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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
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Summary: My all-time favorite book - full stop!
Review: Seriously.It does take some 'work' - the Portugese names are an enjoyable challenge to pronounce right - even in your head. The story is COMPLEX and brilliant. It is a standalone book - you need not have read "Ender's Game" (somecentury to a theatre near you!) to read and love this book. If you give it your reader's 'all' - i predict it will move you and open new thoughts you never imagined. The entire series is like this, but for my mind - this one is the best. It is satisfying - even with threads left dangling! The growing series of books built around Ender Wiggin are worth the money and time to acquire and devour ... or maybe you'll savour them slower. Speaker for the Dead - i have read now in excess of 5 times. More than the rest. It contains a novel system of ... let us say 'dealing with bereavement' in what i see as a healthy and fulfilling way. That is all you get from me on this subject. I'll not blunt the sense of discovery that makes this book uniquely powerful - to me at least. WHEN you have absorbed the book and\or the series ; and when you decide the writer is a brilliant voice to be cherished - i highly recommend the following books by him (in no particular order):
"Wyrms"
"Memory of Earth" (the city of Basillica is maybe THE place in all of fiction to which i would permanently relocate.)
"Treason" (- or if you can find the older version "Planet Called Treason"
ALL of "Maps in a Mirror" - specifically 'The Originist' and "Breaking the Game' .
"Pastwatch - the Redemption of Christopher Columbus"
"Red Prophet" (my choice for best in the 'Alvin Maker' series) Most of his books and some short stories compilations have the first few chapters (depending on length) available to read online for free at his site:
www.hatrack.com/osc/ Thank me later - or i welcome the discussion of any of Card's works!
-keith-
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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.
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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."
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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: Better than "Ender's Game," but also different
Review: After reading "Ender's Game" in one afternoon, I fell in love with OSC, and quickly began reading "Speaker for the Dead." I admit the first few chapters let me down a bit. I had lived as Ender and Valentine and I expected them to quickly appear; this was a sequel, wasn't it? Unfamiliar characters such as Pipo, Libo, and Novinha bored and confused me. I skimmed until I found Ender on Trondheim, still haunted by his childhood. From then on, I was hooked, and when Ender reached Lusitania, I discovered the people weren't boring at all; they became real. The plot of "Speaker" is fairly simple. The native pequininos on Lusitania are the only sentient species found in the thousands of years since "Ender's Game." For no apparent reason, they kill two human scientists, eerily echoing humanity's violent first contact with the Buggers. Ender arrives on Lusitania, where, with the help of Jane (a sentient computer program) he tries to understand the pequininos, Novinha's family, and the community of Milagre. "Ender's Game" was an adventure story about a brilliant child, made sympathetic by his isolation and empathy. "Speaker" is a much more complex novel, which deals with family, community, religion, truth, and the nature of humanity; its characters and ideas are as important as the plot, if not more so. Those who loved "Ender's Game" for its action and boy-against-the-world theme may not like "Speaker." However, those who loved "Ender's Game" as much for its characters and ideas as its plot will find "Speaker" incredibly rewarding. The first time I read "Speaker," I was thirteen. While I liked the book, I missed the faster pace of "Ender's Game." However, over the years, I have come to love "Speaker," opening chapters and all, more than the other books in this series. My one quibble is the conclusion; though tonally perfect, it leaves enough loose ends to fill....two more books! "Speaker" belongs to the special group of books, science fiction and otherwise, that treat religious and ethical issues seriously. Whether or not you agree with OSC's conclusions (or completely believe Ender's Speaking for Marcos could occur in our universe) the book raises important questions within a moving story about characters with real problems. It also recognizes that people have families, cultures, and other community ties. To summarize, "Speaker for the Dead" is a wonderful novel that uses believable characters to raise questions about human existence. Like "Ender's Game," it explores alienation and misunderstanding, but it is a richer and slower book, and in my opinion, better. (If you like "Speaker," I highly recommend OSC's "Hart's Hope," a fantasy with similar themes. I also recommend anything by Ursula K. Le Guin.)
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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.
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