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INTRODUCTION

Speaker for the Dead is a sequel, but it didn't begin life that way--and you don't have to read it that way, either It wasfor Speaker to be able to stand alone, for it to make sense whether you have read Ender's Game or not Indeed, into write Speaker for the Dead back in 1983, there would never have been a novel version of Ender's Game at all

How did Speaker for the Dead coan with more than one idea The concept of a "speaker for the dead" arose from my experiences with death and funerals I have written of this at greater length elsewhere; suffice it to say that I grew dissatisfied with the way that we use our funerals to revise the life of the dead, to give the dead a story so different froain No, that is too strong Let me just say that we erase them, we edit them, we make them into a person much easier to live with than the person who actually lived

I rejected that idea I thought that a more appropriate funeral would be to say, honestly, what that person was and what that person did But toall the unpleasant things instead of saying only the nice ones It doesn't even consist of averaging them out No, to understand who a person really hat his or her life really meant, the speaker for the dead would have to explain their self-story--what they retted, what they rejoiced in That's the story that we never know, the story that we never can know--and yet, at the ti

I have received several letters, by the way, from people who are called upon to speak at funerals fro read Speaker for the Dead,I hasten to add that they have done this either with the periven, obviously, before death!) So, and Iand powerful I hope so at my funeral I think there really is power and truth in the idea

But that was not the only source of Speaker for the Dead I was also a longtiical science fiction--stories in which a scientist studies an alien culture and uncovers the reasons for their strangeness The first such novel that I read was James Blish's A Case of Conscience Not many years later, I read Michael Bishop's story "Death and Designation a the Asadi" Both had a powerful effect ondesire to add soenre

So when I thought of the idea of an alien species which, in order to reproduce, had to slaughter each other in terrible intertribal wars, it was only natural that I decided the story should be told froradually, over several years, did I develop the idea of the piggies and their strange lifecycle, and the intertribal war receded in importance--so much so that I didn't need to make it an issue in Speaker for the Dead at all But it was in trying to think of an evolutionary reason why these little porcine aliens would need to slaughter each other for the species to thrive that I caes of this book

I was living with my wife, Kristine (nee Allen), in Ore this book The two ideas were still quite separate, and the speaker-for-the-dead idea was still in a very primitive form In fact, I had decided that the funeral "oration" should be in song--that it should be a "singer of death" I suppose I thought of this because I had sung at a few funerals, and found it aexperience even when I didn't know the deceased But when I er-of-death idea to Kristine, she winced "You've already written 'Unaccomaster," she reminded me "They were both about music If you do another music story people will think that's all you can do"

I realized that she was even ht than she knew! It happened that "Unaccobird," on which Songmaster had been based were also two of my stories that had been nohouse," which was really the opening chapters of Songo The only story of mine which had been nominated for awards and that wasn't about music was the novelet version of "Ender's Gahtht--the music motif may have won me some favorable attention, but it was ti else

So it would be a speaker of death in ht But here's the silly part Perhaps I was still unconsciously trying to lean on my most successful previous work, but I imgin? It was obvious to , I can still bring the kid-who-saves-the-world back for another round! And yet the idea appealed to me I didn't trust it yet, but it appealed to me

After all, Ender had to do soin coets caught up in theeach other? It had a delicious symmetry to it--the man who, as a child, destroyed one alien species now has a chance to save another

The idea sat there in the back of rew More to the point, the character of Ender grew I had never thoughthis war at the end of "Ender's Gaain, and he would have a terrible ti to normal human life A writer friend ofa sequel to "Ender's Ga Ender back to Earth, but while the story he came up with had so Ender could never do was return to live out his life on the birthworld of hu hi fro for the dead--that, I

thought, was a wonderful way to reconcile him with the human race that had used him up as a child