UGGHHH! I figured since some of my all-time favorite books are Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, that Speaker for the Dead - another installment of Ender's life - was going knock my socks off too...I was SO disappointed. This book won the Hugo and Nebula awards - and one critic even said this was Card's best work. I have to assume that they weren't reading the same novel I was. They just couldn't have been. It was awful. This book was such a let down, I wish I never would have read it. It completely ruined the future Ender for me, so I'm going to forget the whole story as soon as possible. It was SO far out there, completely boring, and just too nuts that during the most intense part of the book, I found myself reading it as "and blah blah blah, and then blah blah blah..." Ender isn't the same brilliant and complex character he once was, and the new characters Card introduces are just sad. If you are looking for another story that brings back the excitement and intrigue of battle school, look elsewhere. Ender's future is bleak...make a good future for yourself by picking a different book.

This was a bold departure from the story and style of Enders game but it was an awesome book. Far from the military storyline of the original this is a quieter book. It deals with love, loss, family, religion and redemption. After reading an interview with orson Scott card he mentioned that Enders game was only meant as a prologue, that speaker for the dead is his true great work despite the popularity of the original book.

On the strength of this I’m definitely going to read xenocide.

Las 5 estrellas de La voz de los muertos son muy distintas a las 5 estrellas de El juego de Ender. La primera novela de la saga es una historia juvenil, llena de acción que a muchos de nosotros nos abrió la puerta de la Ciencia Ficción de pequeños. Esta segunda es una novela mucho más pausada, madura y no tiene nada que ver con la primera.

Es de alabar la valentía del autor de romper con el formato de la primera y lanzarse a la piscina con una historia lenta que prioriza el desarrollo de los personajes antes que la acción. En algunos momentos me recordó al relato intermedio de Los propios dioses de Isaac Asimov y eso ya me dice mucho.

De momento una saga perfecta, no sé cómo continuará pero será difícil mantener este ritmo.

Ender's Game is one of those rare sf classics that are placed in the top 5 of most "All-time best sf books", I have seen it occupy the pole position in a few such lists. Such accolade is not undeserved as Ender's Game is a great book, and one of the best military sf novels ever published, alas military sf has never been my favorite sf sub genre so Speaker for the Dead is much more to my taste. What makes this book very special are the existential and philosophical issues raised by this book. I also love the Pequeninos (piggies) alien species and their highly unusual stages of growth. Their culture is very alien and this leads to a terrible misunderstanding and a couple of tragic human deaths, that said, there are some recognizable human characteristic in their behavior. Characterization has always been a particular strength of Orson Scott Card and this is very much a character-centric book, though the sf element, the sense of wonder and immersion is very strong. The character of Andrew Wiggin (Ender) is very different from the previous novel he has grown up, grown old and attained a lot of wisdom. Some of the alien piggies characters such as Rooter and Human are as vivid as the human ones. For me this book has a lot more emotional resonance than its predecessor as I can identify with some of the problems the characters go through. This book epitomizes all that I look for in a perfect sf novel.

The two books in the Ender's Saga that follow this one, Xenocide and Children of The Mind are not shabby either.

Orson Scott Card has said that Speaker for the Dead is the book he always "meant to write" and that the only reason he wrote Ender's Game was as a "prequel," so he felt a little baffled when Ender's Game ended up becoming his most famous and most read work. After reading Speaker for the Dead, I understand where he's coming from. The complexity of issues tackled in Speaker for the Dead are much deeper than those in Ender; likewise, the cultures and worlds explored through Speaker are much more intricate. One thing I love about Orson Scott Card -- which I somehow always end up forgetting when I'm not reading him -- is that, despite the fact that he writes fairly "hard science fiction," his stories are still completely character driven. Unlike many SF writers, he spends as much time developing his characters as he spends developing his society, and the result is a compelling book regardless of the plot. (Heck, I even enjoyed Ender's Shadow, which basically had the same plot as Ender's Game except told from a different character's perspective.)

