Customer Reviews
NOTHING like Ender's Game - By: A. Phillips, 18 Aug 2007 
'Ender's Game', the first bookin this series, is one of my favourite books, & I read 'Speaker for the Dead' on the basis of the author's remarks that he only wrote the novel version of the first book to set up the story for the second. I was warned that the story is very different, & that's totally true. If you're looking for 'more of the same' then look elsewhere.
However, this is a good bookin its own right. If you're interestedin the sort of sci-fi that involvesin depth descriptions of alien species & their cultures, then this will be right up your street. There is also a solid story & some really clever ideas, but I did personally have trouble remembering which character was which at some points as several blur into onein my mind. The fact that Ender is one of the main characters brings an extra level of interest if you have read the first book, & although you probably could read this as a stand-alone story, I would definitely recommend reading 'Ender's Game' first.
In summmary, an award-winning, well written solid sci-fi story, but not really my cup of tea.
This time more is better - By: G. Bethune, 29 Jul 2007 
Writing a sequal to as fine a book as Enders Game must be a nightmare, thankfully Scott Card has woken upin the middle of the night & turned to his wife with a happy but evil smile, & a good idea, rather than snapping awakein a cold sweat of fear as his publisher demands thier money back, or his kneecaps.
The device employed to propel the story 3000 years into the future is irrelevent, like may of the surface detailsin great literary SciFi the mechanics of the universe is of no matter. It is the ideas that raise this genre up out the mud. The wierd thingin this case is that the ideas have not changed from the first bookin the series even as the place, time & nearly all the characters do. By staying the course with ideas of personal responsability, duty & most importantly where you can draw the line of being a person, as opposed to just a sack of meat that resembles a person, Scott Card achieves the near impossable double aim
of the sequel, more the same, but diffrent.
In "Enders Game" that focus was on the movment from childhood to adulthood, this time the line might be between people, & not as is more common between human & alien. The last time i read as fine a rendition of alieness wasin Niven & Pournell's "Motein Gods Eye", the difrence is that they sought to mark the seperation between species, here the story purposefully erodes any inter-species line & places some humans as being closer to real & truely strange aliens, rather thanin the wider field of the human diaspora to the stars.
I heard a homily last week that seems approriate, it goes: that all men (and woman too so stop shouting at me) are born individuals, but that most die as copies. Ender is that rarest of humans an individual, despite all that happens to him he retains his humanity, he is an individual, as real a possable person as you or i. Great fictional characters seem like they could step out of the pages & sit dowm & share a drink or a laugh or a hurt with you. In this book Ender has fleshed out to be such a person, & the story & the series are raised to greatness by his success as a person.
i am going to wait a bit to read onin this series cos i have a stack of books to read, but i anticipate itr will crown one of the great acheivmentsin Sci Fi.
P.S. i recomend that you read thisin one shot, take the phone off the hook, lock the kids/girlfrend/boyfrend/dogin another room, & immerse yourself. Great Sci Fi is best when you can give yourself fully to its wild filghts of imagination.
An excellent sequel and fascinating story - By: Clarence T. Henry, 02 Sep 2006 
This was a fascinating, generational story of life on Lusitania, where humans have come into contact with the second sentient beings--the piggies--since the xenocide of the buggersin Ender's Game. Feeling guilty, the Starways Congress decides to allow xenologers to study these aliens & live among the Catholic colony on Lusitania. When two xenologers die at the hands of the piggies, the old calls for war ring again but instead of an armada, the Speaker of the Dead is summoned. Andrew Wiggin, Speaker of the Dead, sets off for Lusitania where he hopes to repair the lives of two of families on Lusitania & solve the mystery of the piggies.
This story is VERY different from Ender's Game, & yet it succeedsin many ways. The very idea of a Speaker for the Dead is incredibly moving & to have Ender, the slayer of the buggers, fill this role proves even more powerful. The dramatic effect he has on Lusitania is enough to declare the book a triumph. However, the culture of the piggies is at the heart of the story, & the gripping mystery of the xenologer's deaths, when resolved, will not disappoint. Card really doesn't need to continue this series; I can't image a more fitting ending.
