The One with Speaker for the Dead

237. Title & Author: Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (382 pages)

Genre: Fiction—Science Fiction 

Completed: 26 August 2012 

Summary & Review: 

Three thousand years after the end of the Bugger wars, the name Ender Wiggin is known throughout the Hundred Worlds colonized by humans as the Xenocide: the terrible murderer who annihilated an innocent alien race. No one knows, however, that the man they so revile is still alive, restlessly traveling through the stars searching for a home for the last remaining member of the buggers, the Hive Queen. After a call for a Speaker for the Dead reaches Ender, he travels to the colony of Lusitania, a planet where another sentient alien race has been found and is being studied by a few members of the Catholic colony. As he goes about his craft of speaking the life of the deceased, he finds a broken family lead by a woman who is burdened with a guilt Ender knows intimately, a guilt that has driven Ender across light years and through the millennia. Perhaps on this small isolated planet Ender has finally found a home and family for himself and a chance at new life for the Hive Queen. 

As has been said by many people, including the author himself, Speaker for the Dead is a much different novel than its predecessor Ender’s Game (#186) in tone, pace, and theme. Where Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow (#217) were fast paced adventures in the battle room, Speaker was a slower, more contemplative look at guilt, forgiveness, and redemption. In the edition of the book that I read, there was an excellent introduction by Card where he explains that the events of Ender’s Game were absolutely necessary for Speaker to exist. In fact, he said that one of the major reasons he even wrote Ender’s Game was so that he could write this book. Now, does that mean that one of the two is better, or that Speaker is maybe even superior to its predecessor? I don’t think so. Both books are excellent, with carefully plotting, pacing, and development even if those elements are vastly different in the two. And, much like Ender’s Shadow would not have been nearly as good as it was were it not for Ender’s Game, the same is true for this novel as well. Without the original, Speaker would not have worked. 

Rating: 8.0