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Summary: Praise for the Piggies
Review: I enjoyed reading this book so much and was so sad when it was all over and ready for the next book in this incredible series. I thought the buggers were a neat race and then I fell in love with the piggies. I just love the detail that Card put into the piggy culture. Its a great read.
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Summary: Oh yeah, this is good stuff!
Review: This book is wonderful. Its in a different style then Enders Game, not as action packed, but still very good. This tells the story of Ender Wiggin 3000 years after the Formic Wars. Ender is still alive as he traveled near the speed of light for much of that time, thus not aging due to relativistic effects. It was a fascinating read.
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Summary: Even Better than the Remarkable Ender's Game
Review: Speaker for the Dead is a very different book than Ender's Game, and I believe it is even better. It continues the story, albeit 3,000 years later, of one of the great all-time literary characters, Ender Wiggin. He is now a Speaker for the Dead, a position that entails learning about the life of the dead person he has been called to speak for, and revealing their life to others as truthfully as if they could see the persons thoughts. The speaking, akin to a funeral oration, doesn't only focus on positive actions, but also on the desires and wishes that may have never come to fruition. Inherent in the position of Speaker is the belief that you don't have to gloss over what is ugly and abhorent in order to see the beauty in a person. In fact it is necessary. Speaker for the Dead also deals with the communication problems between humans and an alien race, but in doing this Card makes an incredibly eloquent statement about communication with anything or anyone that is "alien" to us. If I had to recommend one Science Fiction book for any young adult or teenager to read, it would be Ender's Game. For adults it would be Speaker for the Dead.
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Summary: Speaker for the dead
Review: This is the second book in the speaker trilogy. The first being Ender's Game and the third being Xenocide. Although this story is pretty self contained, reading Ender's Game first will make the story more enjoyable. This book is completely different from Ender's Game though. A completely different story that Ender finds himself involved in. Highly suggested reading.
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Summary: Good and totaly great
Review: 3000- over 3000 years after the bugger war, a second alien race, the Pequinios, kills a human. Why? Only one can find out , Ender, the Xenocide, Speaker for the dead, Andrew Wiggin and the one caring for the last of the race he killed over 3000 years ago....
"Cards mixture of action, suspense, and comedy will leave you longing for more like the breath of life you hold on to.
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Summary: Dramatically different, equally compelling.
Review: In the aftermath of the Bugger War, humanity's hero, Ender Wiggin, bore the burden of Earth's shame at committing the xenocide of an alien race. Unable to return to Earth, Ender left with beloved sister, Valentine, for one of the new colony worlds (made available by the extinction of the Buggers). It was there that he realized that he had an almost supernatural connection and understanding of the Buggers. Despite his role in the destruction of their species, they entrusted him with the sole remaining larval queen of the species and gave him the responsibility of restarting the race when the time was right. Ender's new enlightenment led him to write a famous treatise on this species called "Speaker of the Dead for the Hive Queen". In it, he told the true story about the Buggers in such a frank and honest manner that it created a sensation on Earth. Suddenly, humans could empathize with their former enemies and understand the fallacy of having destroyed them. Ender's work created a demand for him to be a 'speaker for the dead' of many more people. The sensation caused by Ender's writings created an entire movement of literary thought and a near army of 'Speakers for the Dead'. As Ender was too restless to stay in one place very long, he traveled to many different worlds and, as a result of time distortions due to space travel, actually was still relatively young some 3000 years after his 'Speaker' movement began. It was now an accepted part of human culture and frequently called upon when people died. It helped all gain and understanding and, perhaps (but not necessarily), give closure. Ender and Valentine finally found a world to settle on for the rest of their lives and seemed content, until one day, a desperate call for a 'speaker' came from a distraught child on the nearby colony world of Lusitania. So begins the amazing story that powers "Speaker for the Dead"
Ender travels to Lusitania first to respond to the pleas of a young girl whose life was torn asunder by the heroic deaths of her parents. Her parents were able to find a treatment for a vicious contagion that threatened to kill all human life on Lusitania, but were unfortunately unable to save themselves. In the 30-year window of Ender's space travel (which was merely a few weeks to him), this little girl has grown up and started a family, but it's a family that is mired in tremendous strife as the burdens of the past still weigh upon the children of the present. All this happens among the ongoing interaction with a semi-intelligent species of indigenous life called 'piggies'. Understanding them, while still being restrained by archaic colonial policy, leads to much discord among the colony members.
