“Speaker for the Dead” by Orson Scott Card

Hi all,

Book of the Month:
“Speaker for the Dead” by Orson Scott Card (1986)

For this month we are returning to the theme of humanity and their communication with the other. With Becky Chambers’ refreshing take on interspecies relations in “A Psalm for the Wild-Built”, I think this one will dovetail nicely. I was hoping to get a poll up for this month but just don’t have time to research due to some sudden work stuff.

While “Speaker” is the follow-up to “Ender’s Game” it is spiritually very different. Gone are the days of battle school and intergalactic war. It is one of those few cases where I would say you could pick up this novel without reading the first in the series. That said, since we did just read “Ender”, this is a good follow-up. Card has said that “Speaker for the Dead” was the project he was actually most passionate about. That he had this short story about space battle school and needed to get “Ender’s Game” out before his publisher would go ahead with “Speaker”. They were even published in 1985 and 1986, respectively.

This Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel is one of my favorites in the Ender’s Saga series. Enjoy and then we can close the door on Card. Looking for more details on it? Here’s the Goodreads link:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7967.Speaker_for_the_Dead

A reminder that you do not have to read the book to join us for Book Club. Come on through and join the conversation on Zoom, we’re happy to have you!