Customer Reviews
A Different Kind of Sequel 
2008-04-20
I actually first read Ender's Game when I was in college, much later than when most sci-fi and fantasy buffs come across Card's classic. I actually started using it with students I tutored in middle school as a way of trying to get them hooked on reading. It almost always worked.
In Speaker for the Dead, Card fast forwards 3000 years. In the aftermath of Ender's victory over the buggers, instead of being honored as being a savior, he is vilified as one great murderer. The fault for this is his - after the final battle, Ender had gone off and found the hive queen and learned all about the bugger race, realizing that the buggers had never been enemies to begin with. He ends up writing a treatise that casts him as the villain and reshapes his own legacy. This book finds humans making contact with a new race and trying to correct the mistakes from the past.
Reading Card's sequel, although one has to use that term loosely, was both an entertaining and ultimately disappointing experience. Critics have hailed this as a better written book, which is hard to argue against. The moral and religious overtones are explicit, as are the attempts at showing the emotional depth and pain many of the characters feel. But is it better than its predecessor? Sadly, it does not even come close. The success of Ender's Game was in its innovation and creativity. Here, Card seems as if he's struggling to become more of a literary writer, a writer with something to say. His point of view is well-received, but it is too heavy-handed. He may as well have written a philosophical treatise.
Overall, you don't have to read this thread of the Ender series to have closure. Stick to Ender's Shadow and the more recent thread following Ender's brother than this and the two books that follow it.
The best book. 
2008-03-24
I'm 12 years old and an avid book reader and have read all of this series and enjoyed every one. This book has affected me more deeply than anything I have ever read. It is deep enough to almost seem like philisophical literature, but it is not for people who get bored easily, because it is long and has virtually no action. For fans of Enders Game, my favorite ever, this will have to be a definite read and all the other books in the series. Also, if you ever wondered how a new species would evolve, this book is for you. A darn good book, if you ask me.
Great Book! 2008-03-10
Orson Scott Card does it again! Speaker for the Dead is a must read for sci-fi lovers. However, this series isn't solely for those fantasy lovers out there. This series of books is about much more. If you want a good book to read that will keep you interested from the first sentence...read this and the other "Ender" books.
Pretty good, But not great 
2008-02-14
You need to read Ender's Game first, and then read this, but going from Ender's Game to this book is a big change. But it's a must read if you read Ender's Game. I would rent it from the library.
The First Step in the Evolution of the Series 2007-11-24
I wouldn't yet consider myself a knowledgeable source when it comes to science-fiction classics, but it's obvious why this is one of them.
Ender's Game (Ender, Book 1) was a great book - also a classic - but it was slightly more visceral in order to promote character development. After all, only a couple of characters, including Ender, carry over into Speaker for the Dead.
Card's sense of pacing in this book is phenomenal, changing your perceptions every few steps to keep you intrigued. I found myself wonderfully curious all the way up to the end when most everything is revealed. Reading the end of Speaker was both exciting and depressing, because I really didn't want it to end.
I think the book's five stars are fully deserved.
4.5 stars 2008-06-27
I had been warned that even though Speaker for the Dead continues the story of Ender's life, and is set in the same universe, that it's not that much of a sequel--that is, it's not the same kind of book. Which was a relief to me, to tell you the truth. Ender's Game was a complete story, and I'd been dreading the kind of sequel that would be Ender vs. a different kind of alien, which would just spoil the whole thing.
Instead, it's set 3000 years later, but due to a whole lot of light-speed travel, Ender's only in his 30s (I think--I'm not positive, and I'm not going to search for it. It's not that important. At any rate, he's an adult, in his prime.). He's become a Speaker for the Dead, the original Speaker for the Dead, but nobody realizes that. His purpose is to learn all about someone's life--not just the good things, like in a eulogy, but everything--their hopes, dreams, fears, and failings--and then Speak for them. It's what he did for the Buggers after destroying them, then published the book, earning for himself instead of the accolades he'd received, the title of "Ender the Xenocide," and his name is now reviled.
