Ender returns here as Speaker for the Dead, a profession rather like that of a priest, but of a godless religion. He speaks for a dead person, so that the living can better understand him/ her. This novel also contains fascinating aliens called "Piggies" who are as strange as (if not stranger than) the "Buggers". It is strange to think that a person who can view truly alien cultures in such favourable light can be a declared homophobe.

A quintessentially perfect science fiction story about cultural supremacy. I loved every minute of it, and it was every bit as surprising as Ender’s Game. A real treat of a story.

So much better than Ender's Game. I wish I could say more, but having just finished it there's nothing coherent I can think of to say right now.

Direktan nastavak Endera no vodi nas u sasvim druge vode.

Nema više živopisne akcije no nastavak je apsolutno zasluženo pokupio još više nagrada.

Ne znam ni kako bih pokušao opisati radnju.

Očajnički pokušaji uvida u potpuno stranu inteligenciju i velike žrtve koje to traži?

Sukobi civilizacija često imaju jako neugodne, nenamjerne, posljedice. Katastrofalne čak.


Ako vas je Igra oduševila pokušajte se spojiti i s ovim drugim dijelom vage.

Ako vam uspije silno će te uživati, ovo je fenomenalno djelo.

Początek bym dość nużący, ale potem akcja nabiera tempa. Bardzo interesujące rozważania filozoficzne.

A very good science-fiction book. I could not put it down for a while! I wanted to know of course what the 'Little Ones' 's secret was, but there is more than that in the book. There is an attempt to give a spiritual dimension to the story. However, the conflict resolution feels a bit too pat for me. The Utopian reality that the characters all embrace at the end of the book seems forced. A good ending is not always what is needed. I would have liked to see a more nuanced reality emerging from this alien world.

Good, complex sci-fi, the second after Ender's Game. More of a religious aspect than EG but that fits the plot.

The use of Portugese (always translated) is a welcome touch.

Card's imagination of the "third life" and the different piggy anthropology is innovative, as is his explanation for Lusitania's limited biological diversity.

Readers who like Ender will like The Sparrow & Children of God by Mary Doria Russell.

I've read this book several times since I first read Ender's Game back in 2001.
The problem with this book is everything could have been solved by simply asking the aliens how they reproduce from the start instead of assuming they reproduce like humans do. That kind of story almost always annoys the beejeesus out of me.


No, I'm sorry, Orson Scott Card is NOT a good writer. Why doesn't anyone else NOTICE this? It drives me nuts. Maybe I should read this again, but I don't want to. I just seems like this one simple little thing would have changed everything. But OSC has to make things SEEM complicated. Like Novinha can't marry the man she wants to marry because he'll learn everything because she will be one person with him.
Why? For what reason do married people have to be the SAME PERSON? So, if you have some secret account, your husband gets to share it suddenly? This makes no sense. There's no real reason for it. I have got to get these OSC books out of my house. Anyone want them?


Edit-I am sorry, but no real actual scientist would ever, ever encounter aliens and assume they reproduced the same way humans do! This is just so deeply dippy. Couldn't Libo or that other fellow simply have said, we can't turn into trees, don't cut us? And you get 2 people in which this happens to. How are we supposed to believe that two people could not have said, don't do this, our bodies don't work like that. SEE? Simple! I'm sorry, OSC is overrated!

Another Edit

Now, you have to understand that I was a fan of OSC since Jr. High school when I read Seventh Son for the first time.But he's been driving me crazy. There's the homophobia to consider, the constant nagging in his stories and SWITCHING FROM THIRD PERSON TO FIRST PERSON! It's extremely irritating. You are not SAYING something silently but THINKING it and there's no reason to switch from third person to first person every few paragraphs.

I'm skimming through this book and I still can't believe that characters would actually be this stupid in the sense of letting themselves be killed by the piggies when they didn't have to be. This doesn't make them look noble or self sacrificing but really, really dumb and lacking in respect for another being's culture and way of life.

Also, the romance between Ender and Novinhua is not believable. Perhaps from Ender's side, but not from her.

On the bright side, at least Jane is AWESOME. I love her. I do find her whole part very satisfying and I hate when Ender turns her off and she becomes lost.

12/18/12 Edit-

Why did I read this book again? I think I need to just not read OSC the way I should NOT watch Anti-christ by Lars von Trier because I don't even want to SEE all of that genital mutilation.

I will hurt.

OSC just isn't a good writer. It seems like he is but he isn't. He nags and lectures. He tells when he should show you. He has no subtlety. His bad guys are too evil and his good guys are too good. He's terrible at character development. You're better off reading Wraethlu or something like that. Especially if you are keen on gay rights. That serious has fantastic character development, interesting beings going from being human to something else dealing with that. It's also very gay friendly too, unlike OSC who will never be gay friendly and will always think homosexuality will destroy society if you just allow people to openly be themselves.

What's a hero to do once he's accomplished his heroic deed? Ender doesn't quite know--and unfortunately, Card doesn't quite seem to know either. Ender decays into something of a pathetic and self-pitying figure who wanders about uttering platitudes and aphorisms. It's Card at his preachiest, and thus at his worst.

What can I say. I liked Ender's Game (though I did find the end weak and maybe that should have told me the direction things would go).

