Speaker For The Dead: Book 2 in the Ender Saga (Ender Saga, #2)

by Orson Scott Card

Three thousand planet-bound years have passed while Ender the star-traveller remains young. In that time his name has become anathema, for he is the one who killed an entire race of thinking, feeling beings. No other has been found - until Lusitania is discovered. The young race there offers mankind a chance to redeem the previous destruction. The only humans allowed near are trained xenobiologists. But once again there are tragic misunderstandings. And when Ender, as Andrew Wiggin, is called to Lusitania to speak for the dead - to present to the community the terrible truth of why men have been killed by aliens - his actions can, and will, reverberate through an entire galactic empire.

• ISBN10: 1857238575
• ISBN13: 9781857238570
• Publish Date: 19 February 1987 (first published 15 February 1987)
• Publish Status: Transferred
• Out of Print: 3 May 2013
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Orbit
• Format: Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

A big departure from Ender's Game but nonetheless an enjoyable read. I'd recommend it if you're into the Ender-verse. I haven't been in it for a while so it was nice to go back.

[dokie80]

I like book #1 better. but still good.

[adamfortuna]

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.

[empressbrooke]

After reading [book:Ender's Game] and falling in love with everything but its last chapter, I was hesitant about reading Speaker for the Dead. After the awesomeness of Battle School, did I really want to read a whole book that was spawned from that jarringly philosophical ending? I'm glad I did, because I'm almost ready to say that Speaker totally kick Ender's Game's butt.

I abandoned all the rest of the plans I had for the evening to read this in one sitting. There aren't any armies of children or exciting battles, but Ender uses his classic get-into-everyone's-heads tactics and helps a colony unravel the mysteries of its citizens and an alien species that kills two of the colony's anthropologists.

My only regret is that I didn't read this series earlier.