Speaker for the Dead

The audiobook felt a little schizophrenic. There were a number of different narrators tuning in to contribute in ways that felt disjointed for reasons I could never fully understand. I think it was due to the way different chapters were told from different points of view but without tagging hinting at the charact at a given point. Added to that, there were excerpts from legal and public records that, while interesting and insightful, were not tagged in a way that made them instantly understandable when something unusual was happening from a storytelling perspective.

That aside, this was a very different experience when compared to Ender's Game. The interview at the end of the book explains this. The author originally had this book in mind when he created the series. Ender's Game was the story that had to be told before this book could be written. Interesting that Ender's Game ended up being the smash hit of the series.

This book is well worth the read. Just don't go into expecting Ender's Game Part II.