I just finished rereading Speaker for the first time in about ten years. I was around thirteen years old when I last read it. I'm completely blown away right now by how great of a book it is. It's one of the greatest fiction books I've ever read and I wish everyone in the world would read it.
That's all.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Thanks. It took me a while to write that one.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Hey, I worked my head off on Xenocide. Those OCD people are hard to write!
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Here's a real mindbender: imagine what the sequel to Ender's Game would be like if OSC wrote it.
[/just trying to play along]
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
Speaker has always been my favorite of Card's books. I came to it a little older than you did, Gaal; my freshman year in college, a friend that I swapped books with gave me a copy of Ender's Game. I read it, and thought that it was okay, but didn't see what the big deal about it was (and, really, I still don't). He told me to give Card one more chance, and said that he'd really only loaned me Ender's Game to give me the backstory necessary to appreciate this other book that was kind of a sequel to it, but picked up with Ender as an adult. I went into it not expecting a whole lot--humoring my friend more than anything--and was just blown away. I proceeded to devour everything Card had written up to that point (except for his plays and Compute! columns).
Posted by DustinDopps (Member # 12640) on :
I went to the dentist yesterday and was reading my copy of Speaker in the waiting room. The dental hygienest, a girl who looked like she was in her early 20's, saw it and said "Oh! I love that author. Is that book good?"
"Have you read 'Ender's Game?'" I asked her.
"Yes! I love it. I've read it about 20 times!"
"Oh. Then why haven't you read 'Speaker for the Dead' yet? It's the sequel and it's fantastic."
"I have this issue about books. If I really, really like a book, I won't read the rest of the series because I'm afraid I will be underwhelmed."
I had to explain to her that Speaker is incredible and better than Ender's Game in a lot of ways. She was skeptical - and hadn't seen the Ender's Game movie yet for the same reason - but I think I persuaded her. She's lucky to be reading it fresh!
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
She may want to avoid some of the Shadow books, and possibly Children of the Mind.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Haha, she's going to be so disappointed. It's a great book, but it is completely different from Ender's Game. I actually stopped reading it at first because it was so different. It wasn't until I was older, years later, that I was able to approach the story anew and really appreciate it.
Posted by DustinDopps (Member # 12640) on :
I told her it was a completely different kind of book. She had read "Ender's Shadow" and I told her it was completely different from that too.
Posted by Reticulum (Member # 8776) on :
Speaker for the Dead > Ender's Game
Harry Potter and Speaker should have won Nobel Prizes.
Instead, Nobel prizes are pompously given to pretentious work that largely lacks imagination.