There is no way to read Ender’s Game without wanting to know what happened to Ender. Since I am not the kind of person to let a writer leave things dangling, I had swapped for both Ender’s Game and the sequel Speaker for the Dead. I finished Ender’s Game and moved right into Speaker for the Dead.

(Of course, now I have to wait for Xenocide, the third book, to arrive.)

While not engaging as Ender, Speaker is still a great book. It is set three thousand years after Ender’s Game but thanks to the miracle of relativity and near light-speed travel, Ender has only aged about 25 years.

In the book, humanity has finally made contact with another alien race, but their strange practices and life cycle are confusing and frustrating. When the aliens apparently murder two humans, the universe teeters on the brink of another xenocide. Ender, perhaps in an act of redemption for the annihilation of the buggers, journeys to the planet and seeks to discover the truth.

A Speaker for the Dead is one who learns and speaks the truth about those who have passed - without remorse or concern for the implications. Ender goes to speak the death of a single human - Marcao - but in the course of speaking the death, he unravels the complexities of human-alien relationships. He also uncovers the hidden secrets of the human colony on the alien’s planet.

In the end, Card delivers a psychologically complex storyline that asks a lot of moral questions about who is my enemy. There are lessons of tolerance, of patronization, and of the failures of some religious constructs to provide for the basic human need for acceptance, love and truth.

As I read the book, I could not help but see its pertinence to our world, where hatred and misunderstanding seem to rule everything we do. This applies whether we are fundamentalist Muslims blowing up buildings or fundamentalist Christians screaming and crying over homosexual marriage. I could not help but be reminded that Christianity was the bludgeon with which corrupt men attacked everyone, and I could not help but weep to think of what Jesus must think of it.

I am certain that Card’s work was not intended to cause that response, but the great thing about his Ender series is that it is universal. Wherever you are in life, whatever your creed, he speaks the truth and gives you cause for reflection.

I finally got around to reading Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card’s magnum opus. For years, I’ve heard about and people have even tried to give the story away. Yesterday my copy (off of www.paperbackswap.com, the best trading site on the internet!) arrived.

A SIDE NOTE - the sequel, Speaker for the Dead, arrived last week and I was very tempted to read it but I controlled myself because I was afraid it would give away the substance of Ender’s Game.

So, what can I say about this book?

Ender’s Game is not typical sci-fi fare. It asks some tremendous moral questions without presenting any real solutions. Let me provide an example without giving the story away.

The main character, Ender Wiggins, is a very complex character. He kills people, but not because he is a killer. Although he sees himself as a killer, the people around him see him as a “total winner.” He is not content to just win; he must win completely. To win a fist fight is to destroy his adversary because that is the only way to ensure that there are no reprisals.

In contrast, the people around Ender are more than willing to use him as a tool, to manipulate and control him for their own ends. He is threatened, abused, mistreated and lied to throughout the book, and when he accomplishes their tasks, they herald him as a hero whil he sees himself as a pawn - and a guilty party.

Ender is one of best characters I have seen in a sci-fi book in a long time. He is well thought out and sufficiently incomplete to feel truly human.

This is one well written book. Even if some of the auxiliary thoughts are a little hard to swallow, the overall concept works. And Card writes it well. His prose is smooth and intelligent. He never patronizes the reader, never relents on his driving themes.

Now, if you don’t mind, I am going to grab Speaker for the Dead and continue my journey with Ender.