He is a master storyteller, and this book is wonderfully paced - you will continually be twisting your brain trying to uncover what is up with the pequeninos before the scientists do.īut most of all, this book is a eloquent manifesto of humanism. Card has a talent for writing deep, real characters that I've never seen in sci-fi and seldom in any modern literature. There are so many good things about this book. Ender's Game was simply a prologue - originally a short story. As he tells us in the introduction (which is, by the way, the best introduction I've ever read), this is the book Card intended to write when he began the ever-popular Ender series. It is not a book about plot and action (thank all the powers!). This book is literature, not science fiction. It speaks to the core of humanity within us all, it speaks to our fears, our dreams, our hatreds, our prejudices, our nobility, our failings, and our longings. This book is far superior to Ender's Game, a book which is one of those rare sci-fi novels that I have read twice. There is a delicate balance inherent in this book. The Hive Queen is very real and, again, not human. "She" acts in a logical manner as well, but again it is not a HUMAN manner. Most of these peices are not revealed except with time. They act in a consistent, rational manner - once you know all the peices of the puzzle. They are not just randomly acting individuals. He has inspired a cult of sorts, the Speakers of the Dead, people who speak not well of the dead, but realistically. Here he is having to live with his own guilt and the positive and negative aspects of his own legend. Card in this one books has levelled with her.Įnder is a far richer and deeper character in this book than he was in Ender's Game. She is one of the few sci-fi authors who understands something of anthropology and, more importantly, the human condition. This book reminds me of Ursula LeGuin at her best, and I do not invoke her name lightly.
This book is in all ways, barring one, superior. That book had affected me so deeply, I could not imagine a sequel to it. When I heard there was a sequel to Ender's Game, I shuddered.
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