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carduelia_carduelis 's review for:
Speaker for the Dead
by Orson Scott Card
It's been quite a while since I read Ender's game, I think 8 years or more? I really liked it, liked the military bits and the dream sequences, enjoyed the twist.
I also remember finding the sudden change of tone and pace in the ending kind of weird: the Hive queen lives on? Ender writes an extended eulogy? It felt a bit thrown in and preachy so I put off reading this, which from the title alone builds on that epilogue, until a few weeks ago when a colleague lent it to me.
And it's great! Most of the preachiness is spread out between a new-world story and a murder-mystery style romp.
The plot moves fast and the characters are likeable - except Novinha. I had a pretty hard time keeping track of all of the various children, especially the ones with the Q names (definitely thought they were the same person with different nicknames for a while), but got the general idea.
The bits that really worked for me were the murder-mystery: learning more about the piggies and the biology of Lusitania, the various alliances in the village. Most of these latter aspects are easy to guess relatively early on - but it's only near the end where you really hear all the details of how piggy society works and it's worth sticking around for.
What made this 4 instead of 5 stars for me then was the characters. They're all a little one-dimensional. They sound fleshed out on paper: Ender is making amends for both xenocide and a lost childhood, his experiences have lent him a great deal of empathy. Novinha grows up an orphan, twice over, and believes herself to be responsible for the deaths of those who love her so pulls herself and those around her into an (oddly catholic) endless loop of punishment and self-hate. But there's so little nuance to these characters: Ender is so infinitely patient that abused children overcome years of selective mutism after only a few hours in his presence! I found it hard to believe some of these characters were real people by then end.
But look, it's a minor flaw in an excellent book. This is pretty soft sci-fi, very interaction focused, immensely readable.
I think you need to read Ender's Game first to get all the little references but it feels like a different genre of book entirely and you can probably jump straight in after just reading the Ender's Game wiki synopsis if military sci-fi isn't your thing.
Recommended.
I also remember finding the sudden change of tone and pace in the ending kind of weird: the Hive queen lives on? Ender writes an extended eulogy? It felt a bit thrown in and preachy so I put off reading this, which from the title alone builds on that epilogue, until a few weeks ago when a colleague lent it to me.
And it's great! Most of the preachiness is spread out between a new-world story and a murder-mystery style romp.
The plot moves fast and the characters are likeable - except Novinha. I had a pretty hard time keeping track of all of the various children, especially the ones with the Q names (definitely thought they were the same person with different nicknames for a while), but got the general idea.
The bits that really worked for me were the murder-mystery: learning more about the piggies and the biology of Lusitania, the various alliances in the village. Most of these latter aspects are easy to guess relatively early on - but it's only near the end where you really hear all the details of how piggy society works and it's worth sticking around for.
What made this 4 instead of 5 stars for me then was the characters. They're all a little one-dimensional. They sound fleshed out on paper: Ender is making amends for both xenocide and a lost childhood, his experiences have lent him a great deal of empathy. Novinha grows up an orphan, twice over, and believes herself to be responsible for the deaths of those who love her so pulls herself and those around her into an (oddly catholic) endless loop of punishment and self-hate. But there's so little nuance to these characters: Ender is so infinitely patient that abused children overcome years of selective mutism after only a few hours in his presence! I found it hard to believe some of these characters were real people by then end.
But look, it's a minor flaw in an excellent book. This is pretty soft sci-fi, very interaction focused, immensely readable.
I think you need to read Ender's Game first to get all the little references but it feels like a different genre of book entirely and you can probably jump straight in after just reading the Ender's Game wiki synopsis if military sci-fi isn't your thing.
Recommended.