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Speaker for the Dead (Ender, Book 2)
In thе aftermath οf hіѕ tеrrіblе war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, аnd a commanding voice arose: Thе Speaker fοr thе Dead, whο tοld thе rіght tаlе οf thе Bugger War.
Now, long years later, a second alien rасе hаѕ bееn learned, bυt again thе aliens’ ways аrе wеіrd аnd frightening…again, humans die. And іt іѕ οnlу thе Speaker fοr thе Dead, whο іѕ аlѕο Ender Wiggin thе Xenocide, whο hаѕ thе courage tο confront thе mystery…аnd thе truth. Speaker fοr thе Dead іѕ thе winner οf thе 1986 Neb
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Ender’s Game? No. Impressive? Certainly.,
I went through various stages of opinion even as reading this book… First was, “Hey- why is this nothing like Ender’s Game? Drats!” Then, “What is with all this Portuguese stuff, and religious garbage?” and “Why is Ender some kind of space-detective?” And so I started trudging through this book with a lack of enthusiasm. Then slowly but steadily, this tale pulls you in. You don’t mind the lack of Game’s glorious action. This is a very mature cut.
I doubt that anyone will be able to read Ender’s Game and stop here. You want more. Speaker for the Dead is everywhere you have to go. I find it extremely hard to consider this a sequel, because never have I seen an author switch his style this drastically within one series. Card forces you to accept all of his changes, but those who adapt to this book are highly rewarded! I found myself involved with Card’s font reasonably alarmingly, and touched by his themes on so many levels.
One thing that really impressed me- Card takes our first gifted friend with aliens and compares it with 16th century European explorers encountering the natives of South America. It shows the barriers of language, technology, religion, and misunderstandings -as well as mankind’s need to hegemony or dominate any new race it meets. This book is like a description lesson that teaches us not to make the same mistakes when we reach this point of our future. Very fascinating.
Here is no doubt I will be continuing this series.
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|Orson Scott Card’s best work,
As a habit, I avoid best sellers. When I heard here was a sequel to Ender’s Game, I shuddered. That book had affected me so deeply, I could not imagine a sequel to it.
This book is in all ways, barring one, superior.
This book reminds me of Ursula LeGuin at her best, and I do not invoke her name lightly. She is one of the few sci-fi authors who understands something of anthropology and, more significantly, the human condition. Card in this one books has levelled with her.
Ender is a far richer and deeper character in this book than he was in Ender’s Game. Here he is having to live with his own guilt and the positive and negative aspects of his own legend. He has inspired a cult of sorts, the Speakers of the Dead, public who converse in not well of the dead, but accurately. How does one live with such a legacy?
The Piggies are intrinsicly fascinating. They are not small humans. They are not just randomly acting individuals. They act in a consistent, rational manner — once you know all the peices of the puzzle. Most of these peices are not exposed except with time. Jane is also fascinating. “She” acts in a logical manner as well, but again it is not a HUMAN manner. The Hive sovereign is very real and, again, not human. Here is a delicate balance inherent in this book.
This book is far superior to Ender’s Game, a book which is one of those rare sci-fi novels that I have read twice. It speaks to the core of humanity within us all, it speaks to our fears, our dreams, our hatreds, our prejudices, our nobility, our failings, and our longings. It is not a shoot-em-up. This book is literature, not science fiction. It may be read again with profit. It is not a book about plot and action (thank all the powers!). It is a book about being humnan.
I place a reservation in here, one way in which the book does NOT match Ender’s Game. The ending of this book is abrupt and calls out for a sequel. This is reasonably sad. Ender’s Game stands on its own; Speaker for the Dead calls out for a conclusion. Aside from that, this is a superlative book. No, not for everyone; name me a book that is for everyone. But in the end, an gifted reader will gain much from reading Speaker for the Dead.
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|A landmark of sci-fi and humanism,
As he tells us in the introduction (which is, by the way, the best introduction I’ve ever read), this is the book Card intended to write when he started the ever-well loved Ender series. Ender’s Game was simply a prologue — originally a small tale.
Here are so many excellent things about this book. Card has a talent for writing deep, real font that I’ve never seen in sci-fi and seldom in any present literature. He is a master storyteller, and this book is wonderfully paced — you will continually be twisting your brain trying to uncover what is up with the pequeninos before the scientists do.
But most of all, this book is a eloquent manifesto of humanism. As Speaker for the Dead, it is our hero Ender’s lifelong task to know public and tell the truth about them — a truth that will reveal their excellent, terrible, and hideous, but most significantly, their inherent worth and um, goodness. This truth-seeking carries from the individual to the entire races, as Card (and Ender) examine how we relate to those we don’t know, even those we can’t know.
So what is it? It’s a page-turner, crazy thought-to the top(as all sci-fi must be) thrilling, kind, commanding, amusing, poignant novel. It is an brilliant cut of writing that I want to see taught in high teach classrooms.
My only problems with it are that terrible cover(who designed these covers? They have nothing to do with the tale — not even the tone of the tale) and the sometimes not legible use of portuguese. But those are both minor.
An excerpt:
“We know you now. That makes all the difference, doesn’t it? Even Quim doesn’t despise you now. When you really know somebody, you can’t despise them.” “Or maybe it’s just that you can’t really know them in anticipation of you stop hating them.” “Is that a circular paradox? Dom Cristao says that most truth can be only expressed in circular paradoxes.” “I don’t reckon it has anything to do with truth, Olhado. It’s just cause and effect. We can never sort them out. Science refuses to admit any cause except first cause– knock down one domino, the one next to it also falls. But when it comes to human beings, the only type of cause that matters is final cause, the purpose. What a person had in mind. Once you know what public really want, you can’t despise them anymore. You can dread them, but you can’t despise them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart.”
If you’d like to discuss this novel, e-mail me at krischwe@whitman.edu
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