Genius - By: , 10 Dec 2005 In this book the true genius of Orson Scott Card is revealed. 3000 years after Enders Game, Ender is still travelling the stars until he hears about the brutal murder of a scientist by 'pigies', a new intelligent lifeform, & a call for a speaker for the dead.
Orson Scott Card makes his characters so believable that you cannot help feeling for them & their pain. I found myself especially feeling for Ender, because when he first killed the 'buggers' everyone loved him for it, but when he became The Speaker for the Dead, & wrote his book about them, eveyone demonised him, & 3000 years later he can't even tell people that his name is Ender.
An absolutely excellent book, thatin my view should be compulsory reading!
"When you walk on the face again, then I can be forgiven" - By: Sebastian Fernandez, 13 Jun 2005 After I finished with "Ender's Game" I read an interview with Orson Scott Cardin which the author said that the only reason for expanding the first bookin the series from a novella to a novel was to provide a more solid foundation to the real story he wanted to tell. Having loved the first bookin the series I could not wait to get my hands on "Speaker for the Death" based on that "recommendation", & luckily I was not disappointedin the least.
More than three-thousand years have passed since Ender annihilated the buggers without knowing what he was actually doing, & we find a world that shocks usin our core, since Ender is seen as a murderer of masses. On the other hand, most people venerate the Speaker for the Dead, unaware that this person is none other than that who they despise: Ender Wiggin. But even if for most people he is just an evil guy that lived three millenniums ago, we find him alive thanks to the intricacies of intergalactic travel. Ender is only thirty-eight years old & spends his time trying to find a worldin which to provide the buggers with a new beginning; using the cocoon he has, which contains a new queen of the buggers.
Those that read "Ender's Game" probably liked the fast pace of the book & the wayin which the author engages the reader with the games & the battles. That book also contained ethical aspects that affected the story, but these were hinted at & not discussed too deeply. I was expecting something similar, but found that there was a surprisein store for me, with a book that is not fast-paced at all, but instead reads more like a reflection on philosophical & ethical issues. This does not sound as much fun, but let me tell you, the author surrounds these main topics with such fascinating events that the journey is a real treat. The final result was that I loved this book, & now even prefer it over the first installment.
The story is setin Lusitania (in allusion to Portugal), a planetin which the human race cohabitates with the pequeninos (little onesin Portuguese). Here we find Pipo, a xenobiologist that isin charge of studying the behavior of the pequeninos, also called piggies, while interfering as little as possible. He is assistedin this task by his son Libo & an orphan called Novinha. When everything seems to be moving forward as planned & Libo & Novinha start to build a relationship that goes beyond friendship, Pipo ends up murdered by the piggies. Novinha knows that the reason behind this has to do with findings from the research she showed the man right before his demise, but does not know exactly what. As a she is disoriented & decides to summon a Speaker for the Dead to speak Pipo's death & bring closure to this incident. The speaker that is closest to the planet is none other than Ender, who now gets a new opportunity to interact with another alien race & who believes that the planet may be a good environment for bringing the buggers back to life. When he gets to Lusitania more than two decades later things have changed, & he finds a complex set of relationships & a web of lies that can destroy many people. Being able to handle this, plus the pequeninos, plus the buggers, seems a challenge that only Ender Wiggin can face.
I would have to rate "Speaker for the Dead" as the best fantasy novel I have read so far, since not only it is extremely entertaining & developsin a cleverly & precisely created world, but also explores complex topics without losing an iota of the readers attention. In my mind this is clear indication of the outstanding quality of Orson Scott Card's writing & of his prodigious imagination. I am already looking forward to reading the third bookin the series, even though I am aware that it is almost impossible that it matches this onein its quality. But I am willing to bet that it will be an extremely pleasant experience anyway.