Despite my enjoyment of the book, there were a few things that annoyed me. Although Orson Scott Card's characters are well-developed, the female characters seemed to have less complexity; in particular, the principle female character spent about 3/4 of the book wallowing in her own self-pity. This may endear her to male readers with a knight-in-shining-armor complex (as, indeed, it endeared her to Ender), but as a female reader I wanted her to just get over it already. Orson Scott Card seems to play the female moral superiority card even as he grapples with some real ambivalence about female leadership -- the female leaders in this book were either veiled tyrants (whom Ender felt compelled to put in their place) or rendered ineffective as leaders the moment Ender burst on the scene. Finally, Ender himself is a main character in this book whom you're almost tempted to despise just because the author is so clearly in love with him. But truth be told, that didn't keep me from being a little enamored with him, myself -- although the "piggies," an alien race introduced in this book -- held my heart and my attention most completely.

I mean, its interesting how he sets up his plots with time : Characters use light speed to bump around, and while for people on planets time ages 50 years, the people on the ship don't age more then a couple of days. THIS I like.

But I'm sick of his subtle racism; I'm a bit sick of how Card pretends to be able to view people like an open book - his characters can PREDICT exactly how other characters will act, due to their personality type etc.

And we'll see if the plot has a pay-off, Its just a bit mediocre.

PS: And I'm sick of his vapid discussions on "religion" - where he constantly brings up "calvinism," "catholicism," "mormonism," and his own goofy agnostic space thing : its a bit preachy at times.

And his use of Portuguese to help individualize his focus planet in here : something called Luscitania : is more funny then interesting.

PPS: Oh and one more thing. The names he picks for 'entire alien species' - seem like straight out of a 10 year olds pokemon imagination: "buggers" - this name is used for 1000s of years SERIOUSLY to describe an insect like species that is intelligent etc: and "piggies" for another talking species on Luscitania. Fucking ridiculous. Amen.

It’s been just under five years since I first read Ender’s Game at my kid’s bequest. As I pointed out in my review, the last chapter of that book, which occurred after all the action, was the part of the book that I found most compelling (and which pushed my assessment from a mere 3 stars up to 4). I mentioned this to my kids and they, having read almost all the books in the “Ender” series, told me that I should read Speaker for the Dead, that I would enjoy it much more than I did Ender’s Game.

They were right!

While far from perfect, I found Speaker for the Dead far more interesting and complex than the punch-‘em-in-the-face shoot-‘em-up that was the prequel. I had expected Card to take a condescending tone and to push his religious views on the reader, but found that Ender’s philosophy and the tackling of religious, moral, and political themes that predominate throughout, was much more subtle and nuanced than I expected. I also found the complexity of relationships and the navigation thereof to be, if not altogether believable, given the timelines involved, interesting and surprising.

To give a plot outline would involve me accidentally spoilering things that I ought not, and others have addressed the plot adequately already. Like many good works of literature, the plot doesn’t really matter all that much – it’s a platform from which Card explores, more than anything, the notion of forgiveness and compassion. There were moments that I found emotionally affecting, and was brought near tears more than once. It is not a comfortable read, and anyone who is paying attention to their own reaction as they read it will find that one’s emotions run strong. Some will feel manipulated. Others will feel guilty. Others will try to blow off their feelings and accuse the writer of being shallow and even callous. Still others will become angry. Just take a look at all the Goodread’s reviews! In any case, this book has a way of getting “under the skin” and provoking a reaction.

I know a lot of authors who would love to get that kind of reaction from their readers, this one included.

Another 5-star read for me in the Ender's series! I loved Ender's Game and I loved this as well. Even though it is so different than the first book. I read that the author originally wanted to tell the story in Speaker for the Dead, but wrote Ender's Game first to create buzz for the series. I understand it because I don't know how much I would have liked this without Ender's Game to lead into it and set the characters up. I've heard the series has diminishing returns, but I definitely will at least try the next one.

