Yes I am way late, but I just read Ender's Game and I have a question.

Cafe Society
1

Should I read Speaker for the Dead?

I ask because I have been really dissapointed by sequels in ever genre, but especially in Sci-Fi. Dune was fantastic. Dune Messiah was nowhere near as good, but I finished it. Can’t say the same for Children of Dune.

Piers Anthony’s Blue Adept series kept me interested much longer. The original trilogy was good (with each succesive book being less and less likeable).

Dragonriders of Pern-- same thing. I could go on with dissapointing series, but I won’t.

The only series that kept me interested the whole way (that I can think of right now off the top of my head) was Lord of the Rings and, from what I understand, this was originally written as one book.

I can’t see any how Speaker can keep up the intensity of Ender’s Game. What I’m afraid of is that the intense personal outlook will change into governmental intrigues, which to me, were the weakests parts of Ender’s Game.
Anyhoo. . … What do ya’ll think?

2

I very much enjoyed Speaker For The Dead, Xenocide and Children Of The Mind. I didn’t like his parallel EG novels (such as Ender’s Shadow and Shadow Of The Hegemon) quite so much, but if you’re a rabid OSC fan, you might still enjoy them.

SFTD, X and COTM carried on the story of Ender, Valentine and a new character (Jane) and pretty much focused on Ender’s attempt at redemption for his guilt over wiping out the Bugger population. I thought they were very well done, and just as interesting (although obviously different in theme) than EG. I’d give at least SFTD a try and go from there. :slight_smile:

3

Congrats for discovering one of my all-time favorite books. I wish I could read it for the first time again. There are a few folks around here who’s names are based on the book and various characters. I’m sure they’ll pop in here.

Speaker for the Dead is very different from Ender’s Game. I couldn’t get thru it. Card actually wrote, much later, a different set of sequels to Ender’s Game that are almost as good IMO. They are Ender’s Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon. If you want more about Ender’s world I’d recommend that you read the Shadow books and not the Speaker books.

Others probably feel the complete opposite - the Speaker books are the better ones. You could maybe hit a used bookstore to buy the first one of each series and then decide which set you’d rather read all of.

Twiddle

4

I’ll go along with Twiddle’s suggestion - read Ender’s Shadow first. It’s the Ender’s Game story, but from Bean’s perspective. It’s very good.

If you like it, you might be drawn into the other stories. However, you are warned that the Speaker series is ENTIRELY different than Ender’s Game. Many have been disappointed by it, but those who know going in that they’re reading a completely different story enjoy it more.

5

Speaker for the Dead is very good and well worth reading. The rest of the sequels are far down in quality (though I was amused at Card’s dig at Greg Feeley).

6

I never read Speaker for the Dead because it seemed much more like sci-fantasy than the harder sci-fi of Ender’s Game. And I don’t like fantasy. Is that a true perception?

7

It depends on your definitions of Sci Fi vs Sci Fantasy;

As in Ender’s Game, science/technology in SFTD is a background for the real story, which has more to do with philosophy than anything else.

It deals some with the hypotheticals of dealing with another race/species using the same filters that we have adopted for looking at our own.

The /world feel/ I get from SFTD is similar to the sub-story in Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love” on the frontier planet (can’t remember anything more than that - sorry!). An aggrarian civilization in a far-future framework. Technology exists, is internally consistent, but does not dominate the action.

8

I wouldn’t say so. Not that SftD isn’t fantasy-ish, because it is, but because EG is too. I wouldn’t call it “hard” science fiction at all.

Card doesn’t use much real science in any of his books. They’re mainly about human moral questions, with the science as background. I think he’s an excellent writer, one of my favorites actually, but his science fiction definitely emphasizes the “fiction” over the “science”.

Anyway, all that said, I recommend SftD highly. It’s a great book, IMO, but really nothing at all like EG. You really don’t even have to have read EG to enjoy SftD and it’s sequels. (I will say though, that I didn’t much care for “Children of the Mind”.)