Humanity has learned a lesson, and now contact with alien races is strictly limited. On the planet Lusitania is the only other sentient race humanity has discovered: nicknamed the Piggies. The humans are required to stay within their fences and observe only, not give any information to the Piggies. But the Piggies learn anyway, from the questions they're asked, and then the anthropologist studying them is brutally slaughtered, and nobody knows why.
Ender is summoned to speak a death on the planet, and ends up bringing pain and healing. And, well, here's the whole point of the book: to know him is to love him that truly knowing a person, or an alien race, understanding them completely, is to love or at least care for them. The message got a little heavy-handed for me by the end, hence the half-star reduction.
Otherwise, the story was interesting, the characters compelling, the mystery intriguing. I'll be reading more. I've already got Xenocide (Ender, Book 3) (Ender Quartet) in my TBR pile.
good, but less gooder than Enders game 2008-06-20
I thought Andrew Wiggin was too much of a Jesus figure in this novel. His character was much more accessible in the first book.
It's a good book, and you really should read it after you've read the first one. I just expected more from all the reviews saying this was better than Ender's Game.
Not Enders Game, but Still Good 
2008-06-20
I really enjoyed enders game, and was disapointe that the sequel was so different, but once i got used to the new writing style, I enjoyed this book very much. I found the moral issues of Human-Alien contact fascinating, and the plot kept me hooked.
the book was way to long, and it progressed much to slowly. i also found it hard to connect to Novinha, and the author made ender a bit of a god, which was anoying.
other than this ,i enjoyed it a lot, but i think the Enders Shadow series is better
Aidan's book review 2008-05-01
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card is the sequel to Enders Game. It's about a man, Andrew Wiggin, the protagonist from Enders Game, and how he sets out on a quest to redeem himself from his sin of wiping out a race of intelligent species from another planet who meant no harm to the world. To accomplish this he believes that he should help a new species of intelligent life that has been discovered to become acquainted with other human beings but unfortunately, he has to leave his sister Valentine Wiggin behind. It definitely helps to read Enders Game first, but throughout the book Orson Scott Card explains things that happened previously.
This book is worth reading because it describes the human mind and feelings so well that readers can connect to the main character in lots of different ways. This book opens minds and makes readers imagine the future. It has very interesting concepts of how space travel effects time and other things and it makes the impossible seem real. This book is targeted towards older people who like science fiction stories but appeals to teenagers as well.
Ender's Sequel 2008-05-01
There are a number of books in the Ender Series: first was Ender's Game, a short story turned into a worthy novel by sci-fi master Orson Scott Card. Ender, battleschool graduate, has eliminated an entire race of beings (The "Buggers"--really the Hive Queen and her subjects.) Now, whispered to by the cocoon of the hive queen he has rescued, Ender is moving away from Earth, banished by the decision of his brother Peter and Colonel Graff, to live on Lusitania.
Lusitania is an odd colony living behind a palisade to avoid contaminating the aboriginal life--and also to protect the colonists from murder by the Piggies, their name for the native life form there. After a disturbing execution of first one of the Piggies then a colonist or two, Ender arrives, invited to be a Speaker for the Dead. He is not exactly welcome in this tight little community, but he persists, knowing that his role on Lusitania is far greater than any of the colonists can imagine.
The audio version of this book is far better than the written, and that applies for the others in this part of the series (Xenocide.) I thought this was an abberation, but Orson Scott Card himself said in an interview that his experiences with being a playwright lead him to write dialog-based scenes. He feels his books are meant to be read aloud. I have to concur; two books of his I didn't like in printed form I admire greatly in audio form. This is one of them.
If you find "Xenocide" or "Speaker for the Dead" hard going, I suggest you get the audio edition. As to the "Shadow" series of sequels, for some reason, these read well in printed form but are just fine as audio as well. I have to agree with the author, his books are meant to be heard!
