Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

3 reviews

markguitar's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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bookcaptivated's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective 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? Yes

4.0


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runitsthepopo's review

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

This book was so beautiful. I picked it up because I loved Ender's Game, I stayed for the mystery of the piggies, but I cried for the beautiful relationship between the piggies and the humans.

Speaker for the Dead: 4.75/5 stars

My few criticisms are that it took a long while for things to pick up, and I still don't understand why Miro was given the story that he was, unless there's a sequel involving him that I'm not aware of. At the end, it seemed everyone was given a happy ending aside from him.

"They're afraid of the same thing you fear, when you look up and see the stars fill up with humans They're afraid that someday they'll come to a world and find that you have got there first."

"We don't want to be there first," said Human. We want to be there too."

And that's when I stared at the page for a good half-minute, struck by how much I was feeling. It didn't stop there. I continued tearing up when the piggies learned that Libo and Pipo were in pain as they died, when they cried out in grief because they realized that their honored friends had spent their last moments in fear, when Ender is told that he'll have to kill again, that he'll have to kill Human, when Human embraces the gift Ender gives him, consoling Ender with the fact that he'll be living his third life, the life of light. When Ender admits to himself that Human will still be dead to him, no matter the facts.

The piggies are so undoubtedly alien. The mystery of their culture and biology was the biggest driving force for my reading the early parts of the book. But during their first meeting with Ender, they come alive. They are still alien, but so painfully human too. 

And that's the point, I suppose. The narrative keeps coming at you with the Hierarchy of Foreignness, with the question of "Are the piggies ramen or varelse?" You continue to ask yourself, at what point do the piggies become sentient, mature creatures? But in one chapter, you realize that it was never a question of how advanced their society was, but a question of "At what point will humans see themselves in the piggies?"

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