Speaker for the dead

415 pages

English language

Published Aug. 15, 1991 by TOR.

ISBN:
978-0-312-93738-6
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4 stars (2 reviews)

Speaker for the Dead is a 1986 science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card, an indirect sequel to the 1985 novel Ender's Game. The book takes place around the year 5270, some 3,000 years after the events in Ender's Game. However because of relativistic space travel at near-light speed Ender himself is only about 35 years old. This is the first book to describe the Starways Congress, a high standpoint legislation for the human space colonies, and the Hundred Worlds, the planets with human colonies that are tightly intertwined by Ansible technology which enables instantaneous communication across any distance. Like Ender's Game, the book won the Nebula Award in 1986 and the Hugo Award in 1987. Speaker for the Dead was published in a slightly revised edition in 1991. It was followed by Xenocide and Children of the Mind.

10 editions

Very different from Ender's Game

4 stars

I can fully understand why some people that loved Ender's Game were disappointed in this book. Going from a very war-driven tense book to this one that focuses on Ender trying to make up for the past and the moral issues that go with wiping out a species is a big jump. I personally loved this one and Ender's Game.

My biggest gripe with this book would be that Novinha, the main female character, fell kind of flat for me. She lost her parents at a young age after they found a cure for the disease that was wiping out their whole colony, and then isolated herself completely from everyone while following in her parent's footsteps. And this is what makes Ender fall in love with her. Other than occasional mentions of her discoveries, she's a very plain character that seems to mostly be there for Ender's story to move …

Subjects

  • Wiggin, Ender (Fictitious character) -- Fiction.