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Speaker for the Dead  By  cover art

Speaker for the Dead

By: Orson Scott Card
Narrated by: David Birney,Stefan Rudnicki
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Publisher's summary

In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: the Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War. Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered by Portuguese colonists on the planet Lusitania. But again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth. Orson Scott Card infuses this tale with intellect by casting his characters in social, religious, and cultural contexts.

This, the author's definitive edition of the sequel to Ender's Game, also includes an original postscript written and recorded by the author himself, Orson Scott Card!.

Browse more titles in the Ender Wiggin series.
©1986, 1990 Orson Scott Card (P)2002 Fantastic Audio, an Imprint of Audio Literature

Critic reviews

  • Hugo Award Winner, Best Novel, 1987
  • Nebula Award Winner, Best Novel, 1986

"The most powerful work Card has produced. Speaker not only completes Ender's Game, it transcends it." (Fantasy Review)

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What listeners say about Speaker for the Dead

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Good story!

This takes place after Ender's Game and begins a sort of different type of story. Ender's Game is more action based, and the rest of the series has more geo-political and sociological themed. I'd recommend giving this a listen, but if you find it a little too thoughtful for you, you may want to skip directly to the Shadow series - those follow Bean, and are written more similarly to EG.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointing Follow Up To Ender's Game

I thoroughly enjoyed Ender's Game and decided to give Speaker a chance. However, it was nothing like Ender's Game in that it lacked the suspense, likeability of characters and ultimately the continuous movement that kept me interested in Ender's Game.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

A Quality Book with Some Frustrations

Speaker for the Dead is an excellent book that is the perfect companion to Enders Game! Ender and his family have brilliance beyond most humans and are able to use light-speed travel to extend their lives thousands of years as Ender searches for himself and to replace the Hive Queen!

The problems with this are cautionary and are strictly related to the production:

1) The production uses 8 different voices for the book. However, they do not relate to the characters, instead they seem to come and go at random. You get used to Ender with a particular voice, the chapter changes and a new voice is there. There is no rhyme or reason for this change.

2) Periodically (and unfortunately at the most important points in the book), the production company inserts music on top of the words that is so overpowering that you virtually can't hear the words. I have listened to dozens of books and have rarely been as frustrated. I want the words, not the music that some producer wants to insert.

All in all an great listen if you can keep your level of frustration with the way it was presented down to a minimum.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Cold, Sterile, Boring.

Ender's Game was so riveting and engaging I just knew this book would be great. Boy, was I wrong. You may not agree with me, but I'm writing the review to give people another point of view here. This book had way too many underlying faults that just made it hard to swallow. First, when the vocabulary does not sound like you are reading straight out of a textbook, when the writing actually entailed using imagination, it failed miserably. I forgave this in Ender's Game because it was dealing with Children, and seemed fitting at times, but as someone said this book is all "Grown Up", and names like "buggers", "piggies", "rooter", "starsucker" just don't cut it anymore.

Then there's the premise that this book takes place 3000 years in the future from Ender's Game. Yet, the nations, people, technology is basically identical. Now, think about how much the world has changed in the last 40 years on earth. Think about how the world was in 1000 B.C. That's the timespan we're dealing with here, yet technology seems to not have advanced hardly at all. Get real. Sci-Fi is "SCIENCE FICTION". It's based in the plausible and remotely possible. This is not. Heap on top of that the really /LAME/ explanation of lightspeed aging which allows Ender and Valentine to be alive 3000 years later... it's just retarded.

Someone already wrote - "If you enjoyed psychology class, sociology class, comparative religions, etc.... you'll like this book." Wow, I could not have said it better myself. This book read like a textbook. Monotonous, cold, sterile, and just flat boring. What a sad constrast to Ender's Game.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Mostly excellent, one recurring annoyance...

Overall a great reading of an engrossing novel. The production features multiple readers. Different voices take a little while to get used to, but are ultimately a great aid to the novel's many viewpoints.

The one exception is the woman who reads from Novenia's viewpoint; her overly-dramatic, breathless, bodice-ripping delivery -- where every emotion is magnified to characiture and every minor plot developemt is. delivered. with. excrutiating. solemnity. and. weight. is more of a jaw-clenching distraction than an accurate reflection of the text.

Don't let her delivery turn you off, however. Fortunately there several other readers, both male and female, who more than make up for this annoyance.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

A good listening experience, but flawed.

I found "Ender's Game" via Audible.com and treasured it. Ender was a sympathetic, intelligent, and touching character set within the parameters of major world events. I could relate to Ender as we've all felt a little like Ender in our own lives. Lonely, sad, brilliant, afraid, self important, etc. So...

I could not wait to listen to "Speaker for the Dead." Boy was I disappointed...for the first hour or so. For me, this series is all about Ender Wiggin, and depends greatly on his narrative. So when he appeared, I was once again entrenched, but without him the book stumbles. The listening experience reminded me of a film in which one actor completely steals every scene leaving every other frame naked and empty without him or her.

