Reviews

Speaker for The Dead is the second book in the Ender Wiggins Saga by Orson Scott Card. It was the 1987 Hugo winner. The voice and tone of this novel is vastly different from that of Ender’s Game, but this is to be expected. Ender’s Game was the story of a child trained and tricked into fighting a war against an enemy he did not know or understand. At the end of this first novel, Ender comes to understand the motivations of the “Buggers” and realizes that he has almost killed an entire civilization over a misunderstanding. In Speaker for The Dead, a grown up Ender must confront and come to terms with what he did. It would be only natural for the tone of the novel become more internal and introspective.

I enjoyed this novel as much or even more than Ender’s Game. The world building is wonderful. It was smart to move the storyline 3,000 years after the events of the first novel. This gave much more validity to the change in attitudes towards what Ender did in the first novel.

I am looking forward to the next novel in the series.

4 of 5 stars.

roseleaf24's review against another edition

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4.0

I'm so glad I'm finally taking the chance to read more of the Ender books. This was so good. I found it slow at the beginning, but Card writes himself storylines where he has to build a completely new world or two each book, and he really does that masterfully. The exploration of space and time, as well as the possibilities on other planets, was fascinating, but above all the characters were full and the plot was rich.

akeller5's review against another edition

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4.5

I typically don’t like large time jumps between novels, but (either due to the large break I took between books or because of the books own merits) I was (dare I say?) appreciative of it. The tone of this book felt more mature and I quickly was capitulated by the new set of characters and landscapes. By the time connections were made to the first book I was already hooked and was excited by the unexpected series of events which led the paths of the two sets of characters to cross. If the book had ended about 3/4 of the way through I would have given it 5 stars, but I felt the end was a bit rushed and anticlimactic and in some cases undermined the mystery and excitement built during the first three quarters. Still an excellent book built through character dialogue which is even better when listened to as an audiobook.

mgabrel's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

“Every person is defined by the communities she belongs to and the ones she doesn’t belong to. A person that believes they don’t belong to any community at all invariably kill themselves, either by killing her body or by giving up her identity and going mad.”

I loved it. I read Ender’s game first, and when I heard about this book, I disregarded it. I didn’t like the idea of a tonal shift. I’m glad I finally did read it though. I think it stands above Ender’s game.

Ender is right that humans don’t have multiple physical transformations in life, but I think there are life transitions that partially simulate the piggies’ three lives (infant/teenager/adult/old age).

smtorres28's review against another edition

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4.0

Nothing like Ender's Game but truly moving and touching. It gives a glimpse on the shreds of humanity and how it can only take a small group of people to shed light on a bigger picture. I will definitely finish the Ender's Quintet.

ir_sharp2's review against another edition

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4.0

Definitely a slow one to get into, but worth it once you do. Ended is spookily eloquent.

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