Rating: 
Summary: The best book I've ever read.
Review: The Speaker for the Dead is the best book ever! This science fiction novel will keep you up all night wanting to know more about what happens. It the kind of book you just can't put down. I recommend this to everyone who likes science fiction whether your read a lot or not. It's not one of those boring books that has no action and a dumb plot, it has many different plots that all tie in together to make one big one. This is definately a 5 star book.
Rating: 
Summary: An OK read...
Review: ...but far from great. After having read Ender's Game and finding it thoroughly engrossing, I naturally proceeded to this sequel with high expectations. I was disappointed. Don't get me wrong--this is still good sf worth your time--but it just can't compare with the depth and excitement of Ender's Game.Although I liked the book, I could really only give it two stars due to what I consider to be some rather glaring faults: 1) The book is overly preachy and sentimental. The entire plot centers around racial misunderstanding (even the little sub-plots), and the apparent goal of the book is to teach a lesson in social conduct. Frankly, I never much cared for books that depended on a goal or a moral to make sense. The story should stand on its own without being some sort of political forum or propaganda. 2) The time-line just doesn't make a lot of sense. Why is it that there seems to be virtually no technological advancement after 3000 years of continually expanding human society? In the next book you find out that faster-than-light-speed travel is possible, so why haven't humans developed it by then? And why, oh why, would they be using essentially the same computer network for an entire three millenia? Reached its peek? The world of Ender's Game seemed at least marginally plausible, but the world of SFTD just seems to be a construction built around Ender for the purposes of a somewhat shaky plot-line. 3) The plot pivots around one crucial revelation early in the book, which is kept a secret from the reader intentionally as a motivator. More specifically, one of the characters finds out an interesting bit of information and then promptly--conveniently--dies before he gets to tell anyone. Personally, I think this is a particularly cheap plot device that should be kept exclusive to the realm of pulp murder mysteries. It doesn't make you enjoy the book more, it just makes you want to skip to the end to find out what the answer is. To make matters worse, the author drops enough clues early on, that you can guess the answer long before its handed to you, making the rest of the book filler (sentimental and preachy filler, at that). Even with these faults, I'd still say the book is worth a read, if only as a continuation of an otherwise brilliant series. If you haven't already, though, I'd suggest you start with the first, and best of the series--Ender's Game--before reading this one.
Rating:
Summary: Ender's Game? No. Impressive? Definitely.
Review: I went through various stages of opinion while reading this book... First was, "Hey- why is this nothing like Ender's Game? Drats!" Then, "What is with all this Portuguese stuff, and religious garbage?" and "Why is Ender some kind of space-detective?" And so I began trudging through this book with a lack of enthusiasm. Then slowly but steadily, this story pulls you in. You don't mind the lack of Game's glorious action. This is a very mature piece. I doubt that anyone will be able to read Ender's Game and stop there. You want more. Speaker for the Dead is where you have to go. I find it extremely hard to consider this a sequel, because never have I seen an author switch his style this drastically within one series. Card forces you to accept all of his changes, but those who adapt to this book are highly rewarded! I found myself involved with Card's characters quite alarmingly, and touched by his themes on so many levels. One thing that really impressed me- Card takes our first intelligent contact with aliens and compares it with 16th century European explorers encountering the natives of South America. It shows the barriers of language, technology, religion, and misunderstandings -as well as mankind's need to control or dominate any new race it meets. This book is like a history lesson that teaches us not to make the same mistakes when we reach this point of our future. Very interesting. There is no doubt I will be continuing this series.
Rating:
Summary: Classic
Review: I have read, and loved, everything by Asimov, Herbert, Heinlein, Clarke, Pohl, Niven, Stephenson, McCaffrey, Tolkien and many more; all for many different reasons. Don't get me wrong; I have also read, and hated, many many more besides. I would be happy to review any number of other books; but I won't. I will limit myself to one review - the one book I would recommend unguardedly above all others. In my opinion, Speaker for the Dead is the best sci-fi book I have ever read. Many authors write beautiful and brilliant books and series, some masters of character, some masters of plot etc., Speaker for the Dead is crafted as perfectly as can be possible in every aspect. I offer as my advice for reading sci fi no finer reading experience than to read Enders Game (1st in the series) and then Speaker for the Dead. But even without the support of Ender's Game, Speaker is still my single-most favorite read.
Rating:
Summary: Body Organs On The Ground
Review: "Relentlessly, Jane showed the opening of the chest cavity, the ritual removal and placement of body organs on the ground. Ender forced himself to watch, trying to understand what meaning this could possibly have to the pequeninos."--Page 58, Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. I hate sci-fi books. They have always bored me. Then I read Ender's Game and loved it. I couldn't put it down. The beginning of the story with a happy group of scientists studying a new race called pequeninos. Then one is killed by the pequeninos. Ender came to the colony of this event and discovers why this happened. He discovered everything- the secrets of the pequeninos and their intentions, the truth behind the seemingly happy people of the colony. He also revealed to the pequeninos and the people about himself. It may sound like one of those typical 1)Problem 2)Hero 3)Problem Solved books, but it's more than that. You feel the understanding and pain of Ender, and the pain and hardships of the secrets that are kept for decades. I enjoyed this book immensely. It would help to read Ender's Game first, which is even better. Both books are a link into the human mind. In short, READ IT!
Rating:
Summary: Which came first?
