4.5 Stars 
 "Sickness and healing are in every heart; death and deliverance in every hand." 
 Engrossing, thought-provoking, and brimming with a timeless sort of wisdom. 
 I make no secret of my great love for Ender's Game. But at the same time, I can safely say those who have similar fond feelings for that particular sci-fi classic won't necessarily feel the same way about this sequel. While Speaker For The Dead continues the story of Andrew (Ender) and Valentine Wiggins, the plot, tone, and pacing make it an entirely different beast. According to the author, Ender's Game was written as a precursor--its purpose being to help set up and explain THIS book. It's a fascinating irony that the prequel so thoroughly outdid the primary work in success and popularity. 
 Set 3,000 years after Ender was tricked into ending the Bugger war through mass Xenocide, we find he and his beloved sister have been passing humanity and history by--planet hopping over and over in search of a home for the egg of the last remaining Bugger queen. (While they travel they circumvent time, and so have aged only 20 years since the events of Ender's Game.) 
 Just as Valentine has decided to settle down and start a family, Ender receives a call to "speak the death" of renowned xenologer on a planet called Lusitania--home to a small Brazilian Catholic colony and, most remarkably, to the only other sentient life forms in the known galaxy, the Pequeninos. (Yes, that essentially means 'little piggies' in Portuguese. And yes, this does make for some vaguely distracting imagery.) It appears as though the native Pequeninos have murdered the xenologer in the most horrific manner possible. Thanks to the rigorous limitations imposed by Starways Congress--in an effort to prevent the cultural and technological contamination of the Pequeninos--the remaining xenologer and xenobiologist have no way of determining WHY their mentor was killed, nor how to prevent future tragedies. 
 No one is better qualified than Ender to understand an alien mind and potentially avoid another xenocide. But when it comes right down to it, the most saving grace of all may be Ender's deeply empathic capacity for understanding humans and their motives. 
 "When you really know somebody you can't hate them. Or maybe it's just that you can't really know them until you stop hating them." - Ender 
 Speaker For The Dead is an extensive and complex work of science fiction, woven with interconnected elements of psychology, philosophy, sociology, and ecology. The story starts off slowly, spending a great deal of time building the dynamics of Lusitania and the primary characters--many of whom Ender will eventually encounter. Novinha stands out as the primary figure of interest, a cool and isolated girl who lost her scientist parents to a genetically devastating virus even as they managed to find a way to save the rest of the colony. The general air of reverence toward her parents only pushes her further away from any sense of community. The local Xenologer, Pipo, is finally persistent and loving enough to get through her defenses and salvage what remains of her humanity. It's Pipo's mysterious and gruesome death that proves the inciting incident. 
 While there are a number of elements that entrench this work in science fiction--from the alien worlds depicted, to the aliens themselves, to the artificial intelligence of the very literal deus ex machina character of Jane--this reader would argue that it's the relationship components that lend the most greatness. Orson Scott Card never takes the cop-out of presenting characters that are so flawed as to be completely nonredeemable. While at times I wonder if the author simply has a naive inability to accept that any sentient being could be born lacking a conscience, I have to acknowledge the depth this belief seems to rend in his formation of so fully fleshed-out people--and with that, the messy, believable intricacies of their interpersonal relationships. 
 "This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question." 
 The story contains some fairly heavy Catholic involvement that some readers will inevitably appreciate while other disdain for a variety of subjective reasons. The author didn't appear to be painting the faith in any particular light, only including it as an effective layer of immersion. Ender's cunning and compassionate mind makes him both a hero and a highlight, but in a more grown-up sense than readers experienced in the preceding book. This reader also found the ending satisfying, while still presenting the need for closure several decades further down the timeline.