I just didn't care for this one it was too "full of itself" the Story" seemed so convinced of it's own superiority and how original it was (I seriously ask, didn't most veteran Science Fiction fans and probably many others spot the "secrt of the tree" without being told).
I just didn't care for it. For me , and if you liked it or loved it let me stress again FOR ME it seemed pompous, self rightous, overly PC, and somewhat annoying. So having a limited amount of time in my life to read an enjoy books I put this one down.

different

This book picks up 3000 planetary years after the first one. I say planetary because when you hop along on space ships like Ender has, it’s been only 22 years.
Yup, Ender is 35 but humanity has spread over 100 planets and 3000 years, making his deeds legend. Some herald him for being humanity’s savior but even more despise him for killing off a species.
And he’s still looking for what to do with the queen egg he has been given at the end of the previous book to atone for his involvement in the xenocide.
Due to how most people regard him, Ender no longer exists. Instead, there is Andrew Wiggin or The Speaker for the Dead (there are a whole guild of Speakers now and they are regarded as a form of priest).
We begin by living on a colony world where another alien species has been discovered some time ago so the planet gets cordoned off. The one settlement, which had already been there when the aliens were found, is allowed to stay in place but no other settlements may be erected. Plus, only one scientist is allowed to study the aliens (well, him and his apprentice).
But one day things go horribly wrong, there is death amongst the humans and people get frightened once more.

As in the first book, here too, the author has some insightful comments about human society.
Such as the fact that rejected males like to call females stupid and weak out of their frustration over being rejected.
Or that people cry for peace and attack the military for example, second-guessing decisions they cannot even understand most of the time, but as soon as their own safety is at risk, these same „pacifists“ cry for blood.
However, the author also gets things wrong once again. Because Portuguese is supposedly just like Spanish. Uh-huh. About as much as German is the same as Russian.

Anyway, what probably annoys me so much is how the author tries to give one the impression of being an everyday guy while also trying to lift himself up over others. As pretentious and pompous as his characters who think they know everything there is to know about an alien species just through empathy and who are constantly wrecked with guilt but only carry the weight of the world on their shoulders so they can make themselves more important in their display of what they are willing to do for redemption.
I get that Ender regrets his part in the xenocide and it commends his character. However, he was a tool and a tool only. A necessary one, but still just a tool.
Not to mention the xeno-biologist who wants to deny herself love and a marriage to save her beloved (not to mention that she had her lover’s children - and SIX of them! - but claimed they were from another guy, one she did marry) because „her discovery“ (it wasn’t, she had just amassed information which the xeno-biologist subsequently looked at) got a man killed and supposedly she didn’t want the same to happen to her beloved. Self-important much?! The xeno-biologist who was the first casualty was a scientist, a human with his own brain and his own decisions and he had studied the alien race before the afore-mentioned drama queen was old enough to know left from right. His curiosity and need for discovery (not to mention going alone after knowing what the aliens were capable of) got him killed. Just like when the dead man's son comes to her, she thinks he came for her - it never occurs to her that HE wants/needs comfort. It’s not all about you, you know.

Which leads me to the characterizations. Valentine was, of course, the maternal kind staying on the planet she now called home because she had married and gotten pregnant and that is what (pregnant) women do. Always only good for philosophizing (even though having only theoretical knowledge).
While Ender goes exploring without hesitation and saves several species instead of just one (the author had to make him even more fantastic in this sequel, of course).
Then we have Novinha, the birthing machine - and the fact that her oldest son is in a relationship with his half-sister which is problematic in and of itself but the author doesn’t stop there. Oh no. In the end, Novinha also marries Ender - I guess "misery loves company" is true after all.

Moreover, it really bugs me how this author lets his characters preach tolerance and love for all to us readers when in reality he is this uber-religious homophobic person saying „wonderful“ things like this:
"Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced, but to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society" which he then clarified by saying that „the goal of the polity is not to put homosexuals in jail. The goal is to discourage people from engaging in homosexual practices in the first place, and, when they nevertheless proceed in their homosexual behavior, to encourage them to do so discreetly, so as not shake the confidence of the community in polity's ability to provide rules for safe, dependable marriage and family relationships.“ And there is much more where this came from and it’s never getting any better.
I resent people who try to preach to me while being vile themselves.

It shows on the page, too. Like the audacity to presume you know a person or even species simply by reading about them.
The whole concept of the Speakers rubbed me the wrong way. Yes, what Ender wrote in his publication at the end of the last book was indeed what the last queen was telling him, but how would humanity know this to be accurate?! Moreover, I had less of a problem with Ender becoming a Speaker than with all the other Speakers that followed his example. How humanity thinks and feels about fellow humans and what you can learn from papers and stuff on the dead is not necessarily how they actually were, no matter how much empathy you have.

To me it all reads like pseudo-intellectual, self-aggrandizing nonsense, bloated to the point of bursting. But as long as we keep clapping ourselves on the shoulders … *rolls eyes*

I don’t mind authors trying something new, going in a completely unheard-of direction. I read Asimov’s Foundation and a lot of his stuff was „out there“ as well. But Asimov had style (albeit almost no female characters to begin with) and his creation was vast and impressive. Or a different example: Kim Stanley Robinson. The bookgods know I was soooo annoyed with all his characters and wanted to scream and give up on his Mars Trilogy but the guy had done his research, he knew his science and the scope of the world he created was astounding. Not so here even though we have 100 colony worlds and Jane (no, not the funny guy from Firefly).

Anyway, add to that that the story was dragging (nothing like Battle School to hold my interest) and that the writing style was still nothing special and you might understand why this is not for me. And yes, I did round up my rating.