And I loved “Ender’s Shadow”, maybe more than EG itself.

9

Well, I didn’t see any fantasy elements on Speaker. That’s not true for the two sequels though. I really liked Speaker but thought Xenocide and Children of the Mind were awfull. Xenocide had a nice and interesting sub-plot but that was the only likeable feature of the book. Children had none.

I found Ender’s Shadow much closer to Ender’s Game spirit than Speaker but it and its sequel center very much in the political intrigue thing you found so uninteresting.

Speaker is very, very different from Ender’s Game but even better in a few aspects (worse on some too). Speaker is much more philosophical, slow and personal

Over time I started to dislike and then hate Card’s books (way too preachy and he stretches stories way longer than they should) but Ender, Speaker and Seventh Son still have a special place in my bookcase.

10

SFTD is quite different from EG. It’s very, very good, but very different. In fact the entire rest of the ‘original’ sequels to EG are a lot different from EG. SFTD is great, X is pretty good, and in my opinion COTM is a big drop-off. For sure read at least SFTD, just go in with the expectation that it’s a different animal.

The ‘Shadow’ books are good, and somewhat closer in tone to EG. I like them but for me they don’t have nearly the impact of SFTD of X (or EG, for that matter). They’re fun but more light-weight to me.

I wouldn’t call any of the Ender books ‘fantasy’ (no swords or wizards or anything like that). They’re much more about moral questions and philosophy, with science there only to set up the situations.

11

I agree with RealityChuck - except for the part about enjoying the dig at Greg Feeley. And I might agree with that if I knew who GF was!

IMO, the 3 sequels got worse in turn. Really felt like I was slogging my way through the last one, just to see how it “ended.”

I read Ender’s Shadow first of all. Heartily recommend it.

12

That’s what I meant, pretty much.

I don’t mean fantasy in the “swords and sorcery” sense, but fantasy in the same sense that Star Wars is fantasy. The fantastic elements are just ascribed to technology rather than magic, but there’s no real science, or any attempt to explain things in terms of real physics.

There’s nothing at all wrong with that, just saying I wouldn’t classify any of Card’s works as “hard” science fiction.

13

SFTD is quite different from EG. It’s very, very good, but very different. In fact the entire rest of the ‘original’ sequels to EG are a lot different from EG. SFTD is great, X is pretty good, and in my opinion COTM is a big drop-off.

The ‘Shadow’ books are good, and somewhat closer in tone to EG. I like them but for me they don’t have nearly the impact of SFTD or X (or EG, for that matter). They’re fun but more light-weight to me.

My current favorite non-Ender OSC book is Pastwatch; again it’s a moral question with just enough science to flesh it out.

14

The Honor Harrington series (by Stephen Weber) keeps up marvelously well. The later books focus more intently on strategy and politics, but that’s a natural progression for a naval officer who is advancing in rank.

Still, you’ve got almost a dozen books in a row, of equal quality. That’s a good, long read.

15

I add my vote to the idea of reading Speaker for the Dead, which I enjoyed immensly. However, I wouldn’t think of it as a sequel, really. The fact that it takes place a couple millenia after Ender’s Game kind of removes it far enough from the first one.

Also, I thought Xenocide and Children of the Mind (originally supposed to be one book until the publisher got tired of waiting) were pretty awful.

One other thing I recommend reading is the original short story that Ender’s Game is based on:

 http://www.hatrack.com/osc/stories/enders-game.shtml
16

One thing that bothered me greatly about SftD was that it was set 3000 or so years in the future and the society kept feeling like it was a middle-class American suburb. This is a failing of a great many sf books, unfortunately.

And Chuck, I know who Greg Feeley is and I’d love to hear what the dig is. :wink:

17

Ender’s Shadow is from Bean’s point of view? That sounds interesting. Is it going over the mostly the same events (Battle School, Commander School), does it start earlier, end later?

