Will I love Speaker for the Dead?

In this book, I am again inspired by the conflict of colonist off-worlders with the native species who are incomprehensible to humans.

I am always amazed by Orson Scott Card’s imagination. In this book, not only are the forests integral to the native ecology of the planet, they are also completely interconnected with the life cycle of the plants and intelligent indigenous species. I did not see that one coming!

To me, this book speaks to the core of life, in all of its raw and tragic beauty. 

After reading Ender’s Game, I didn’t expect Speaker for the Dead to change register so completely. New characters, new worlds, new species… almost nothing feels the same.

And yet, when you look closer, the core questions remain: how we communicate across difference, how quickly we judge, how often we interpret others through our own narrow lens. Suddenly, Lusitania doesn’t feel so alien after all.

This book was a very different reading experience for me. Deeper, more mature, and far more demanding. Beneath its often gray imagery, something universal emerges. I would call it “human,” but that would miss the… show more.

Ender Wiggin is such a fascinating and deep character. Those who read only Ender’s Game miss out on so much! I was floored when I read this second book in the series. The main character, Ender Wiggins, goes from a boy soldier trained to destroy the enemy to a grown man desperate to prevent another genocide.

I also love the idea of using relativistic travel to stay alive for millennia and witness humanity's development. Card does an excellent job of writing a deep set of characters, making us feel like we could step into their shoes if called upon.

And since Speaker for the Dead, number 2 in OSC’s Ender series and another Nebula and Hugo Award winner, is my favorite of all his books, I must include it as well. After the great, terrible war, Ender disappears and many years pass. A mysterious figure, the Speaker for the Dead, arises to reveal the souls and redeem those who have passed on. I very much related to someone who really could grok the life of one recently deceased and speak to the survivors in a way that clarified, resolved, revealed, and redeemed the deceased’s entire existence for them.… show more.