Speaker for the Dead Book Review
It was Travis's turn to pick the book this time around and he gave me a few to pick from to see what I would like to read with him. He picked out solely science fiction and nonfiction books because the last two books we had read together were fiction. Ha ha.
He settled on Speaker for the Dead since I wasn't too excited about any of the prospects. Speaker for the Dead is the second book in a series written by Orson Scott Card. The first book is called Ender's Game. In order to put into context what I thought about Speaker for the Dead, I will refer to my thoughts on Ender's Game.
There will be SPOILERS, so if you just want to know what I thought of the books, then scroll down to the bottom to see!
Two years ago I was looking for a book recommendation and Travis suggested I read one of his favorites: Ender's Game. It sounded interesting enough, even though Science Fiction is usually not my genre of choice. However, when I was reading it I was surprised by how DARK the novel was. It is centered around a family who lives on earth in the future where population is controlled and earth is in a war against an alien species named "the buggers". They were essentially trying to breed and select a military master to obliterate this alien species. In the Wiggin family, there was Peter, who was ultimately not chosen probably because he was a little psychotic, Valentine, who was not chosen either, but was closer to what was needed, so the family was given permission to procreate one more time and then comes Ender, who was ultimately chosen. Ender had to leave his family at a young age to go to military school where he was manipulated beyond belief so the leaders could get exactly what they wanted from him. They isolated him, made him try impossible tasks, and definitely had some weird psychology games going on with Ender. In the end, Ender was able to defeat the buggers, however it was unknowingly because he was led to believe that everything was a simulation.
I thought Ender's Game was a little dark and twisted considering that most of the characters in the novel were children. So there was definitely a flare of dystopia in the book, however the character of Ender was very admirable. His friends were also some fun characters. Ender is redeemed at the end for being driven to kill an entire species unknowingly by writing a book called The Hive Queen where he tells the story of the buggers from their point of view, making them seem more understandable, and therefore, less threatening. He authors the book under the pseudonym Speaker for the Dead. He decides to go from world to world and do the same thing for others. His older brother Peter, who became a ruthless leader on earth asked Ender to write his story as well and Ender wrote a second book called The Hegemon for his brother's story.
The book Speaker for the Dead picks up when Ender is 35 years old, although 3,000 years has passed since the bugger wars. Ender and his sister Valentine have been traveling through space to different planets, never staying anywhere for longer than 6 months. Ender speaks people's deaths while Valentine writes histories of the planets. On the planet of Lusitania another species of alien has been encountered. Instead of making the same mistake again, humans have decided to back off and not interfere with this species, but only observe them. They refer to the species as "piggies" since they look like little pigs. Ender is summoned by a girl named Novinha to the colony of Lusitania when the piggies murder one of the xenologers (people that observe them).
Ender decides to go without Valentine (who has married and is pregnant with her first child on the planet of Trondheim) and it takes him 22 years to travel there (however it was only a week for Ender). When Ender arrives, he finds he was summoned to speak the death for two other people. While only being there four days, he finds out a lot of secrets, meets the piggies, and understands more about the piggies' way of life in a few hours than the xenologers who had been observing them had discovered in years of interaction.
In the end, Ender is able to build a treaty with the piggies so that the humans and piggies can co-exist on the planet without misunderstandings.
What I thought
I liked the Speaker for the Dead book better than Ender's Game because it was a lot lighter in terms of content. Although there were a few murders from an alien species, there was a lot more hope in this book and it is a pretty big theme, which I liked.
Other themes that I liked were: tolerance, understanding, redemption, community, and love. There were some pretty powerful characters in this book and I liked a lot of their attributes, even though pretty much everyone was flawed. Ender becomes close to the Ribeira family and takes on a fatherly role, which I thought was cool to see.
Something that appealed to me specifically about this book is that the colony of Lusitania was founded by Brazilians, more specifically brazilian catholics. There was some Portuguese in the book and all of them had Portuguese names, which I liked because I served my mission in Portugal and since worked for years teaching Brazilian Portuguese. It has a place near and dear to my heart and it was fun to read little parts of Portuguese and see the culture on this futuristic planet.
I also thought it was interesting to encounter another alien species in this book. I do have to admit that the piggies were so ALIEN. According to Travis (who has read a mountain of science fiction compared to me), in some science fiction there are alien species, but they do not seem so alien because they interact with humans and are so similar. It was interesting to see the humans interact with the piggies because they were able to communicate (the piggies easily learned the human language), however they did not understand each other in so many ways, thus leading to deaths, assumptions, and fear.
Ultimately the humans realized that just sitting and observing the species of the piggies was not leading them to understanding about the species, although they did not want to influence them by giving them technology they would otherwise not have developed themselves. Therefore, at the end of the novel, a treaty was needed so that they could make trades and live in harmony and understanding.
One theme that Travis and I talked about a lot in the book is the theme of community. One thing that is important for humanity is to belong to a community. Everyone needs it in order to feel accepted. However, something interesting that was addressed in this book is that sometimes the community you feel like you belong to can be a very small one, and that is still sufficient. Also, in the book it talks about how it is more important for you to realize what communities you are a part of instead of focusing on proclaiming the ones you are not a part of.
Here is the breakdown of Speaker for the Dead:
Genre: Science Fiction
Number of pages: 382
Reading endurance: Medium. You do have to read Ender's Game before reading Speaker for the Dead. Ender's Game was a little dark to me, so it was harder for me to personally get through it, but I thought Speaker for the Dead was a better read. Travis and I read it pretty quick--in less than two weeks I think.
Good Moral: Yes. It addresses themes of tolerance, acceptance, love, and community.
Favorite Quote: "What I wanted to hear was the name of what you are instead of the name of all the things that you are not. What you are is the hive queen. What you are is the Speaker for the Dead. It's a very small community, small in numbers, but a great-hearted one. So you chose not to be part of the bands of children who group together for the sole purpose of excluding others, and people look at you and say, poor girl, she's so isolated, but you know a secret, you know who you really are." (pg. 17)
Recommend? Yes