Review: After reading Ender's Game, and loving it more than I thoughtpossible, I read "Speaker for the Dead". In theintroduction, (if you ever bother to read those things), the authorpoints out that Speaker was his original idea. He wrote "Ender's Game" as BACKGROUND! "Game" won the Hugo and Nebula awards as a background novel. In this story we "meet" Ender again, this time as a rather jaded thirty-something man who has to keep his identity a secret. History has unfairly branded him a mass murderer rather than the hero as he was first regarded, or the abused child he was in reality. He is the original "Speaker for the Dead", a humanistic ideology/psuedo-religeon that teaches the virtues of the truth. Don't let this mumbo jumbo throw you, its a great read that doesn't get too mystical. The book would be great on its own, but it's all the greater because anyone who's read "Ender's game" already knows the protagonist in more depth than any character in recent memory from any book. Ender is our childhood friend, who we have the priviledge of meeting again in adulthood. The reader will root for the boy to become greater than the myth and end his life of lonliness. He is summoned to a colony world that has discovered another form of sentient life. Ender is there to speak a death, (give an honest to the point of being harsh eulogy), but finds himself once again wrapped up in the politics of humanity. Basically he has to save the Portuguese Catholic world of Lusitania from a variety of things that would destroy it. What turns out to be his hardest task though is helping a family in emotional distress. If it sounds complicated, it isn't. Card has given us another moral human tale, told in great detail and depth, yet never boring. Although the events in this book are far less catostrophic than the events our "hero" went through in Ender's game, the emotional impact is still there. We see what became of the lonly mistreated little genius, and how his life turned out. In "Game" Ender was battling for his own personal sanity and survival, playing by the rules of his controllers. In "Speaker", Ender fights for others. He has more control over the circumstances and chooses to help people he barely knows, and the last survivor of the race he was accused of wiping out. We get a philosophically different book than "Ender's game", but it still has the power to break your heart and lift your spirits. We get a whole new set of personal moral dillemas, and see the dark and light sides of relationships. This book may be different in tone and philosophy than the prequel, but the main player is still intact. If you've read "Ender's Game", this is a must read. If you haven't, don't read this book yet. You'll like it, but that prize winning background novel is still worth the effort before going on to "Speaker". These two are the best books I've read in years.
Rating:
Summary: Dragonflight
Review: A masterpiece! I hope you have time on your hands, because you won't want to put it down!
Rating:
Summary: moved to tears
Review: a very different book, a very different cast, a very different Ender. where Ender's Game may have strained you emotionally, Speaker will leave you wounded. a powerful, compelling, masterfully-written follow-up on Ender's life. some complain about too many characters, but they're each very powerfully portrayed and feel like real people. and the story itself is music more massive and imaginative that its prequel.
i do however have one suggestion: read the 'introduction' _after_ you finish the book.
buy it and you'll be glad.
Rating: 
Summary: Hardly a fitting sequel
Review: If not being compared to Ender's Game this could be a star or two higher, but that's the price one pays for trying to follow up on something that amazing. Mr. Card's greatest gift in the previous novel was characterization, and in Speaker for the Dead, that seems to have all gone out the window. Maybe it's the increased number of people to keep track of, maybe it's the plot's complexity, but I went away wondering where the Ender I had known so well had gone in those years between the two novels, and more importantly, why there was no one around to replace him. Some vague attempts were made to fill out Novinha and her family, but they were stretched too thin to be effective. The plot is considerably more complex than the previous novels, and it includes some very intriguing concepts. If you knew enough about the characters to really care what happened to them, the story could been much more effective. My overall advice is that if you really enjoyed Ender's Game, skip this and go straight to Ender's Shadow.
Rating:
Summary: Speaker for the book
Review: Speaker for the Dead is a very different book, in many ways, from Ender's Game. It is more adult in some ways and more cerebral. Be prepared. Come prepared, as well, to let go of preconceptions-- for this is, even more so than Ender's Game, a book about assumptions and all of the unwritten rules that can mean the difference between destruction and redemption. Don't be surprised when, in this book, Ender starts to take his place in a larger cast of characters. He is now a man, with all of the insight and grim compassion of his youth, a fortune, and a once-burned, twice-wary attitude towards being a part of the human race. Yet the Hive Queen cocoon and the immense guilt it represents spurs him on restlessly from planet to planet. A new chapter in his life opens with the discovery, near the colony of Lusitania, of another new alien race. Once more, aliens murder humans for no apparent reason. Once more, the human response may be murderous. Ender has long since become the mysterious Speaker for the Dead, an itinerant counselor dedicated to telling the kind of brutal truths about the dead people need both to hurt and to heal. But Ender the Xenocide, henceforth infamous, is humanity's only hope for understanding and coping with the "piggies." Saving both races from themselves may be more than even the Speaker can handle. The path to understanding may require courage and almost unendurable sacrifice from Ender and (worse) the people he comes to love. But the fate of humans and piggies alike depends on him, and the Speaker for the Dead, the only advocate left for those he murdered, can't afford to be silenced. I loved Ender's Game. I adored Speaker for the Dead. It--for the first time--takes Ender out into the world of saving individuals instead of a generic humanity that is almost too abstract to be real. It is different. Ender does not command here, nor does he have any special privileges (except those provided by Jane, the suspiciously intelligent computer program who comes to be the closest companion he has). Any influence he has, as an adult, is based on negotiation and his own ability to win the support of the people he works with. Yet these are the real challenges of human life and endeavour. Ender becomes one a series of people whose decisions may swing the balance. I don't think that makes his contribution any less important. I love the compassion with which this story is told. The tragic stories of Novinha, Marcos, Libo, and others become transfigured by the simple power of a truth only Ender, as an outsider, can see. And the largest part of that truth is love that comes from Ender's quiet ability to reserve judgement. The stroke of real genius in this piece may be the piggies, who baffle and annoy readers and generally act like the unpredictable aliens they are. They are still far from truly alien, but they are alien enough to give us a sense of what alien truly is. For if science fiction has a dominating concern, it is our relationship with the strange, the unexpected, the unknown, the other--the aliens of our own kind we work with every day.
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