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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I think I liked this book overall a little bit more than the first one of the series but not enough to give it a different rating. Overall I think this series is not for me. There were parts about the book that I enjoyed, mainly the Mystery aspect with discovering / researching a new alien species and how the society is at the brink of war with them just because of misunderstandings / misconceptions with each other and this also reflects well with the real world for me.
It was baffling to get such a huge time jump between book one and two but I thought that was actually a good thing. Lot’s of opportunity to show how Ender has grown as a character and lots of opportunities for deep reflections.
On the other hand the quite heavy religious themes of the book really didn’t work for me and also I just don’t like Ender as a character that much, at least not enough to make me read more books about him. I thought his relationship with Jane was very interesting and I would probably like to see more of her but I don’t think that’s where this is going.
I also felt like the book is quite slow paced with just not that much actually happening which left me bored quite a lot of times.
So after another quite average reading experience I’m gonna bounce off the series. A friend who also read them told me that he actually liked the Ender’s Shadow series a lot more. Maybe I’ll give that one a try at some point.
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
To get this out of the way: not as good as Ender's Game.
I've read this before, in high school I think, and the mysteries of the piggies' behavior was obviously spoiled for me this time around. So without that, it's all mostly philosophical discussions about love and truth. Card created some interesting characters in this book that could definitely warrant their own protagonist roll in other books.
To summarize the plot:
Ender is now about 30 years old. Quite a jump from 11 years old at the end of Ender's game. After Ender writes "The Hive Queen and the Hegemon" and signed it as "Speaker for the Dead", he and Valentine spend the next 3,000 years traveling the universe (at speeds approaching the speed of light, so that they keep their subjective ages while the rest of the universe grows older). Speaking has earned a following (Speakers are treated as a priest by law) and Ender travels to speak the deaths of important people and search for a new home for the nearly-extinct buggers, while Valentine, as "Demosthenes", writes histories. Ender now goes by his given name, Andrew, since "Ender" is the name known for committing the first Xenocide (I guess nobody takes into account that he was only 11 and was tricked into believing it was a video game).
All of that is background provided at the beginning, given about as much attention in the book as my paragraph here.
Valentine has finally decided to settle down and make a family when Ender, sory, Andrew, gets a new request for a Speaker, from the human colony of Lusitania. This is a special colony because it exists as more of a scientific base of operations for studying the only other seemingly-sentient species known to man, aside from the "extinct" buggers: the "pequeninos", mostly referred to as "piggies".
And then, a lot of stuff happens, mostly involving the people surrounding Novinha, the one who originally called for the Speaker. By the time Ender, I mean, Andrew, arrives, She's in her 30's, has married and had children, and her life is fubar. And End...Andrew comes and heals all by speaking the truth, by loving people in order to understand them and their motivations, including the piggies, who by the way have been splitting scientists open and positioning their organs around them while their hearts still beat in their chests (or somewhere on the ground around their mutilated body).
So, if you're expecting something similar to what made Ender's Game great (3D, 0 g battle tactics, space warfare, violent-yet-thoughtful confrontations, the goings-on of children-geniuses...) then go read another book, like [a:John Scalzi|4763|John Scalzi|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1236228326p2/4763.jpg]'s [b:Old Man's War|51964|Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)|John Scalzi|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1289127697s/51964.jpg|50700]. This book, apparently the one Card always wanted to write, is very different. In fact, he only published Ender's Game as a full-length novel in order to write Speaker for the Dead as its sequel. Considering Card's personal beliefs and convictions, I'm not surprised that I liked the necessary background book more than Card's mind-baby.
I've read this before, in high school I think, and the mysteries of the piggies' behavior was obviously spoiled for me this time around. So without that, it's all mostly philosophical discussions about love and truth. Card created some interesting characters in this book that could definitely warrant their own protagonist roll in other books.
To summarize the plot:
Ender is now about 30 years old. Quite a jump from 11 years old at the end of Ender's game. After Ender writes "The Hive Queen and the Hegemon" and signed it as "Speaker for the Dead", he and Valentine spend the next 3,000 years traveling the universe (at speeds approaching the speed of light, so that they keep their subjective ages while the rest of the universe grows older). Speaking has earned a following (Speakers are treated as a priest by law) and Ender travels to speak the deaths of important people and search for a new home for the nearly-extinct buggers, while Valentine, as "Demosthenes", writes histories. Ender now goes by his given name, Andrew, since "Ender" is the name known for committing the first Xenocide (I guess nobody takes into account that he was only 11 and was tricked into believing it was a video game).
All of that is background provided at the beginning, given about as much attention in the book as my paragraph here.
Valentine has finally decided to settle down and make a family when Ender, sory, Andrew, gets a new request for a Speaker, from the human colony of Lusitania. This is a special colony because it exists as more of a scientific base of operations for studying the only other seemingly-sentient species known to man, aside from the "extinct" buggers: the "pequeninos", mostly referred to as "piggies".
And then, a lot of stuff happens, mostly involving the people surrounding Novinha, the one who originally called for the Speaker. By the time Ender, I mean, Andrew, arrives, She's in her 30's, has married and had children, and her life is fubar. And End...Andrew comes and heals all by speaking the truth, by loving people in order to understand them and their motivations, including the piggies, who by the way have been splitting scientists open and positioning their organs around them while their hearts still beat in their chests (or somewhere on the ground around their mutilated body).
So, if you're expecting something similar to what made Ender's Game great (3D, 0 g battle tactics, space warfare, violent-yet-thoughtful confrontations, the goings-on of children-geniuses...) then go read another book, like [a:John Scalzi|4763|John Scalzi|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1236228326p2/4763.jpg]'s [b:Old Man's War|51964|Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)|John Scalzi|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1289127697s/51964.jpg|50700]. This book, apparently the one Card always wanted to write, is very different. In fact, he only published Ender's Game as a full-length novel in order to write Speaker for the Dead as its sequel. Considering Card's personal beliefs and convictions, I'm not surprised that I liked the necessary background book more than Card's mind-baby.
Completely different than Ender's Game, but still great. I wouldn't say it's better than the first book, especially since this one deals a lot on mystery and wouldn't be as strong a second time around. The dysfunctional family stuff hit a little too close to home, but I enjoyed it.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes