This story is incredible. I recommend it to all Science-Fiction readers, and Fantasy lovers. This book was written by a GENIUS. Mystery, horror, reality, love, hate, and deception are intricately woven into this passionate story of a broken family, a mysterious alien species, an impossibly empty and limited planet, a devastating disease, and the Speaker for the Dead, who's brilliant mind and healing hands are perhaps no match for the troubles that plague this planet. Perhaps they are. You must listen to the tape, or read it to find out. I listened to this audiocassette, and I thought it was much better than the book (which I had already read), because it was much easier to understand the names, and the places, and the pronunciation of some of the titles in the story. I also learned a fair bit of Portuguese just from listening to this cassette over several times.

It takes listening to at least twice to get the identities of the characters and Piggies nailed down correctly, and to understand the implications and purposes served by the beginning part. Also, I highly recommend reading Ender's Game first, because it will make many areas in the book clearer, and more important.

BELOW ARE SPOILERS
BEWARE,

I am about to disclose the plot of the story, so if you STILL WANT TO HAVE SURPRISES AND SUSPENSE, DON'T READ!!!

Otherwise....

I HOPE you have already read Ender's Game. It is not VITAL that you read it, however it definitely makes the second book more enriching and understandable. It is interesting to see what has become of the nine-year-old little boy in battling school who unknowingly committed Xenocide in destroying an entire beautiful species, and has had to bear the guilt of all of humanity throughout his life. Now, three thousand years later, he is only thirty. Due to his many years in space travel, he and his sister Valentine are still young, and still painfully remember the years they spent apart, the years at Ender's battle school, the years before The Hive Queen and the Hegemon.

Now, Ender once again must leave his beloved sister and travel to the planet of Lucitania, for two reasons. The first being the Piggies. A new, mammal-like species with a language, and a culture of it's own. But also because of the planet's Xenobiologist, Novinhia. On another world, he sees her face, tortured with guilt and with the look of adult responsibility on a young face. A look he knew so well because it was the face that HE had worn for all the years in and after battle school. A face he knew he had to change.

So Ender, on the planet of Lucitania meets the torn family of Marcos, the man whose death he was to speak. But this family is diseased. Not in the flesh, but in the soul. Though the children are brilliant, as is the mother, Novinhia, wife of the abusive, hated Marcos, they are suppressed. They are greatly respected by the community because they are the surviving grandchildren of the colony's salvation. Their grandparents found the neutralizer for the Descolada. The impossibly smart, adaptable, torturous virus which robbed the lives of too many citizens, and who's properties have somehow become interwoven in the strange mating patterns of all the handful of surviving species, of all the mysteries of the Piggies. Of all the odd things that happen and exist on Lucitania. The Descolada is somehow the key to life with the Piggies. It is somehow the key to understanding what has plagued Novinhia so that she has become cold and uncaring, selfish and unhappy.

All this is placed in Speaker Andrew's hands. He must solve the puzzle, speak the death of Marcos, and expose the secrets that poison Novinhia's family. He must learn about the Piggies. How they reproduce, where the wives are, how they survived, why the ecosystem is so barren, and most importantly, if a third race, thought to be destroyed three thousand years ago, can be brought back to life and thrive on this planet.

At the end, a secret is shared. Learned. All the secrets about Novinhia are exposed, and her suffering, her shame, her self-hate are all understood. And she shares a secret herself. Shares a secret that threatens to destroy the planet itself. The Piggies on it, the Buggers on it, and the Humans on it. The only way is rebellion. Their only defense is Jane. The being existing in space, among the Philotic bonds, and who has complete control over all the computers over all the hundred worlds. But is that enough? When Lucitania learns that ships are on their way, carrying the "little doctor", the bomb with the power to destroy an entire world, is to be used in this "emergency". What hope is there for Lucitania now?

I STRONGLY suggest you read this book to find the answers to these questions, and read Xenocide to find the answer to the last one. You will not regret it, and it is a book I am sure you will never forget.


Recommended: Yes