Speaker for the Dead

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: David Birney, Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins

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)

Great but with problems

The book was very good but I believe one reason it’s not as well known as Enders game was some of the psychology on why some characters did what they did, didn’t really work. Not being able to, as a reader, completely reconcile a character’s actions with who they are, and their circumstances, tends to leave you disconnecting from them (and books are all about connecting with the characters). Now this might have stood out to me as a problem because my background and education in psychology. Novinia was an example of this, and yes he described in detail why she did what she did - plus her trauma and everything- but the explanations did not line up (making it feel sloppy to me). There were also things that were said about characters but not shown, like an afterthought (generally for plot purposes).
Don’t have Miro’s brother tell me Miro is a genius, SHOW me he is. But the, otherwise, care put into writing the story was really good.

I almost quit, glad I didnt

I loved Enders Game. Was surprised to see this existed. First couple chapters were so dry that I was contemplating on giving up this book. Super glad I didn’t! Once we got past the introductions I couldn’t put it down!

One thing to note, I did not like how the readers changed it up. Either have the ladies speak for the ladies and the men for the men or just have one reader. Thats my opinion.

Overall amazing book, rough beginning.

No Spoilers

It's funny how time can improve a book. When I read this book as a teenager, I simply didn't get it. I was bored. A few decades later, I gave it another try, and I loved the story. I found that I could relate to the characters and story much better as an adult. Although it's not a direct sequel to Ender's Game, it's a good continuation of the Ender's development. The narration would have been better if they stuck with Scott Brick. The other narrators pale in comparison to Scott.

Not what I was expecting

I had heard nothing of the sequel and was looking for it to pick up where it left off. However once I got past my initial frustration on this point, I quite enjoyed the story! Way better than a politics war that the sequel could have been. Performance was good but it I wish they stuck to 2 voice actors. Picky but it was overall very good.

An excellent dive into sci-fi and philosophy.

An excellent book, perhaps one of my favorites, although the audiobook has an annoying musical string that plays at seemingly random times, and the narrators are sometimes inconsistent, switching out to play particular characters semi-randomly.

Still, the performances were solidly done. If you enjoy science fiction and philosophy, I'd definitely recommend Speaker for the Dead.

All time Favorite

This is an emotional and imaginative novel that makes me marvel. The characters are all so well developed, and I will listen to it many times.

HSC does it again

What an elegant telling of life and death. This work is brilliant and should be read in conjunction with Enders game for sure.

Greatest Science Fiction Novel Of All Time

Scott clearly has a ragtag of devoted readers as all his books are performed by the same people, and I like that. They are very excellent narrators. Very strong performances do true justice to what I believe to be the very best science fiction has to offer. Outstanding.

Honestly!

I didn't like it as much as the first book, but still 100% worth the listen. loved all the drama, very interesting direction for the series

Excellent story

Loved the depth of the characters and the incredible world building. The different readers is sometimes distracting but for the most part the different readers lets you know that this chapter revolves around a specific person or subject.