Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

Okay, so I don't know how to write this review without being spoiler heavy to Ender's Game. So please be warned now. So glad I went back to try this series again. Last time I made it about 1/3 of the way through the book. This book is fantastic. 

Ender Wiggin won the Bugger War at an astronomical cost to his well-being and needs to get off Earth. He bonded with the enemy in a way that only comes from being able to utterly destroy another living species, and he wants to share their story to keep it from happening again. He becomes the Speaker for the Dead and writes a book about intentions and the "humanity" of the bugger race.

This novel starts off 3,000 years later. Ender reverted back to his birth name, Andrew, to distance himself from his involvement in the Bugger Wars. He and sister, Valentine, are travelling to all the bugger planets to start new colonies for Earth's ever expanding population. He begins as a hero for eliminating a threat to the human race but begins to be vilified as the years pass and his book, The Hive and the Hegemon, is turned into doctrine.

Due to relativity Ender is only in his mid-30s when he gets a call from an incredibly remote and isolated planet to Speak for some of the dead. This planet has a population of aliens that the humans have been studying, but it takes Ender's unique skills to really unlock how the two species should interact.

This is an incredibly intellectual sci-fi, and I loved every minute reflecting on humanity, empathy, and conscience. I may not have been a fan of the length, or even some of the actual writing. That felt slow and dragging, but the value of the book is really what you get out of it when you reflect on the ideas. I would not recommend to someone just reading for "entertainment" purposes.