Speaker for the Dead takes place 3,000 years after the events of Ender's Game. Ender Wiggin has continued his work as a speaker for the dead. Because this work requires large amounts of interstellar travel, Ender is still alive; however, no one knows that he is the beloved anonymous author of The Hive Queen and The Hegemon, nor does anyone know that he is Ender Wiggin, the despised xenocide, the man who destroyed an entire sentient race.

The bulk of the book takes place on a planet called Lusitania, home to a Portugese Catholic colony of humans and the only other known sentient life form in the universe, the peconinos, or piggies. A father/son team of xenologers named Pipo and Libo are studying the peconinos, as the colony's xenobiologist, Novinha, is studying the plant life. When Pipo is flayed alive by the piggies, Novinha calls for a speaker to explain his death. And more than 20 years later, Ender arrives.

In some ways, this book is much more interesting than Ender's Game, even if it is less entertaining. I loved hearing about the piggies and seeing the Lusitanians learn more about them, and the book raises some interesting questions. However, the book takes a very long time to get started. There are a few too many characters, many of whom don't seem all that important to the story, and Card tends to go on and on when he explains his characters' thoughts and feelings. Most of the time, these characters are not so inscrutable that detailed, repeated explanation was needed.

I am interested enough in the colony that I'll probably read the next book, Xenocide, but I'm not feeling a burning need to do so right away, as I usually do with series fiction.

See my complete review at my blog. ( )

I loved Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow enough to try out the series. Speaker For The Dead was a good book, but it didn't motivate me to finish out the series. The book is still a good read.

Three thousand years after Ender defeated the Buggers, another alien group is in danger of being eradicated due to a similar misunderstanding. On Lusitania, the "piggies" are kept separate from people, except those few privileged to study their way of life while never giving away anything about human culture or technology. The peace on Lusitania is threatened, however, when one of these humans is brutally killed by the piggies. No one exactly knows why, but one of his apprentices, Novenha, knows it has something to do with information she learned. She calls for a Speaker of the Dead and Ender (who has been traveling a lot at near-light-speed and has only aged to about 29 due to the relativity of time) answers the call.

Perhaps this was not the best book to choose as an audiobook to listen to as I fell asleep, and this certainly had an impact on my enjoyment of the story. First, the particular audio version I listened to had 3 narrators, who switched off based on the point of view the narrative was coming from (it was always third person, but we see events from several different perspectives). So I had to get used to about 3 different interpretations of different people's voices. Secondly, it's a complicated story that took me about three weeks to listen to, long enough that I didn't always remember exactly what happened and didn't have the ability to flip back a few chapters and refresh my memory. Still, I would recommend it to those who had enjoyed Ender's Game and didn't mind something a little meatier. Speaker for the Dead raises ethical questions about leaving different cultures alone to preserve them, and has a lot to say about the power of speaking the truth. ( )

This dual Nebula and Hugo Award winner is a sequel to the award winning Ender’s Game. Fast forward 3,000 years after Ender’s destruction of the Bugger race. A world hero at the time, he is now viewed as the greatest mass murderer in history and universally abhorred.

Due to the vagaries of interstellar travel, Ender is still alive, incognito, living a life as Speaker For the Dead, a cult like figure who has penned a scriptural work entitled The Hive Queen and the Hegemon. Unknown to anyone else, he also is in possession of a cocoon containing a Bugger hive queen, the genesis for reestablishing the Bugger race.

Now, 3,000 years after destruction of the Bugger, another sentient race has been discovered on planet Lusitania. The Interplanetary Congress, careful not to repeat the mistakes made in the Bugger destruction, very carefully study this new race (Piggies). A combination of events leads Ender to Lusitania and brings together Human, Piggy and Bugger on one planet.

Much like Ursula LeGuin’s award winning novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, this is very much a work focusing on anthropology and interaction between members of different species. The lives and customs of the Piggy race are meticulously and painstakingly presented, perhaps to a greater degree than necessary. The status of the human colony as a licensed Catholic conclave is an interesting twist. An enjoyable piece of work, though not up to the level of the original. Also, the book leaves too many loose ends to be tied together in the third book of the series. ( )

- Warning: Contains MAJOR Spoilers - especially if you haven't read [Ender's Game] -

It is over 3000 years since Ender won the Bugger wars. He and Valentine have been travelling from planet to planet looking for a place to call home. But since they've spent more time in space travel than anything else, they have barely aged. Finally, Ender gets a call to Speak for the Dead on a planet called Lusitania where the only other found alien race, the the primitive Piggies, are being studied by xenobiologists.

To be honest, I didn't enjoy this book as much as Ender's Game. That book was very exciting to read with its battle room scenes where you could picture little kids being very adult-like soldiers. It also painted a very interesting psychological portrait of the nature of war, the stereotypes we have of children, and how it is human nature to destroy the Other than try to understand it. This book was more about inter-organizational politics, xenobiology and Catholicism. Whereas Ender's Game was more of a 'things happened' book, Speaker of the Dead seemed more of a 'bunch of philosophical conversations book'. Nothing sparked my interest until I hit the middle of the novel.

If you know anything about Star Trek, I do feel this book contained the best criticism of the Prime Directive I have ever read. Is non-interference with alien cultures the best way to go? I have always agreed with that philosophy, but now I'm not so sure. This was the only part of the book that held my attention and felt like something 'new' and worthy of the accolades it has received. The dialogues between Ender and Human (a Piggie) were extremely well done.

Lastly, I must mention that Card's domestic vision of the future really depressed me. In a world where many socials issues had advanced so far and were strictly protected by the interplanetary government - such as religious freedom - domestic violence is still permitted and ignored. In this book, one of the characters was systematically abused by her husband for many years. It is obvious that all the other colony members knew about it, including the top religious leaders and the Governor of the colony, but they all chose to look the other way and not interfere. I'm sorry, but it's illegal today and 3000 years from now I have expectations that domestic violence won't be tolerated and leaders and neighbours will not and cannot standby and allow a woman get the crap beat out of her by her husband.

I'll still recommend this book, but give a heads up that a reader will be extremely confused unless they have read Ender's Game first. ( )