Who would have thought Ender’s Game might have led to a profound discussion of life, colonisation, society, and family!

More than three millennia after our first story, Ender has jumped through time due to his interstellar travel. He is both the mythical hero, the first Speaker for the Dead, and also, secretly, the infamous Ender, harbinger of death.

He holds an exalted role, a Speaker of the Dead, who travels the universe to tell the true stories of people who have recently died, bringing peace and resolution to their communities.

This is Ender’s opportunity for redemption, and an exploration of different cultures and communities. It has a very 90’s Star Trekky vibe, where peace and living in harmony are ultimate goals for an advanced society.

A blend of philosophy and action works well here. Looking forward to the next in this series, Xenocide.

4.5*

Speaker for the Dead is a very different follow up to Ender’s Game. In a story that begins drenched in war, Speaker instead looks at the cost of keeping peace, especially when those with whom you want to keep it are so different from yourself.

It’s a story of redemption, forgiveness, community and humanity and deals with complex and mature themes – essentially having grown up from Ender’s Game.

If you’re looking for Ender’s Game mark 2, you may well be disappointed, but if you go into it with an open mind and allow Card to tell the story he says he always “meant to write”, you’ll find it a compelling and meaningful read – even if that meaning can sometimes be a little obvious and, as some have put it, “preachy”.

For me, however, this rarely detracted from my enjoyment of this unique and thoughtful story.

Full review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwp_v...

9/10

While it took me some time to get into the book, I was rewarded with a really interesting story and the most perfect ending.

The book deals with a grown Ender getting involved with two central conflicts, one with a broken family dealing with its trauma and one about human and alien contact and communication. Both are multilayered and involve fascinating and unique characters, plus we also get to see how Ender has dealt with, and in some way is still struggling with, his own past. However, apart from him being our main character, this doesn’t really feel like a sequel to Enders Game.

It is a totally different book, be it regarding the story, the pacing, the way emotions are conveyed… While for me Enders Game was the more powerful book by far, I don’t mind going in a different direction here. The beginning was incredibly slow and I felt a slight detachment throughout most of the book, but apart from that it´s just a really good book on its own that doesn’t necessarily need to be a sequel.

If Ender's Game was great, I'm not sure there's a word to describe how much this book transcends that greatness.

I loved it.

Whereas Ender's Game felt completely YA, Speaker for the Dead did not. I'm sure it's because our protagonist, Ender is 6 in the first book and 36 in the second. Card said Speaker was the book he wanted to write, and he did a fine job.

The idea of a Speaker is a fine one - someone who comes and tells the truth at funerals, but that wasn't even the crux of the story for me.

I loved the inter-cultural relations of the book, and how that could be applied to my classroom. How there are at least two sides to every story. How it's often impossible to clearly understand other cultural mores, customs, traditions, values, etc... and all the implications that come along with transferring our mindset to their culture - and yet maintaining rather than shying away from an idea of absolute truth.

Yes, I thought it was fantastic. I'll be bumping the next one a little closer to the top of my to-read list.

After a short interval of 3,000 years the Ender saga resumes, yes he's still conscious you may ask how? Too many space trips to the 100 worlds (aging slows going faster thus the less you become older, time dilation as Einstein's Theory of Relativity states ) , the near light speed turns Andrew "Ender" Wiggin into a virtual immortal. Anno Domini 5,135 on the new colony of Lusitania, the old name for Portugal twenty-two light- years from Earth, humans there speak Portuguese (My favorite) and the most hated person in history,(from hero to zero) yes poor, troubled Mr. Wiggin, killer of billions is hiding in plain sight. Nobody would believe the former defender of the third planet still exists. Calling himself Speaker for the Dead, a person that summarizes the life of the deceased, giving comfort and insight to the mourning families and friends. The plot focuses on the other intelligent species discovered by humans, Pequeninos (little ones) aliens who resemble a kind of pig because of their snouts and since Ender wiped out the Buggers, ant -like clever creatures in the first novel, these are the last in the known galaxy left alive, non homo sapiens, is this progress? A virus the Descolada (unglued) has devastated the planet destroying countless organisms with few plants or animals surviving, a once beautiful land sparsely populated with worms, little forests, fish in the seas and rivers, odds and ends, incomplete now... the ignorant, though smart pequeninos, with a fence that separates the small human village from native beings, the people need to study. The arrival of Mr.Wiggin understandably causes great fear and excitement to the colony. Somebody requested his presence...Who ? Why? How? The Barriers were built... demanded by the ruling, lacking in knowledge, the very unpopular here a foreign clueless ...
Congress governing the 100 worlds wanted this, nevertheless murders were committed anyways before the endless voyage by Ender's starship finally orbits the distant planet and he steps down on Milagre (Miracle) village. The suspicious Bishop Peregrino, Governor Bosquinha, the Abbot Dom Cristao of the monastery and the school Principal Dona Crista give a cool reception. Better a mixed one by the Ribeira family led by the widow Novinha, it doesn't take a genius to find out who requested that Ender come. Talking to the enigmatic aliens, their weird beliefs, customs, living arrangements, these are unsophisticated creatures with brains and where are the females...The Speaker for the Dead has a secret A.I. named Jane that knows everything which the wealthy Wiggin uses well to his advantage...he sure will need this soon. A splendid sequel to a very popular original space opera, less action more philosophy as the curious world unfolds and the puzzle is revealed. If the mystery is strange the dance makes for a fine walk , the darkness to light can and will become a shining road.

