Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card is the sequel to the highly acclaimed novel Ender’s Game. It follows the title character, Ender, who’s a speaker for the dead. A person who tells people’s life stories at their funerals. Though Ender isn’t any ordinary speaker for the dead. He’s the first Speaker of the Dead and he’s also secretly the infamous Ender the Xenocide. This book’s theme is mostly about being human and about the questions posed by humanity when encountering an alien species. Are alien species like us? Do they have humanity? Should we teach them our technology or leave them alone? What happens if we make contact with them?
This book has a lot of great moments and themes. Especially when concerning the character’s emotions and feelings. The alien species, “the piggies” , have weird customs and ways of life that provide a very good mystery aspect to the story. This book reintroduces Ender from the first book very differently. He’s much more mature and has grown a lot, becoming very wise in the 3000 years since the first book. But he also has problems and emotions that the book addresses as well. First of all his guilt of destroying the buggers from the first book, and of his attempted redemption by writing the Hive Queen and the Hegemon. While the Riberia Family, the family that requested Ender speak for multiple lost loved ones, is also a big part of the book. The relationships and troubles in the family along with Ender arriving unwanted makes for really interesting conflict in the book. There isn’t any action in the book, unlike the previous one, but it makes up in making you think and wonder about the multiple alien species we grow to know in the book, along with the relationships between Ender and the family members. You will get to know the new characters very well and the author does a great job in taking his time to provide them a backstory and how they feel about everything. It also makes you wonder about the real world, and what would happen if after we wiped out the first alien species we came across, and if we were given another chance and how we would use that chance to do better.
Overall, while this book isn’t that groundbreaking, it's a fun and interesting read that makes you think.
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