Speaker for the Dead

by Orson Scott Card

English language

ISBN:: 978-0-8125-5075-7

(23 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.

7 editions

The Gnome King reviewed Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (Ender's Saga, #2)

Review of 'Speaker for the Dead' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This book was not what I was expecting, I loved Ender's Game, one of my favourite scifi books, and I was expecting something similar, lots of space battles and tonnes of brutality. Instead I got to read a really deep book, this is more of a scifi discussion on religion, death and what separates humans from animals. This book would be ideal for those interested in anthropology, there were some really interesting theories put forward.

The writing was impeccable, you can tell that the author has put a lot of effort into making sure he has got everything just right. The characters are well developed and the kids are really lovable.

I hope he can keep up the quality for the next book.