Reviews tagging 'Incest'

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

18 reviews

kat_ml's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Genocide, Grief, Death of parent, Colonisation, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Incest, Infertility, Terminal illness, Medical content, and Pregnancy

im_basil's review against another edition

hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

kinda wild that this guy writes about seeing past blind intolerance and hate and is a proud homophobe 0-0 like ok we can build understanding with alien pigs and bugs, but not with men who kiss other men? wild.

unfortunately i really like the ender series, but i will be borrowing copies from my local library or buying books secondhand so card earns not even a cent from me :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Murder

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Incest, and Infidelity

neonskylite's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Cannot understand anyone who says that Ender's Game is better than this book. My feelings about Ender's Game is very complicated and ambivalent, but Speaker for the Dead embodies the love and empathy that Card tries to assign Ender in Ender's Game. Will forever confuse me how someone who wrote such a beautifully empathetic novel relating to

aliens that perform vivisections as part of their life cycle

is a Mormon who draws the line at gay humans in the real world.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, and Death of parent

Moderate: Gore and Incest

marygeer's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Incest

markguitar's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Infidelity, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Incest

livelaughlesbian99's review against another edition

3.0

I liked this book. Ender’s Game was way better. Most of what I didn’t like was the characters. Most of the cast just didn’t interest me, which wasn’t the case in Ender’s Game. Aliens were cool, colony not as much.

So, is this book too dated to be read in modern day? I would say not necessarily. It has its issues; Ender is kind of a white saviour in an explicitly majority black Brazilian colony. Lusitania is portrayed as a little static, although I find humanity itself is portrayed as static in the Ender Saga. There is a character who experiences years of domestic abuse as ‘repentance’ for something they did and I found that a bit disrespectful to abuse survivors.

There is some ableist vibes near the end when a character sees their life as pretty much over and thinks they’re unlovable because they have become disabled.

My issue is more just that it kind of drags. The aliens are what’s interesting to me, and we spend all this time on drama in Lusitania. Ender’s tendency to walk in and just solve years of trauma and everyone’s issues is just kind of weird?

But if you like the series, press on. There is a certain vibe to the world of the Ender Saga which I will always love. Also, I love Valentine. Will probably continue reading just for Valentine.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Gore, Incest, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent

storyorc's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

As with Paul Atreides, you haven't done Ender justice until you've read his sequel. Speaker for the Dead differs in setting, cast, and pace, but it retains the human heart and takes its time to reckon with a version of humanity that survived - thrived - off of technology won from xenocide. The narrative doesn't pull punches or excuse Ender, despite how he was manipulated, but nor does it leave him to wriggle on the hook of his own guilt. This reckoning is mournful, but productive, much like the duties of a Speaker.

Over everything, Speaker is an ode to empathy. It stands unashamed in its endorsement of the Saturday morning cartoon friendship-is-magic style of empathy, but also extends and deepens that to acknowledge how painful and difficult it can be to reveal truth and still choose understanding over hatred. Perhaps it's not realistic, but it's optimistic enough to suggest it could be. If nothing else, every chapter makes it more irreconcilable that this attitude of relentless, courageous kindness was penned by someone who campaigned against gay marriage.

The appetite for sci-fi is also well and truly filled by the mystery of a new alien species, the 'piggies', who kick off the plot with ritualistic murder of a human, putting humanity's lofty ideas of remorse for their xenocide to the test as well as calling into question how moral a Prime Directive-esque policy of non-intervention actually is. Card has obviously devoted great thought to their species and culture, and doles out hints as well as any murder-mystery author.

Of course, none of us are perfect. Orson Scott Card remains one of the worst namers in SFF, adding "piggy" and "ramen" aliens to a lexicon already burdened with "bugger".

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Incest

Minor: Homophobia and Religious bigotry

Outside the general theme of love, Christian doctrine is very prevalent - the setting is a Catholic colony - and many Christians are shown to be wise or correct, but equally they have faults and there are upstanding atheists too. || At one point homosexuality is dismissed uncritically as ridiculous. || Plenty of strong women characters but also yet another classic sci-fi book where the females of the alien race are

non-sentient

(at least the breeding ones). Their plight is complicated but it could be argued that it is not taken as seriously as male concerns like war. Also, Ender suggests their lives are pointless if they can't bear children, though, in fairness, he is very concerned with his own opportunity to parent as well. || Incestuous

sex acts are not actually committed, just some close-calls and odd sibling dynamics.

aylasultana's review against another edition

emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Gore, Infidelity, Xenophobia, and Colonisation

Moderate: Domestic abuse and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Genocide, Incest, and Terminal illness

thomasgammon's review against another edition

hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

When I first read this book I was disappointed because I felt it didn’t live up to what ‘Ender’s Game’ delivered. Reading it again I realise that it doubles down on the true message of its predecessor, understand the ‘other’. 

While it would be very adult to say this is better than ‘Ender’s Game’ because it doesn’t obfuscate it’s message was scenes of battle, I did kind of miss the scenes of battle. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Incest

bits_and_pieces_odds_and_ends's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Colonisation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Cancer, Death, Domestic abuse, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Child abuse