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Ender Wiggin, the hero and scapegoat of mass alien destruction in Ender's Game, receives a chance at redemption in this novel. Ender, who proclaimed as a mistake his success in wiping out an alien race, wins the opportunity to cope better with a second race, discovered by Portuguese colonists on the planet Lusitania. Orson Scott Card infuses this long, ambitious tale with intellect by casting his characters in social, religious and cultural contexts. Like its predecessor, this book won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Card's novel Ender's Game introduced Ender Wiggin, a young genius who used his military prowess to all but exterminate the "buggers," the first alien race mankind had ever encountered. Wiggin then transformed himself into the "Speaker for the Dead," who claimed it had been a mistake to destroy the alien civilization. Many years later, when a new breed of intelligent life forms called the "piggies" is discovered, Wiggin takes the opportunity to atone for his earlier actions. This long, rich and ambitious novel views the interplay between the races from the differing perspectives of the colonists, ethnologists, biologists, clergy, politicians, a computer artificial intelligence, the lone surviving bugger and the piggies themselves. Card is very good at portraying his characters in these larger, social, religious and cultural contexts. It's unfortunate, then, that many of the book's mysteries and dilemmas seem created just to display Ender's supposedly godlike understanding. A fine, if overlong, novel nonetheless.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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First Sentence
Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who arose from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts but brothers, not rivals but fellow pilgrims journeying to the shrine of intelligence. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who arose from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts but brothers, not rivals but fellow pilgrims journeying to the shrine of intelligence. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Humanity isn't judged by biology alone,
By
This review is from: Speaker for the Dead: Author's Definitive Edition (Mass Market Paperback)
Some argue that this book was superior in all ways to Ender's Game. I agree that the story was wonderful, detailed, mysterious, and well-researched, and overall I'd say it was a very powerful novel. Stylistically, this one's superior.
I still enjoyed reading Ender's Game more, though. Don't get me wrong. Speaker for the Dead is a wonderful novel, and I'm glad to have read it. The book before it just appealed to my interests more. That being said, though, it's interesting to see just how Ender grew up, how he became a different person and yet still showed signs of the killer-child he used to be. I'm still a sucker for cultural relativism, though, and this book had that in spades. What might be appalling to us is perfectly normal, even respected within other cultures, and learning to see past ourselves is very often the key to solving the mystery and understanding others. The way Card handled the killings of the humans by the piggies was wonderful to read, and trying to solve it kept me amused through the book. ("Is this why they did it? Or maybe because of this?") I applaud the man for the research that he put into the writing of this novel, in linguistics and anthropology and biology. The little details made everything so believable, so realistic, that when his smooth writing style drew me in, I forgot everything around me.
4.0 out of 5 stars
`No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless.',
By J. Cameron-Smith "Expect the Unexpected" (ACT, Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Speaker for the Dead: Author's Definitive Edition (Mass Market Paperback)
Three thousand years ago, Ender Wiggin completely destroyed the alien race known as the Buggers. Ender disappeared after and was reviled for this xenocide: the total destruction of the only other known race of sentient beings known in the galaxy. A powerful voice - the Speaker for the Dead - came to be heard: telling the true story of the Bugger War.
A new race of beings was discovered on the recently settled planet of Lusitania. This discovery, of a race the humans called the Pequininos, (also known as `the Piggies') was seen as an opportunity to atone for the destruction of the Buggers. And thus, to avoid any tragic misunderstandings that might lead to war, strict rules have been put in place to prevent the human colonists from influencing the evolution of the piggies. Only trained xenobiologists are permitted to interact with the Piggies, and contact is limited. `The piggies were not to be disturbed.' Over time, two xenobiolologists are killed by the Piggies in what appears to be a bizarre fashion. One consequence of each death is that a Speaker for the Dead is called for a different member of the colony. A Speaker is summoned, and travels to Lusitania. In order to speak for the dead, he also has to understand the living and this includes both the Piggies and the human colonists. It happens that the Speaker who responds to the request is the original Speaker for the Dead, Ender Wiggin himself, and he has another mission as well. `On his starship, Ender Wiggin had no notion of the freight of other people's dreams he carried with him.' I thoroughly enjoyed this sequel to `Ender's Game', and am looking forward to reading the third novel in this series. This book could be read and enjoyed on its own, but I'd strongly recommend reading the series in order. Orson Scott Card has created a fierce, complex world occupied by beings with a mixture of historical, contemporary and likely future problems. Jennifer Cameron-Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars
An enjoyable read,
By
This review is from: Speaker for the Dead: Author's Definitive Edition (Mass Market Paperback)
I read Ender's Game about 2 years before I picked up Speaker for the Dead. I did have to reread the last chapter of Ender's Game to refresh my mind about what had happened. The book picks up right after the events of the first book. The actual story seems to move slowly, but that's what kept forcing me to read the next chapter. The real secret about Card's books is the time he devotes to character development, and this book is no different. I highly recommend the book.
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