As I’d mentioned before, I had initially tried to read Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead when I was in high school, but for one reason or another, I couldn’t finish it. Apparently the 6+ years between now and then made a difference, because not only did I get through the book, I actually liked it this time around.
I’m still most intrigued by the social and cultural elements of the novel, and I liked trying to make sense of the piggies as the xenologers did (though I was annoyed by how things were made clear the end; the journey was more satifying than the destination). I feel that Ender is a better developed character in this novel, and the work as a whole is more complex than Ender’s Game. It certainly feels very different from the preceding novel, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Speaker for the Dead is a less comfortable book for me to read, but I am trying to get out of my comfort zone here, so no complaints there.
In other book news, I’m still going through 1919 (at least when I do pick it up, I read it in huge chunks), and I just started reading Paul Bowles’s The Sheltering Sky. Next on the list is Orson Scott Card’s Xenocide.
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