by Ender, vehement opponents of Ender who grudgingly come to admire, and finally to worship him. Thus the novel serves as the room of mirrors which reveals unto Card the divine perfection of Ender, who is secretly Card as he sees himself.

In short: don't bother reading this book. Nor should you bother reading any more of the author's work (in fairness, I have not read any of his non-Ender stuff, so am not qualified to review it).

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: 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: Book Review on Speaker for the Dead
Review: The news reached Ender instantly: the "piggies" were murderers. The new sentient species on the planet Lusitania were just as the formics "buggers" were three thousand years ago. They were unknown in practices. Why did they kill the scientists that had grown so close to them? Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card, is intense, with the murder mystery thing going on, but on another plane, very sentimental.
The story revolves around the subplot of the Ribeira family and their hurt that Ender heals with his speaking. Ender is a speaker for the dead, but also the Speaker for the Dead: the one who wrote about the buggers and made people love and understand them after the initial fear had passed away with time. This was what he did with his speaking of people as well. Ender planned to write something similar about the piggies, but also to redeem himself. He had also been the one to almost commit Xenocide: He killed all of the buggers except one cocoon, which he kept to place on a world some day. Through it all, Ender also somewhat redeems his parents, in that he became the father he wanted. The Ribeira family became his own, as crazy as it seemed to the townsfolk. The Ribeiras were distant, cold, yet hurting, as mentioned before. Ender changed the lives of Novinha and her six children forever.
This book was also great on another level: Card's writing style is plain, yet powerful as truth. Card knows truth (about humans at least) and as a result, this entire story seems very real. It is something one can get really immersed in. I believe that, above all, Card wanted a story that did just that: a book that is real, and fun to the reader. I think that Card wrote the story he wanted. It was what I wanted, anyway.


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.