Orson Card - Speaker for the Dead

Oh yes. The third book. I had never planned to write a third book. In fact, I really hadn't planned to write a first book-- Speaker was originally supposed to be a solo. But just as I was writing the last few chapters of Speaker, Barbara Bova called and said she had sold the Ender trilogy to an English publisher.

"The Ender trilogy ," I asked. "Barbara, there are only two."

Naturally, she was a bit flummoxed. Of course she could always go back and renegotiate for only two books. But first, couldn't I think a little bit and see if perhaps I might come up with a third story that I wanted to write?

At that moment I knew exactly the story I wanted to tell. It had nothing to do with Ender Wiggin or any of the characters in Speaker for the Dead. Rather it was an ancient project from early in my career, one that Jim Frenkel, then at Dell, had rejected because I just wasn't mature enough, as a writer, to handle a project so difficult. Having solved the problems of Speaker for the Dead, though, I felt ready to tackle anything. It had been years since I had even thought about that story, then called Philotes, yet wasn't it possible that by putting Ender Wiggin into it, I might be able to bring it to life the way Speaker had come to life because of his presence? I might fail, of course, but why not try?

Besides--and here you are about to learn something truly vile about me--having a third book would mean that I didn't have to figure out some way to resolve the two loose threads that I knew would be dangling at the end of Speaker. What happens to the hive queen? And what happens to the fleet that Starways Congress sends?

By agreeing to do a third Ender book I could leave those questions for the sequel, and since I am a shamefully lazy man, I jumped at the chance. I jumped too soon--the book was every bit as difficult as Jim Frenkel had told me it would be, and it took years to get it right--and even then it is far and away the talkiest, most philosophical of my novels, which is just what the original outline of Philotes had required. Over the years the title of the third book changed, from Ender's Children to Xenocide, and it also grew until it became two books, so that even Xenocide doesn't finish the story (though the next one will, I swear it!).

And, like Speaker for the Dead before it, Xenocide was the hardest book I'd ever written up to then. You see, the work of a storyteller doesn't get any easier the more experience we get, because once we've learned how to do something, we can't get excited about doing exactly the same thing again--or at least most of us can't. We keep wanting to reach for the story that is too hard for us to tell--and then make ourselves learn how to tell it. If we succeed, then maybe we can write better and better books, or at least more challenging ones, or at the very least we won't bore ourselves.

The danger that keeps me just a little frightened with every book I write, however, is that I'll overreach myself once too often and try to write a story that I'm just plain not talented or skilled enough to write. That's the dilemma every storyteller faces. It is painful to fail. But it is far sadder when a storyteller stops wanting to try.

Now I fear that I've told you more than you ever wanted to know about how Speaker for the Dead came to be. A writer's life is boring indeed. I write stories about people who take risks, who reach out and change the world. But when it comes to my life, it mostly consists of hanging around at home, writing when I have to, playing computer games or watching TV whenever I can get away with it. My real life is being with my wife, with my children; going to church and teaching my Sunday school class; keeping in touch with my family and friends; and, the primary duty of every father, turning off lights throughout the house and muttering about how I'm the only one who seems to care about turning them off because I'm the one who has to change the lousy light bulbs. I doubt that there's much of a story in that.

But I hope that in the lives of Ender Wiggin, Novinha, Miro, Ela, Human, Jane, the hive queen, and so many others in this book, you will find stories worth holding in your memory, perhaps even in your heart. That's the transaction that counts more than bestseller lists, royalty statements, awards, or reviews. Because in the pages of this book, you and I will meet one-on-one, my mind and yours, and you will enter a world of my making and dwell there, not as a character that I control, but as a person with a mind of your own. You will make of my story what you need it to be, if you can. I hope my tale is true enough and flexible enough that you can make it into a world worth living in.

Orson Scott Card

Greensboro, North Carolina

29 March 1991

Xenologers (Zenadores)

Pipo(João Figueira Alvarez)

Libo(Liberdade Graças a Deus Figueira de Medici)

Miro(Marcos Vladimir Ribeira von Hesse)

Ouanda(Ouanda Quenhatta Figueira Mucumbi)

Xenobiologists (Biologistas)

Gusto(Vladimir Tiago Gussman)

Cida(Ekaterina Maria Aparecida do Norte von Hesse-Gussman)

Novinha(Ivanova Santa Catarina von Hesse)

Ela(Ekaterina Elanora Ribeira von Hesse)

Governor

Bosquinha(Faria Lima Maria do Bosque)

Peregrino(Armão Cebola)

Abbot and Principal of the Monastery

Dom Cristão(Amai a Tudomundo Para Que Deus vos Ame Cristão)

Dona Cristã(Detestai 0 Pecado e Fazei o Direito Cristã)

The Figueira Family

The Family of Os Venerados

* All dates are expressed as years after adoption of the Starways Code.

Pronouncing

Foreign Names

Three human languages are used by characters in this book. Stark, since it originated as English, is represented as English in the book. The Nordic spoken on Trondheim evolved from Swedish. Portuguese is the native language of Lusitania. On every world, however, schoolchildren are taught Stark from the beginning.

The Portuguese language, while unusually beautiful when spoken aloud, is very difficult for readers who are accustomed to English to sound out from the written letters. Even if you aren't planning to read this book aloud, you may be more comfortable if you have a general idea of how the Portuguese names and phrases are pronounced.

Consonants: Single consonants are pronounced more or less as they are in English, with the addition of ç, which always sounds like ss . Exceptions are j , which is pronounced like the z in azure, as is g when followed by e or i ; and the initial r and double rr , which are pronounced somewhere between the American h and the Yiddish ch .

Vowels: Single vowels are pronounced more or less as follows: a as in father, e as in get, i like the ee in fee, o as in throne, and u like the oo in toot . (This is a gross oversimplification. since there are really two distinct a sounds, neither of which is really like the a in father, three meaning-changing ways to pronounce e — é , ê , and the quick e at the end of a word--and three meaning-changing ways to pronounce o--ó, ô, and the quick o at the ends of words. But it's close enough to get you through this book.)