Time to Meet A New Species

Speaker For the Dead is a magnificent epic work full of surprises. It joins as well as echoes the great science fiction works such as More Than Human, The Dune Trilogy, and Stranger in a Strange Land. But, make no mistake about it, Speaker is a bold original work that stands on its own. Originally conceived before Ender’s Game at least in idea form, it is a sequel to Ender’s Game but has as little in common with the world of Ender’s Game as a player piano has with a one-legged ostrich whose done a dozen shots of ouzo.

Forget game theory. Forget computer games and battle training. The buggers were vanquished. Humans have spread to 100 worlds. It’s 3,000 years later and the great xenocide of the buggers is a collective guilt trip. Ender is still around - bouncing through lightspeed travel saves some time. He’s been around an awful long time as has Valentine. And he’s now the Speaker For the Dead, here to spread the truth and his past is obscured but he’s almost a sacrilegious leader revered across the cosmos. But, what till you meet his new best friend Jane, the seductress of the cosmos.

Most of the action takes place on a small backward colony which has importance because the forests around it are teeming with intelligent piggies. And, we don’t want to screw up this second intergalactic meeting of species. But, with limited contact, and carefulness about revealing technology, it’s a conundrum how to find out anything. The cultures are just so different. And the piggies are just as good at not revealing much.

Along the way, Card questions so many things and what makes us sentient and how do we deal with that which we don’t understand.

Can’t give this one enough star ratings. It’s up there. Right up there On the top shelf.

So great to revisit one of my absolute favorite novels of all time!

Back when I first read this, Andrew Wiggin immediately jumped into my heart to become my ultimate role-model, my hero, and the idealized version of myself. Ender's Game had him go through some horrific things and really set the stage for the man he was later to become, but it is the full-grown man that really pulls on my heartstrings.

No. He wasn't truly at fault for wiping out the Formics. That can be laid at other's feet.

But he absolutely pulled the trigger. And the end of Ender's Game showed us the beginning of his redemption. Where redemption takes the form of Understanding. And then telling All the Truth, the good and the bad. Exposing it to the world for good or ill. I LOVE how this turned into a very powerful force for good.

Better yet, I love how turning it upon this special world of Lusitania transforms everyone's lives this dramatically. Or how it affects four intelligent species. Or how it paves the way for real redemption.

I'm not all that fond of Christian motif stories because they're generally all ham-fisted and overdone. Like, A LOT. But this one does NOT go that way. It's humanist. It's understanding that all of us have good and bad within us, and that accepting (and really understanding) each other is can be the most life-affirming thing that any of us can do.

The story of Speaker for the Dead is powerful on all levels of worldbuilding, strange aliens, mystery, love, and sheer cussed awesomeness. The threat of another Xenocide times three is shocking enough on its own, but when combined with all the events from Ender's Game, Speaker basically turns me into a quivering ball of emotional jelly. And worse, the characters, and I mean ALL the characters, from Pequenios to Navi's family to Andrew himself, just draws such a warm feeling from me that I can't even stand it.

It's more messed up than Ender's Game. More wonderful. Deeper, adult, complex, painful, and glorious.

I can't particularly think of ANY novel that deep down affects me more on a personal level. I'm thinking along the lines of putting this in one of my top ten best novels of all time. :)

So gorgeous. So important. :)

İlk kitabı sevenler için kesinlikle okunması gereken bir şey olmuş. Hani serinin devam kitapları genellikle aşağı doğru grafik çizerler ama burada olan bu değil. Ender'in Oyunu kadar hatta ondan daha iyi bir kitaptı.

Kişiliklerinin sınırları keskin çizilmiş ve ilişkileri yüzeysel olmaktan ziyade daha derinleştirilmiş güçlü yan karakterlere olmasının yanı sıra ilk kitabın eksik kalan yanı olan yetişkin karakterler konusunda da iyiydi.

Işık hızına yakın yolculukların zaman üzerindeki etkilerine dayanarak oluşturulmuş bir kefaret hikayesine sahipti. Özellikle domuzcukların evrim aşaması ve kültürleri hakkında Scott'ın özgünlüğüne şapka çıkarmak lazım diye düşünüyorum. Teoloji ve psikoloji konusunda güçlü fikirlere ve diyaloglara sahip olmasının yanısıra uzaylı kültürü ve insanlığın bu kültürde ki etkisinin yıkıcı veya yapıcı etkileri üzerinde güzel akıl yürütmelere sahip bir romandı.

This book continues the story of Ender Wiggin, began in Ender's Game. This was a really good story. The setting for this book is mainly on another planet, in a Brazilian/Portuguese colony called Lusitania. I was very interested in this group of people and how they deal with the fact that they discover another life form, similar to humans, on this planet. Following their own "prime directive", they attempt to leave these aliens alone so as not to contaminate their evolution with human ideas, but that doesn't really work out that well.

I was very interested in the religious aspect of this book. The colony is Catholic and they act according to the dictates of their religion, at least most of the time. Ender, the Speaker for the Dead, is considered the devil by some because of the pagan beliefs of the Speakers. Ender arrives on Lusitania to speak the death of several people who have died and he quickly becomes involved in the lives of the people on this planet. And it is quite a soap opera!

I believe I liked this better than Ender's Game.

Stunning. Exceptional. Moving. Not sure I'll read a better, more enjoyable book this decade, much less this year

One of my ALL Time Favorites. I loved Ender's Game, but I think that this novel surpasses it on just about every level. Writing, emotional resonance, characterization and depth. This novel is a much more "adult" read than Ender's Game. It impacted me greatly and I found that it stayed with me long after I finished reading it.

6.0 stars. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!

Winner: Hugo Award Best Novel.
Winner: Nebula Award Best Novel.
Winner: Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.
Nominee: Campbell Award Best SF Novel.