Speaker for the Dead

Not to be confused with Speaker of the Dead.

Speaker for the Dead

File:Speaker dead cover.jpg Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	Orson Scott Card
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Ender's Game series
Genre	Science fiction
Publisher	Tor Books
Publication date	March 1986
Pages	415
Award	Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1987)
ISBN	0-312-93738-5
OCLC	13201341
Preceded by	Ender's Game
Followed by	Xenocide

Speaker for the Dead is a 1986 science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card and an indirect sequel to the novel Ender's Game. This book takes place around the year 5270, some 3,000 years after the events in Ender's Game. However, because of relativistic space travel, Ender himself is only about 35 years old.

This is the first book to discuss the Starways Congress, a high standpoint Legislation for the human colonies. It is also the first to describe the Hundred Worlds, the planets with human colonies that are tightly intertwined by Ansible technology.

Like Ender's Game, the book won the Nebula Award in 1986 and the Hugo Award in 1987. Speaker for the Dead was published in a slightly revised edition in 1991. It was followed by Xenocide and Children of the Mind.

Synopsis

Following the xenocide of the Formic species by his own hand from "Ender's Game", Ender Wiggin writes a book under the pseudonym "Speaker for the Dead" called The Hive Queen to describe the life of the Formics as described to him by the dormant Formic queen which he secretly carries. The book is critically successful but Ender's brother, the Hegemon Peter Wiggin, recognizes Ender's handiwork, and asks him to write a similar book for him once he has died. Ender agrees, and publishes The Hegemon after Peter's death. The two books together create a new type of religious figure, the Speakers for the Dead, which any citizen may call on to speak for the recently deceased. Speakers are given access to all of the dead's files and writings, and when they speak, they neither attempt to condemn or to forgive the deceased, but only to speak to their lifestyle. Ender himself becomes a Speaker, though using his given name Andrew, as "Ender" has become a epitath. Ender has spent many of his young adult years - amounting to centuries in real time - traveling between human colonies with his sister Valentine via relativistic space travel to find a home for the Formic queen to repopulate their species.

Three thousand years after the xenocide, humans have attempted to colonize the planet Lusitania, but find it has an odd ecological system, missing many gaps that other planets appear to have. Unique to the planet is the second sentient species that humans have encountered, the mammal-like Pequeninos ("piggies"), drawing the attention of many xenologers and xenobiologists to the colony. Shortly after arrival, the colonies discovered a virus Descolada which wiped out many of the colonists before a remedy could be found for humans, leaving young Novinha without her parents. Novinha was taken in by father-and-son xenobiologistics, Pipo and Libo, and becomes one herself. One day, she makes a discovery about Descolada being native in every life form on Lusitania, including both the piggies and the trees; Pipo is inspired and races out to ask the piggies about it before revealing this inspiration. When Pipo does not return, they search and find his body vivisected, which they recognize as part of a death ritual the piggies give to their fallen. However, this ritual normally includes the planting of a sapling in the body, but there is no evidence this was done for Pipo, and they consider this hostile, making the piggies a potential threat. Novinha, who has come to have feelings for Libo, locks her files, fearing that Libo will make a similar conclusion and run into the same fate as Pipo. Novinha calls for a Speaker for Pipo.

Ender is presently living with Valentine and her husband on the planet Trondheim when the call for a Speaker arrives. Ender opts to go without Valentine as she is due to give birth soon. Besides the dormant Queen, Ender travels with Jane, an artificial sentience existing within the ansible computer network. By the time Ender arrives, 22 years have passed on Lusitania, during which Novinha had attempted to cancel her request for a Speaker. However, recent events have brought others to call for a Speaker. Four years prior, Libo had been killed the same way Pipo had, and more recently, Marcos Ribeira, Novinha's husband, who had died of a terminal disease. Ender, with Jane's help, quickly discovers that Novinha had refused to marry Libo despite her love for him and giving birth to his children - though acting as these are Marcos' - because if she had married him, her locked files would become available to him.

While performing the research for the Speaking, Ender becomes interested in the piggies, secretly crossing an electric barrier enacted by the Starways Congress following Pipo's death to speak to them. The Formic Queen reveals to Ender she has spoken telepathically to the Wives, the female elders of the piggies, and they have learned he is the original Speaker of the Dead; the Queen also reveals that Lusitania would be ideal for her species to begin anew. Ender's investigation is stymied by the mostly-Catholic colonists; to gain cooperation, Jane issues a story that Novinha's eldest child Miro and his wife Ouanda had taught the piggies human technology such as farming in direct violation of the Starways Congress; the Congress on learning this demands the colony be evacuated against their wishes, and that Miro and Ouanda are to be placed under arrest. The piggies convince Miro to hide among them by crossing the electric barrier; he does so but suffers neurological damage that partially paralyzes him. The colony rebels against the Congress, and severs their ansible connection. This disables the electrical barrier, and Ender and others go to find Miro with the help of a piggy named Human.

Ender meets with the Wives and they come to a treaty for co-habitation of the planet. While there, he learns of the piggies' concept of "third life"; normally on death, the body of a piggy becomes a "brothertree"; however, those that are vivisected will become "fathertrees" that are instrumental as part of the reproductive cycle, due to the Descolada virus. Libo and Pipo had determined this, and separately had sought to confirm this with the piggies. Each time, a piggy had offered themselves up to enter the "third life", but neither human could do it; instead, the piggies performed the ritual on them. To demonstrate for Ender, Human offers himself up to enter "third life", and Ender agrees to do it, witnessing the sapling spouting from Human's spine after the process. With clarity of the situation, Ender insists to the Wives that their treaty prevents the piggies from helping humans enter the "third life" as that would otherwise be seen as murder.

Miro is safely returned to the colony though still paralyzed. Valentine and her family inform Ender they plan to help Lusitania with the revolt, and are traveling to help; Ender has Miro meet them half-way. Novinha, having gained understanding into the death of Pipo and Libo, is able to continue on and she and Ender marry. Later, Ender goes to plant the Formic Queen's egg as directed.

Lack of film adaptation

At the Los Angeles Times Book Festival (April 20, 2013), Card stated why he does not want Speaker for the Dead made into a film: "Speaker for the Dead is unfilmable," Card said in response to a question from the audience. "It consists of talking heads, interrupted by moments of excruciating and unwatchable violence. Now, I admit, there's plenty of unwatchable violence in film, but never attached to my name. Speaker for the Dead, I don't want it to be filmed. I can't imagine it being filmed."

Reception

• Nebula Award winner, 1986
• Hugo Award winner, 1987
• Locus Award winner, 1987
• John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominee, 1987
• Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis winner, 1989

See also

• List of Ender's Game characters
• List of works by Orson Scott Card

External links

• About the novel Speaker for the Dead from Card's website
• Speaker for the Dead at Worlds Without End
• Speaker for the Dead title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database