[UPDATE: I finished all 11 Ender/Shadow books and this is my favorite still!]
Wow, this was really a great follow-up to the legendary Ender's Game. I say that mainly because OSC deals with religion and genocide and Ender's guilt without really shoving his own Mormon religion down the reader's throat. The characters are all wonderfully drawn and the action never really lets up (despite not having the military background as its predecessor!) I really liked Jane, she was one of the better characters, even if she was an AI. Her sarcastic humor really helped in this story which would probably have been overly emotional without her.

In summary, following the Xenocide of the Buggers, at the end of EG, Ender has written The Hive Queen and the Hegemon published it widely and left on a personal quest with his sister Valentine to search for a world to reboot the Buggers thanks to the Hive Queen's cocoon he possesses. In this book, brother and sister have lived for over 3000 years and are settled on ice planet Hoth, oops I mean Trondheim. Meanwhile, the Starways Congress which rules over the Hundred Worlds where humans have started colonies has sent a team of researchers to Lusitania, the only planet where sentient life has been found, the piggies. The book is about the confrontation between humans and piggies, the intervention of Ender as Speaker, and the implications for the future (there are four other primary books and five parallel books in the series). It is riveting and full of interesting philosophical queries around otherness and the place of religion in a universe with aliens, but especially about guilt and forgiveness. All of this in a tight narrative with three-dimensional characters is quite an achievement.

One cool sidenote is the use of the ansible, an intergalactic communication device which defies the speed of light that was invented by Ursula Le Guin in her Hainish cycle of books, introduced in Rocannon's World and better explained in one of her masterpieces, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia. Its role in Speaker is incredibly important, but you'll have to read the book to see why.

Anyone else out there as impressed by this book as I was?

Fino's Enderverse Reviews in internal chronological order (I think):
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Much better than Ender's Game. So interesting and carefully written, so many messages delivered in each page. Wonderful book.
But why then, you may ask, did I rate it with 4 stars out of 5? The reason is rather embarrassing: I was not prepared to read this book. Not mature enough I think. It touched subjects that were very disturbing and made question tons of stuff. Also, to be able to go on I had to listen to most of this book, instead of reading it. My interest for science fiction is not that extense (other than Star Wars, of course) and the book lacked of romance, which is the genre I prefer to most.
Other than this, Speaker for the Dead has a very deep message to give, and I encourage people to read it if they want to, as long as they are prepared, which I was not. To read it after Ender's Game is not completely necessary, although I would advise for you to read it first, no matter how slow it may seem.

تجربه ی ویرایش ترجمه اش خیلی لذت بخش بود

Govornik za mrtve je totalno atipičan, a opet, potpuno (i jedino) logičan nastavak Enderove igre. Fascinantan pogled na drugačiju inteligenciju, na moral i istinu i smrt, na porodicu i individuu. Ovde nema a od akcije, ali ima a od antropologije (tojest ksenologije), i a, i n, i t... I ja ne mogu biti srećniji zbog toga. Iako je i Enderova Igra bila nekarakteristično promišljen roman, ipak se dosta oslanjao na vojni aspekt (i čuveni obrt), dok Govornik poseduje melanholiju i promišljenost kao direktnu posledicu Endera. I sve je kako treba, ne bih promenio reč romana – ni jednu jedinu reč (e sad, to već nije slučaj sa prevodom, ali to je druga priča tojest pljuvačina). Orson Skot Kard hoda po tankoj žici, kako ga je sam nazvao, „antropološkog saj-faja“ i sapunice (ozbiljno, ovde ima svega; nije kolonija džabe naseljena kolonistima španskog govornog područja winkwink) ali to radi na spektakularan način koji pretvara celinu romana u nešto što stoji samo na svojim nogama, čvrsto, snažno, nepokolebljivo.

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