"Speaker for the Dead" is Orson Scott Card's sequel the famous and award-winning "Ender's Game". Those who are expecting the just a rehash of some science-fiction scenarios first played out in "Ender's Game" will be sorely disappointed. However, for those who loved "Ender's Game" and were able to see deep enough into the story to understand the truly important elements, "Speaker for the Dead" will be an amazing read. One must understand that the science-fiction elements to Card's books are just the skin to the entire body of his stories. Card's literary power comes from his understanding of human relationships and dynamics and writing in such a way that the reader empathizes (and even sympathizes) with the characters in the books. One cannot help by to feel a powerful emotional investment into the lives and struggles of these people. Whereas "Ender's Game" intertwined the human relationships amid the backdrop of Battle School and the Bugger War, "Speaker for the Dead" is almost completely and totally about the human element. Such a dramatic change in focus is no less compelling. Clearly, critics felt this way about the sequel, because "Speaker for the Dead" garnered the same Hugo and Nebula Awards that "Ender's Game" did.
It would be unfortunate if fans of "Ender's Game" (and they are legion) were to overlook "Speaker for the Dead" and its sequels simply because of the change in focus. Lovers of "Ender's Game" will find that "Speaker..." is equally impossible to put down. The human drama is so real that the reader feels like they are a part of the story. No greater compliment can be granted to such a novel.
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Summary: I LOVE this book.
Review: When I first picked up "Speaker For The Dead" I was a little confused at the fact that it does not start off at all where "Enders Game" left off.. The first 3 chapters deal with a completely new set of charaters and at first I was kinda mad at this, but the characters quickly grew on me. Once I got to the 4th chapter I am introduced to Ender, but this time he is an old man. I wont give anything away here and thats all I will tell you about the plot of the story. This book is far more complex then Enders Game was and there are all sorts of issues are mentioned... Without giving out the plot Speaker For The Dead is a book about morals vs. greed. There are a few scientists in this book which are main charaters.. This story goes far more in depth about the Buggers and the whole Ender univerese. Ender and a few other charaters are in this story, but they have aged and are not kids at all. This story has a more adult tone to it. I was suprised and amazed at the many twists Card through at the reader during the story and how they fit together.. Nothing seemed like it was just added to the book to fill space or because the author had this idea in his head.. It all fits and anything which seems unclear by the end (not much) is addressed in the next book.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing happens!
Review: ENDER'S GAME was gripping and it recaptured the feelings of childhood for me. But SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD was disappointing: the plot is slow, the characters are boring, the premise is unbelievable, and the philosophy is pretentious. The most exciting moment in this book occurs when a small child urinates on the protagonist!
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Summary: Excellent Book!
Review: After reading Ender's Game, I was sure that the sequel could not live up to the standard that it set. However, Speaker for the Dead is every bit as good as Ender's Game, if a completely different story. Card does a great job of creating an entirely new species and describing its behavior and customs as well as defining an interesting human culture on the outpost world of Lusitania. The interaction between these two is fascinating and an interesting contrast with the story of first contact with an alien species told in Ender's Game. I would highly recommend this book.
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Summary: Big change from Ender's Game...
Review: All right, so you've read Ender's Game. You loved it, you loved everything about it. You want more. You rush to the bookstore to find Speaker for the Dead. One small problem: Speaker for the Dead is nothing like Ender's Game. Ender's Game was a story about a boy and his growth and struggle through the tough times at Battle School, and the war he fights without knowing it's real. Speaker is set about 3,000 years later. Ender's about 30, this made possible by some quirk of interstellar travel. As a Speaker for the Dead, he comes to Lusitania to speak the death of several people, members of the family intimately connected with the pequininos, the indigenous aliens dubbed the Portuguese equivalent of "piggies". Together with Jane, the sentient computer, the sleeping Hive Queen, and the help of his sister Valentine several light-years away, Andrew (as he now calls himself) must puzzle his way through the deaths and the whys of Novinha's tempestuous family. It's a good book, but it's a lot different from Ender's Game. Fans of that genre may not like Speaker as much. A good alternative is to read Ender's Shadow, the parallel novel about Bean, set at roughly the same time as Ender's Game. Either way, you get an excellent book.
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