Interesting premise, disappointing execution

books:


	• Speaker for the Dead (Ender) Orson Scott Card Fantastic Audio, 2002 - 15 pages average customer review:based on 408 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

4.5 stars

I had been warned that even though Speaker for the Dead continues the story of Ender's life, and is set in the same universe, that it's not that much of a sequel--that is, it's not the same kind of book. Which was a relief to me, to tell you the truth. Ender's Game was a complete story, and I'd been dreading the kind of sequel that would be Ender vs. a different kind of alien, which would just spoil the whole thing.

Instead, it's set 3000 years later, but due to a whole lot of light-speed travel, Ender's only in his 30s (I think--I'm not positive, and I'm not going to search for it. It's not that important. At any rate, he's an adult, in his prime.). He's become a Speaker for the Dead, the original Speaker for the Dead, but nobody realizes that. His purpose is to learn all about someone's life--not just the good things, like in a eulogy, but everything--their hopes, dreams, fears, and failings--and then Speak for them. It's what he did for the Buggers after destroying them, then published the book, earning for himself instead of the accolades he'd received, the title of "Ender the Xenocide," and his name is now reviled.

Humanity has learned a lesson, and now contact with alien races is strictly limited. On the planet Lusitania is the only other sentient race humanity has discovered: nicknamed the Piggies. The humans are required to stay within their fences and observe only, not give any information to the Piggies. But the Piggies learn anyway, from the questions they're asked, and then the anthropologist studying them is brutally slaughtered, and nobody knows why.

Ender is summoned to speak a death on the planet, and ends up bringing pain and healing. And, well, here's the whole point of the book: to know him is to love him that truly knowing a person, or an alien race, understanding them completely, is to love or at least care for them. The message got a little heavy-handed for me by the end, hence the half-star reduction.

Otherwise, the story was interesting, the characters compelling, the mystery intriguing. I'll be reading more. I've already got Xenocide (Ender, Book 3) (Ender Quartet) in my TBR pile.

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Not Card's best

Don't get this if you liked Ender's game and are looking for a sequel. Speaker for the Dead has only one of the same characters - Ender - and he's much older. No one he knew is in this book, and there's little that relates to his past or future.

If that were not enough, I found the book to be subdued and tedious, and somehow off-center. It certainy isn't Card's best at all. The story doesn't have a lot of coherence, and none of the characters are very memorable or admirable at all. Alot of details and features of the story really iritated me.

I think if he wanted to write this story, he should have just presented it as a totally new book. I came to this wanting a sequel to Ender's Game (a masterful and original book) but instead got a book that had nothing to do with Ender's game besides Ender himself appearing in it. I know Speaker for the Dead has a lot of sequels too but a far more interesting line of sequels to follow, if you liked Ender's Game, is Ender's Shadow, followed by Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant, which deal with the story of Ender's Game from Bean's point of view and then the other students of Battle School and what happens back on Earth. Read those instead of Speaker for the Dead.

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A step behind the first novel...

...but an excellent follow up. Worth reading and some excellent concepts explored. Highly recommend it.

Interesting premise, disappointing execution

It has been thousands of years since Andrew "Ender" Wiggen fought against the alien buggers when he was just a young boy in battle school. Initiallly thought of as a hero, he is now remembered as a horrible person that wiped out an entire species. Humans populate a hundred worlds but still do not know of any other species with which they inhabit the world - except for on one colony, Luisitania. In this world, there is a species of creature known to humans as the piggies. Scientists on Luisitania are studying the piggies and interacting with them, but under strict law not to impart any human knowledge to them lest it interfere with the natural evolution of their culture.

Tragedy befalls Luisitania when the piggies kill the lead scientist. One of his apprentices makes a call for a Speaker for the Dead. The Speakers have the authority to travel to a world where a human has died and speak the deceased's life so that all may know the truth of their life. The Speaker that answers this call? None other than Ender himself. He, along with his sister Valentine, has spent his adult life traveling from world to world at light speed so that although the worlds have aged thousands of years, he is only in his thirties. He realizes that it is time for him to find a place to settle down and live out the rest of his existance and this particular world seems to call to him more so than any other has previously. What Ender may not realize is that the interaction between the humans and the piggies is remarkably similar to previous interactions with the buggers and humankind is not ready to coexist with an alien species. Ender must use his amazing abilities of persuasion to try to save both humans and alien lifeforms.

Ender's Game was one of the best books I have ever read. I looked forward to this one with eager anticipation. It was somewhat disappointing. The story moved very slowly and did not have any of the action or drama of the first in the series. This installment was much more moral and philosophical. While still interesting, it was a very different type of book as a result. I appreciate the book more now that I have finished it and can contemplate the theories that were put forth, but during the reading of the book I longed for the action packed adventure of the first one. Read this one for the human emotional and moral dilemmas posed and not for war games and blistering paced adventure.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

This unabridged audio edition of the New York Times bestseller is the direct sequel to the classic Ender's Game from Orson Scott Card, winner of the Nebula and Hugo Awards. In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: the Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War. Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered by Portuguese colonists on the planet Lusitania. But again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening ... again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery ... and the truth. Orson Scott Card infuses this tale with intellect by casting his characters in social, religious and cultural contexts.

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