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A review by the_gandy_man
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
3.75
This book pleasantly surprised me. I listened to it only because I needed an audiobook, after how I felt about Ender's Game, I wasn't especially excited to continue the series. I found Ender's Game boring and annoying, but Speaker for the Dead is not boring and quite a bit less annoying.
I like the concept of the speaker for the dead, and I like Ender's journey with the family and with the town. I like the mystery of the Piggies and how that unfolds.I like when aliens have fundamental differences from us that make them not make sense, so that the more we learn about them, the more questions we have, until we finally figure them out by completely re-conceptualizing something we thought was true, and this book does that whole thing well. I like the fucked up family. Most of the things that happen in this book are fairly interesting. The plot is a little messy in my opinion. I think it would be much more interesting for the characters who live on the planet to figure things out, and to have the climactic moment with Human at the end, rather than Ender come in and do everything for them. I feel like the elements that tie this story with Ender's Game are some of its weakest points. I also find Jane to be an awkward character. She disappears for a big chunk of the book to go off and miraculously move the plot forward.
I had a lot fewer issues with the worldbuilding than I did reading Ender's Game. This book even clarifies that people don't understand how the Ansible works, and can't travel faster than light, only communicate faster than light. I still think the implications of faster than light anything are not explored nearly enough, but I'm not super mad about it anymore. Calling the new aliens "Piggies" is perhaps even stupider than calling the old aliens "Buggers". It makes it hard to take everything seriously. I could hardly believe it the first time they said "Piggies". Jesus Christ.
Like in the first book, perhaps even more so, some of the characters are fucking stupid, in a way that feels like it's just to make Ender seem smart when he exercises average intelligence. The "scientists" in charge of learning about the Piggies are completely unwilling to think outside the box. The last aliens humans met were a hive mind that could communicate instantly across space, and you can't even make the reach thatmaybe the Piggies' trees are more than just totems? Maybe, after they murder important Piggies which turn into holy trees and also the humans that helped them the most in a weird ceremonial way, we should think maybe to them that's a good thing? Ender arrives, is there like two days, and says "what if what the Piggies say is true is actually true" and the scientists after generations of research are completely baffled by this suggestion. They never even considered it.
And another thing. Novinha stumbles on some grand discovery that will change everything, and Pipo goes and gets killed by the Piggies when he tells them about it. Novinha then decides that she will hide this discovery and not let anybody find it, especially Libo, because she is scared the Piggies will kill him too. WHY? We don't have the advanced problem solving ability to think maybe we can learn the important discovery and then just not go tell the Piggies about it. Basically the whole plot is built on Novinha's insistence that nobody see this important discovery while her reason for that is complete nonsense. She doesn't even know what the discovery is, so she's just completely going on "Pipo learned this and they killed him so if ANYBODY ELSE learns it they will also be killed." I like the family drama mystery thing going on, but I'd like it a lot more if it had a real reason to exist.
I like the concept of the speaker for the dead, and I like Ender's journey with the family and with the town. I like the mystery of the Piggies and how that unfolds.
I had a lot fewer issues with the worldbuilding than I did reading Ender's Game. This book even clarifies that people don't understand how the Ansible works, and can't travel faster than light, only communicate faster than light. I still think the implications of faster than light anything are not explored nearly enough, but I'm not super mad about it anymore. Calling the new aliens "Piggies" is perhaps even stupider than calling the old aliens "Buggers". It makes it hard to take everything seriously. I could hardly believe it the first time they said "Piggies". Jesus Christ.
Like in the first book, perhaps even more so, some of the characters are fucking stupid, in a way that feels like it's just to make Ender seem smart when he exercises average intelligence. The "scientists" in charge of learning about the Piggies are completely unwilling to think outside the box. The last aliens humans met were a hive mind that could communicate instantly across space, and you can't even make the reach that
And another thing. Novinha stumbles on some grand discovery that will change everything, and Pipo goes and gets killed by the Piggies when he tells them about it. Novinha then decides that she will hide this discovery and not let anybody find it, especially Libo, because she is scared the Piggies will kill him too. WHY? We don't have the advanced problem solving ability to think maybe we can learn the important discovery and then just not go tell the Piggies about it. Basically the whole plot is built on Novinha's insistence that nobody see this important discovery while her reason for that is complete nonsense. She doesn't even know what the discovery is, so she's just completely going on "Pipo learned this and they killed him so if ANYBODY ELSE learns it they will also be killed." I like the family drama mystery thing going on, but I'd like it a lot more if it had a real reason to exist.