Speaker for the Dead (Ender Wiggin Saga) [Englisch] [Kindle Edition]

If it sounds complicated, it isn't. Card has given us another moral human tale, told in great detail and depth, yet never boring.... Although the events in this book are far less catostrophic than the events our "hero" went through in Ender's game, the emotional impact is still there. We see what became of the lonly mistreated little genius, and how his life turned out. In "Game" Ender was battling for his own personal sanity and survival, playing by the rules of his controllers. In "Speaker", Ender fights for others. He has more control over the circumstances and chooses to help people he barely knows, and the last survivor of the race he was accused of wiping out.

We get a philosophically different book than "Ender's game", but it still has the power to break your heart and lift your spirits. We get a whole new set of personal moral dillemas, and see the dark and light sides of relationships. This book may be different in tone and philosophy than the prequel, but the main player is still intact. If you've read "Ender's Game", this is a must read. If you haven't, don't read this book yet. You'll like it, but that prize winning background novel is still worth the effort before going on to "Speaker". These two are the best books I've read in years. Lesen Sie weiter... ›

There are so many good things about this book. Card has a talent for writing deep, real characters that I've never seen in sci-fi and seldom in any modern literature. He is a master storyteller, and this book is wonderfully paced -- you will continually be twisting your brain trying to uncover what is up with the pequeninos before the scientists do.

But most of all, this book is a eloquent manifesto of humanism. As Speaker for the Dead, it is our hero Ender's lifelong task to understand people and tell the truth about them -- a truth that will reveal their good, bad, and ugly, but most importantly, their inherent worth and um, goodness. This truth-seeking carries from the individual to the entire races, as Card (and Ender) examine how we relate to those we don't understand, even those we can't understand.

So what is it? It's a page-turner, crazy idea-filled(as all sci-fi should be) thrilling, thoughtful, powerful, funny, poignant novel. It is an excellent piece of writing that I would love to see taught in high school classrooms.

My only problems with it are that terrible cover(who designed these covers? They have nothing to do with the story -- not even the tone of the story) and the sometimes indecipherable use of portuguese. But those are both minor.

An excerpt:

"We know you now. That makes all the difference, doesn't it? Even Quim doesn't hate you now. When you really know somebody, you can't hate them." "Or maybe it's just that you can't really know them until you stop hating them...." "Is that a circular paradox? Dom Cristao says that most truth can be only expressed in circular paradoxes." "I don't think it has anything to do with truth, Olhado. It's just cause and effect. We can never sort them out. Science refuses to admit any cause except first cause-- knock down one domino, the one next to it also falls. But when it comes to human beings, the only type of cause that matters is final cause, the purpose. What a person had in mind. Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart."

If you'd like to discuss this novel, e-mail me at krischwe@whitman.edu Lesen Sie weiter... ›

Zur Handlung der beiden Bände: Ender bereut inzwischen, daß er aus Unwissenheit eine außerirdische Rasse vernichtet hat und wird deshalb zum "Sprecher für die Toten", d.h. er trägt die Erinnerung an die Toten weiter. Außerdem sucht er nach einem neuen Planeten, auf dem er die Königin der Insektenwesen ausschlüpfen lassen kann. Seine Reise führt ihn schließlich auf einen Planeten, auf dem eine weitere Rasse lebt, die noch seltsamer ist als die Insektenwesen. Während die Menschen dort versuchen, Verständnis für die fremden Rasse aufzubauen, wird sie auf anderen Planeten als Gefahr angesehen.

Die beiden Bände sind meiner Meinung nach aus zwei Gründen im Vergleich zu "Ender's Game" eine Enttäuschung: Erstens werden auch hier moralische Grundfragen angesprochen, aber es fehlt die Pointiertheit von "Ender's Game". Zweitens ist zwar die Handlung wesentlich komplexer als in "Ender's Game" - es gibt wesentlich mehr Handlungsstränge, mehr Geheimnisse und es werden mehr Fragen aufgeworfen -, aber auch am Ende des dritten Bandes bleiben die meisten Fragen offen, was extrem unbefriedigend ist. (Dies ist eine Amazon....de an der Uni-Studentenrezension.) Lesen Sie weiter... ›