Speaker for the Dead

Just as good if not better than Enders Game. A very different story, but I can see why this won a Hugo award for best novel. I was impressed that OSC was able to draw us into a completely different world for Ender and still empathize with the characters.

Sequel to Ender's Game, set three thousand years after its end. Ender is now a Speaker for the Dead, recounting the lives, motives, thoughts and actions of those he is called to speak.

Orson Scott Card wrote Ender's Game almost as an introduction to this book. Although it did not recieve as much recognition, it deals with many more complex issues - especially the treatment of strangers through Demosthenes' groupings of utlanning, framling, ramen and varelse. Much of the story focuses on recognising that the species known as piggies are ramen, the stranger that is human but not homo sapiens, rather than varelse, like the animals. Brings up ideas of how we judge others that we don't know. Neither the Xenocide nor minimal intervention is the right way.

Other characters include Novinha, a xenobiologist, and her children in the colony. They tell us something of fear and guilt, and the way that different people deal with different issues (Ender's speaking is masterful in its comprehension of the events, as well as the audience reaction.)

Enjoyable also due to the concepts of scifi technology introduced. The ansibles enable instantaneous communication, but the ideas behind starflight, protection, genetic engineering, and the unique biology of Lusitania are ideas worth revisiting.

Definitely looking forward to Xenocide, the next book.

I really enjoyed this book. It is a very different kind of book from [b:Ender's Game 375802 Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, #1) Orson Scott Card https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1408303130s/375802.jpg 2422333]. In many ways, I think that it is better, even if it lacks the action and suspense that made Ender's Game a page-turner. The character development is richer, and the story full of more mystery. The incorporation of Brazilian Portuguese and Catholicism gave the story an anchoring to the present and made the characters feel more tactile.