Perhaps it was my attachment to Ender (and his very well acted narrator) from "Ender's Game" that preconditioned me, but I cared far less about the fates of the other characters in "Speaker" than I did about the fate of Ender. I know this is Olson Scott Card's definitive book in the "Ender" series, but it did not carry the same impact as the first.

All that said, I do recommend "Speaker for the Dead" as a listening experience. The issues Card raises are thought provoking even if the religion vs. science debate is at once overly dramatized and simplified. I look forward to "Xenocide" whenever Audible.com offers the title. Hurry up Audible!!

BTW: With all do respect to Nicholas from Jersey, Arthur C. Clarke for one was a very learned sci-fi writer. Indeed, he is a truly brilliant mind. All satellites in orbit today owe him a debt of gratitude, as do we all.

Peace

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Ender's world gets

This book was very enjoyable. But, if you're looking for the same kind of excitement that you found in Enders Game, you might be dissapointed. It's ironic that the author only wrote Enders Game to set the stage for Speaker for the Dead. As my 14-year old daughter said, "becasue he [the author] tried too hard to be serious and send a moral message, the story suffered." I enjoyed this more than my daughters did. (But even so, they listened non-stop.)

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Relativity and Regret

It is 3000 years after the events that take place in Ender's Game and Ender Wiggin is alive and well, as is his sister valentine. Having spent the majority of their adulthood travelling through space, relativity allows them both to be only in their 30s age-wise and yet they have both witnessed the progression of mankind for over 3000 years due to Ansible communications technology which allows for instantaneous communication across the vast distances of space.

The Starways Congress has been created in the wake of Xenocide of the buggers and a new form of religion has been formed based on the writings of Ender Wiggin. Speakers for the Dead are now called upon to speak the truth for the recently deceased. Speakers are expected to neither condemn nor forgive the actions of the deceased, but rather shine the light of truth upon them so others can draw their own conclusions. Speakers are given ultimate access to the records of deceased individuals and anyone may request a speaking. Once a Speaker is called upon and accepts the task the speaking can't be stopped and the Speakers themselves have rights and powers protected by the laws of the Starways Congress to fulfill their duty. Since space travel still takes significant time it is not uncommon for a Speaker to arrive at a speaking destination many years after receiving the initial request via instantaneous Ansible transmission.

Ender himself is now a Speaker when he receives a call to speak for someone on the colony of Lusitania, which is also the location of a newly discovered alien species. Ender accepts the speaking and brings with him the dormant Formic Queen when he departs for Lusitania, leaving behind Valentine for the first time in his adult life. This is a story full of religious and political intrigue, and it focuses on mankind's struggle with the challenge of properly interfacing with an alien species that is far less technologically advanced.

It is slow and plodding when compared to the events of Ender's Game and this one will not be for everyone. Orson Scott Card considers Ender's Game to be prologue and background for this, which is the story he really wanted to tell, but I'm not sure it is the better story. It is certainly deeper and more thought provoking than Ender's Game, but ultimately it is less entertaining and engaging. Still, it is definitely worth listening to so you can draw your own conclusion.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good read for mature audiences

This is not in the same pace as Enders game was. People who loved the first book in this series for its war games and teen rivalries might find this one slow and boring at times. I enjoyed both the books. First one was definitely a fun read and this one has its moments but it starts slow. The author did a great job writing this book in '86 when there was not much of internet fancies we have now. The philosophical part of the book is also way heavier than the first book and one which takes a while to settle. Very interesting read. I wish the names chosen for the lead characters were more nuanced and easy to remember. They are Portuguese names but sometimes even foreign names are easier to remember.

Narrators did a great job switching between characters. The female narrator was sometimes spoke so low (almost to a whisper) which made it difficult to hear when driving. Overall a good read. I highly recommend.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • W
  • 01-08-04

Psychobabble of the Dead

I really enjoyed Ender's Game, so when I picked up speaker of the dead, I expected it to be something along the same vein. Well, you can imagine my disappointment, when, instead of a military-themed story set in space, we get a 'murder mystery' and a 'Christ-like' Ender Wiggin out to redeem everyone whether they like it or not. Ech.

The plot centers around the mysterious Piggies, and their strange habit of murdering people in a really gruesome manner. (I can't imagine how any true anthropologist could find this mystery all that surprising). Ender is called to witness the death of one of the science team, and finds himself embroiled in an almost ridiculously complicated melodrama involving a scientist, her deceased abusive hubbie and her bastard children.

While I did enjoy Speaker of the dead, the psychobabble, self-loathing (on most most noticeably Ender and Noviniah), got tiresome. I also disliked that Ender Wiggin's transformed (in between books) into the Doctor Laura of the start waves. This was seriously annoying. Wiggin, the master of 'tough love' decides what's best for everyone, whether they like it or not.

Erk. What if Ender is wrong? But of course he NEVER is.
A good book, despite the flaws, I've mentioned. However, I personally could have done without the psychobabble and soapboxing. I doubt I'll re-listen to this one.

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