Speaker for the Dead

by Orson Scott Card

Book Overview

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, 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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312853254
• ISBN13: 9780312853259
• Release Date: August 1992
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Fantastic book, not in very good condition - fair at best.

I purchased this book to complete my hardcover enders game collection and to my surprise, it came without a book jacket, warped front cover, and obvious humidity damage in the front quarter of the book (Not sure how that would have occurred). I am completely disappointed with this purchase. I would rate this between poor and fair. Followup - Customer service has followed up with me and is sending a replacement volume immediately. As soon as I receive the piece I will update by either replacing the review or removing it.

One of orson Scott's best work

A gripping tale that is hard to put down

Classic Sci-Fi - DON'T read the intro, it has spoilers!

Don't read the introduction of the book before you read the book - It has a giant spoiler, although that didn't actually spoil my enjoyment of the book. If you are Christian, brace yourself for the quiet thematic threads of compassion & responsibility that Orson Scott Card weaves into the Ender series - Don't let that put you off if you're secular, though! It's very subtle. This is the second book in the Ender series, and it will spoil the first book if you read it. This is a great book! A unique story, upsetting at different points, and a little "raw" in the way sci-fi usually is; don't expect one of those trendy stories that sell out at Target every summer. It's not excessively graphic though, and it's not obscene. This is great for geeking out about alien species, how they would be, and how they'd interact with us. It's kind of not even a light read, either - This book (and the first one, Ender's Game) really hit home and helped me process a lot of grief and trauma. Had to put it down sometimes and think, or cry. Makes me excited for the next in the series! The ending is not completely awful like Fire Upon the Deep, that's always a plus.

Better than "Ender's Game," but also different

After reading "Ender's Game" in one afternoon, I fell in love with OSC, and quickly began reading "Speaker for the Dead." I admit the first few chapters let me down a bit. I had lived as Ender and Valentine and I expected them to quickly appear; this was a sequel, wasn't it? Unfamiliar characters such as Pipo, Libo, and Novinha bored and confused me. I skimmed until I found Ender on Trondheim, still haunted by his childhood. From then on, I was hooked, and when Ender reached Lusitania, I discovered the people weren't boring at all; they became real.The plot of "Speaker" is fairly simple. The native pequininos on Lusitania are the only sentient species found in the thousands of years since "Ender's Game." For no apparent reason, they kill two human scientists, eerily echoing humanity's violent first contact with the Buggers. Ender arrives on Lusitania, where, with the help of Jane (a sentient computer program) he tries to understand the pequininos, Novinha's family, and the community of Milagre."Ender's Game" was an adventure story about a brilliant child, made sympathetic by his isolation and empathy. "Speaker" is a much more complex novel, which deals with family, community, religion, truth, and the nature of humanity; its characters and ideas are as important as the plot, if not more so. Those who loved "Ender's Game" for its action and boy-against-the-world theme may not like "Speaker." However, those who loved "Ender's Game" as much for its characters and ideas as its plot will find "Speaker" incredibly rewarding.The first time I read "Speaker," I was thirteen. While I liked the book, I missed the faster pace of "Ender's Game." However, over the years, I have come to love "Speaker," opening chapters and all, more than the other books in this series. My one quibble is the conclusion; though tonally perfect, it leaves enough loose ends to fill....two more books!"Speaker" belongs to the special group of books, science fiction and otherwise, that treat religious and ethical issues seriously. Whether or not you agree with OSC's conclusions (or completely believe Ender's Speaking for Marcos could occur in our universe) the book raises important questions within a moving story about characters with real problems. It also recognizes that people have families, cultures, and other community ties.To summarize, "Speaker for the Dead" is a wonderful novel that uses believable characters to raise questions about human existence. Like "Ender's Game," it explores alienation and misunderstanding, but it is a richer and slower book, and in my opinion, better.(If you like "Speaker," I highly recommend OSC's "Hart's Hope," a fantasy with similar themes. I also recommend anything by Ursula K. Le Guin.)

A landmark of sci-fi and humanism

As he tells us in the introduction (which is, by the way, the best introduction I've ever read), this is the book Card intended to write when he began the ever-popular Ender series. Ender's Game was simply a prologue -- originally a short story. There are so many good things about this book. Card has a talent for writing deep, real characters that I've never seen in sci-fi and seldom in any modern literature. He is a master storyteller, and this book is wonderfully paced -- you will continually be twisting your brain trying to uncover what is up with the pequeninos before the scientists do.But most of all, this book is a eloquent manifesto of humanism. As Speaker for the Dead, it is our hero Ender's lifelong task to understand people and tell the truth about them -- a truth that will reveal their good, bad, and ugly, but most importantly, their inherent worth and um, goodness. This truth-seeking carries from the individual to the entire races, as Card (and Ender) examine how we relate to those we don't understand, even those we can't understand. So what is it? It's a page-turner, crazy idea-filled(as all sci-fi should be) thrilling, thoughtful, powerful, funny, poignant novel. It is an excellent piece of writing that I would love to see taught in high school classrooms. My only problems with it are that terrible cover(who designed these covers? They have nothing to do with the story -- not even the tone of the story) and the sometimes indecipherable use of portuguese. But those are both minor.An excerpt:"We know you now. That makes all the difference, doesn't it? Even Quim doesn't hate you now. When you really know somebody, you can't hate them." "Or maybe it's just that you can't really know them until you stop hating them." "Is that a circular paradox? Dom Cristao says that most truth can be only expressed in circular paradoxes." "I don't think it has anything to do with truth, Olhado. It's just cause and effect. We can never sort them out. Science refuses to admit any cause except first cause-- knock down one domino, the one next to it also falls. But when it comes to human beings, the only type of cause that matters is final cause, the purpose. What a person had in mind. Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart."If you'd like to discuss this novel, e-mail me at krischwe@whitman.edu

Ender's Game? No. Impressive? Definitely.

