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Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga, #2)
by Orson Scott Card
by Orson Scott Card
While Ender's Game is a solid piece of modern sci fi, the sequel falls all too short. 'Speaker' is preachy and allegorical, and the characters often devolve into simple mouthpieces for the author's opinions, which are numerous, long, and not particularly original.
While I do respect that every author has his own point of view, and that one should be able to glean some understanding from their books, such a heavy-handed case detracts from the story and characters as a whole. The suspension of disbelief should not be broken by the author's message; rather, the message should be communicated by carefully built characters and situations so that it emerges naturally and believably.
While in the first book the main character was often guilty of extended internal monologue, this underlined the character's personal journey instead of just pushing a preconceived worldview. The second novel has a transparency of motive that, for me, destroyed both believability and the central flow of the story. Card's belief is not a hindrance to his ability to write a good story, but his overbearing expression of it sadly is.
While I do respect that every author has his own point of view, and that one should be able to glean some understanding from their books, such a heavy-handed case detracts from the story and characters as a whole. The suspension of disbelief should not be broken by the author's message; rather, the message should be communicated by carefully built characters and situations so that it emerges naturally and believably.
While in the first book the main character was often guilty of extended internal monologue, this underlined the character's personal journey instead of just pushing a preconceived worldview. The second novel has a transparency of motive that, for me, destroyed both believability and the central flow of the story. Card's belief is not a hindrance to his ability to write a good story, but his overbearing expression of it sadly is.
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I definitely disagree as well. Ender's Game was a great read book, but Speaker for the Dead had so much more context that spoke to the nature of humanity.
I agree with you, Keely. Your comments captured my own thoughts about the book much better than I could have written them myself.
I agree 100%. The religious talk is so thick at times the plot becomes totally lost in the minutiae of ritualism. *yawn*. I hope subsequent books in the series improve, because I can barely wade through this ham-fisted treatise with barely incidental primary characters.
Well, supposedly a lot of the series is similar, but Ender's Shadow is supposed to be more like the first book in tone and pacing.
When you call it allegorical, what are you referring to?I liked Speaker, respect your opinion. Just want to know where you were headed with that thought.
Mostly the way he seemed to set up the conflict between the human and alien cultures so that it conveniently served his own message. They felt more like thinly-veiled stand-ins for ideas than a complex, multifaceted view.As I say in my review, I do think it's important for authors to create a focused, streamlined world centered around the story they want to tell, but they also need to make sure that they don't streamline it so much that the characters and conflicts become one-sided. In order for there to truly be a conflict, both sides must be equally well-developed.
I hope that makes sense.
You didn't get it! I feel bad for you, kinda like people who don't have the ability to enjoy music, or are blind or deaf.
"I feel bad for you, kinda like people who don't have the ability to enjoy music, or are blind or deaf."Ooh, are we playing the inappropriately extreme comparison game? My turn!
'I feel sorry for people who enjoyed a trite, dull, overstated book like Speaker for the Dead, they are like hungry flies swarming a soiled dog run, ravenous for the smell.'
HA! There are more enjoyable books out there. I enjoy good music, but not, say, that Nicki Manaj song where she repeats the same line over and over and over.Also, how hard is it to tell someone you can't turn into a dang tree? I will never stop resenting how dippy that is.
I feel that an opinion is just that, your expression of what you yourself think of a book in this case. No one needs to judge a person for his/her thoughts. Personally I liked the book looking at it as a story not only of Andrew Wiggen but as well of the new world and how people responded to the Buggers complete destruction. My search found its treasure, others may have been looking for other things in this book. Lets not yell at each other over the digital realm of the Internet over opinions.
Jeffrey said: "I feel that an opinion is just that . . . No one needs to judge a person for his/her thoughts.If we don't judge a person based upon what they think, then what else are we to judge them on? Don't you think a person's opinions reflect who they are? I mean, if someone comes up to me and says 'all other races are inferior' or 'mathematics is stupid and no one should ever learn it', I feel I can judge that person based on the thoughts they have expressed.
Since books are representations of human thought, personality, and culture, it does make sense that people would think that they are important, and that the opinions people have about them are important, and reveal something to us about that person's mind and character.
I mean, if we just agree not to judge another person's thoughts, then how are we to learn and discuss, to show others what is important to us, and why? After all, there have been instances where I have been mistaken about a book, and someone comes along and says 'no, that opinion is incorrect, you aren't taking into account X and Y', and it changes my mind. I'm grateful that those people decided to confront me and helped me learn instead of saying nothing due to a universal respect for the sanctity of opinion.
Certainly, I agree that there's no point to yelling on the internet, that discussion shouldn't be an angry, incoherent process--and perhaps that is what you were trying to get at--but I certainly see no problem with judging people based on the ideas they choose to hold dear.
Yeah, I think we all have books like that, things we used to really like but now have no interest in--I know I do.
If you did like Ender's Game, you'd probably like Ender's Shadow as well -- the exact same story told from Bean's point of view. In some ways, it has harder, deeper levels, because Bean as it turns out is actually smarter than Ender, so he figures out quite a bit of what's going on before the fact.