I think I’ll read SftD after Shadow since it sounds almost as if it is a stand alone.

Wonder if there are any threads on EG here at the Cafe. . … There’s gotta be, right?

18

My experience was exactly the opposite - I enjoyed the Shadow books, and didn’t care for SFTD and Xenocide that much. The Shadow books seemed more like Ender’s Game to me. To each his or her own.:slight_smile:

19

Orson Scott Card is the best writer alive, and Ender’s Game is my favorite book of all time.

But I have to warn you, the remaining stories of the Ender epic are different. If you loved Ender’s Game mostly because of the battle room, and didn’t like the slower psychological and political parts then the rest of the series is not for you.

The Bean series however, is another story. If you want something else to read after Ender’s Game, read Ender’s Shadow. Contrary to what Amazon says, it actually isn’t a continuation (or a 5th story) in the Ender series. It’s Ender’s Game told from Bean’s perspective. It is soo awesome. The Bean series is parallel to the Ender series. Conceivably, you can read either series first and understand the second whenever you get around to it. However, talking about political. The Bean series (after Ender’s Shadow) is nothing but. You might put it off.

Another great OSC series is
[The Homecoming Series](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/series/-/70/ref=ilm_rc_4324
68/103-0775740-6808663) . Very very good series. Actually, you really can’t go wrong with OSC. If you give his other books a try you’ll begin to appreciate the sensitivity he shows, without getting bored, and then you can later on read the rest of the Ender and Bean series’.

I can’t wait for the Ender’s Game movie. OSC is writing the screenplay and Wolfgang Petersen (the director of Das Boot and Neverending Story) is directing it. Do a search on Google for it.

Oh! Another GREAT series, not by OSC, is The Heechee saga. If you want something that is as much fun to read as Ender’s Game, give IT a try.

If you are more of a fantasy nut, then Wheel of Time. One of the only few series where the sequel is no as good but BETTER than the first, though the first is definately number 2 in quality in that series. Quality drops one step for each book following “The Great Hunt.” But most of the series is really really good. EVERY book, except for the last two, there is a big Earth shattering battle at the end. Action is virtually non-stop. And there is nothing that happens that isn’t critical to the progression of the overall story (discounting the last book.) The last two books leave a lot to be desired, especially this last one, in which absolutely NOTHING happens. You could completely skip that novel and (if book 11 is good enough) pick up book eleven without missing a beat. But you will have to read book 9. Something VERY VERY VERY important happens at the end of that book, but it is almost completely pushed to the side in book 10. You would think that the entire world would change after this event, but it doesn’t. Anyway, enough of this [/hijack].

If you love OSC as much as I, visit: http://www.hatrack.com/ . It’s OSC’s own personal web page. Very good, especially if you want to be a writer. He keeps it up pretty well.

Sorry if what I said is a repeat. Stupid work blocks straightdope after 1:00 and I finished this at 1:01

20

I very much enjoyed SFTD, but as others have said, treat it as a completely seperate book rather than a sequel. I didn’t like Xenocide much, mostly because of his very negative depiction of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Unfortunately it was about that time that I read some articles he wrote for a Mormon newsletter, some of them regarding homosexuality (comparing it to OCD). The fact that the person afflicted with OCD in Xenocide was pretty much evil and that he compared being gay with OCD really soured me to his writing from that point onward. Not that I felt he should not have written what he did, it was just from that point onward I (obsessively some might say) saw negative depictions of people who could be tied to homosexuality (explicitly or implicitly) in all of his books.

His books on writing are pretty good too, though I feel he contradicts himself frequently in them (he himself seems to violate his “rules”).

I understand that much has changed since that day, and I look forward to someday revisiting Alvin Maker, and possibly Ender and the crew. I’ve seen that some of his really early books (especially “Songmaster”) have been republished. He’s a great writer, I just have problems with his politics of about two decades ago.

JOhn.