I went through various stages of opinion while reading this book... First was, "Hey- why is this nothing like Ender's Game? Drats!" Then, "What is with all this Portuguese stuff, and religious garbage?" and "Why is Ender some kind of space-detective?" And so I began trudging through this book with a lack of enthusiasm. Then slowly but steadily, this story pulls you in. You don't mind the lack of Game's glorious action. This is a very mature piece.I doubt that anyone will be able to read Ender's Game and stop there. You want more. Speaker for the Dead is where you have to go. I find it extremely hard to consider this a sequel, because never have I seen an author switch his style this drastically within one series. Card forces you to accept all of his changes, but those who adapt to this book are highly rewarded! I found myself involved with Card's characters quite alarmingly, and touched by his themes on so many levels. One thing that really impressed me- Card takes our first intelligent contact with aliens and compares it with 16th century European explorers encountering the natives of South America. It shows the barriers of language, technology, religion, and misunderstandings -as well as mankind's need to control or dominate any new race it meets. This book is like a history lesson that teaches us not to make the same mistakes when we reach this point of our future. Very interesting.There is no doubt I will be continuing this series.

Orson Scott Card's best work

As a habit, I avoid best sellers. When I heard there was a sequel to Ender's Game, I shuddered. That book had affected me so deeply, I could not imagine a sequel to it.This book is in all ways, barring one, superior.This book reminds me of Ursula LeGuin at her best, and I do not invoke her name lightly. She is one of the few sci-fi authors who understands something of anthropology and, more importantly, the human condition. Card in this one books has levelled with her. Ender is a far richer and deeper character in this book than he was in Ender's Game. Here he is having to live with his own guilt and the positive and negative aspects of his own legend. He has inspired a cult of sorts, the Speakers of the Dead, people who speak not well of the dead, but realistically. How does one live with such a legacy?The Piggies are intrinsicly fascinating. They are not small humans. They are not just randomly acting individuals. They act in a consistent, rational manner -- once you know all the peices of the puzzle. Most of these peices are not revealed except with time. Jane is also fascinating. "She" acts in a logical manner as well, but again it is not a HUMAN manner. The Hive Queen is very real and, again, not human. There is a delicate balance inherent in this book.This book is far superior to Ender's Game, a book which is one of those rare sci-fi novels that I have read twice. It speaks to the core of humanity within us all, it speaks to our fears, our dreams, our hatreds, our prejudices, our nobility, our failings, and our longings. It is not a shoot-em-up. This book is literature, not science fiction. It may be read again with profit. It is not a book about plot and action (thank all the powers!). It is a book about being humnan.I put a reservation in here, one way in which the book does NOT match Ender's Game. The ending of this book is abrupt and calls out for a sequel. This is quite sad. Ender's Game stands on its own; Speaker for the Dead calls out for a conclusion. Aside from that, this is a superlative book. No, not for everyone; name me a book that is for everyone. But in the end, an intelligent reader will gain much from reading Speaker for the Dead.

Sequel to Ender's Game requires a different mindset.

As a teacher, I have insisted that my high school freshmen all read Ender's Game. The fast pace and excellent character development engage the students and lead them toward discussion of serious issues, like how we treat those who are "different" and the ultimate goals and purposes of education. Speaker for the Dead has a different focus, and perhaps a different audience. Although many of my students have read it because they so loved Ender's Game, not many were ready for its sophistication. Speaker for the Dead works for me in its treatment of two major issues. The first of these, expressed through the interaction (and its disastrous results) between the piggies and the humans, has to do with cultural relationships and the arrogant assumptions often made by the dominant culture. The humans function at a level of cultural blindness hard to understand through most of the novel, and that blindness has tragic consequences. The second issue I love in this book is the concept of the Speaker for the Dead, the role that Ender Wiggin has taken on in his adulthood. A Speaker's job consists of traveling to places he is called to "speak" the life of someone who has died. These itinerant Speakers come to the person's life completely objectively, and thus they are able to speak the truth about that person--good and bad. The speaker helps the community deal with the person's death by allowing them to see that person completely; all the person's facets, foibles, and fortes are displayed. I found myself thinking that if mopre people read this book, we might have a whole new funereal ritual to deal with. In short, while of a completely different tone than Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead brings up some important issues, and it is well worth the time spent in reading it. Invest several days in this book; it deserves them. --Prudence Plunkett (Prudence_Plunkett@breadnet.middlebury.edu)