(4) Base Camp
Speaker for the Dead is a sequel to Ender's Game, and like that book, it whips right along—the prose is straightforward, the dialogue is snappy, and every mystery is carefully explained… often by Ender himself because he is just that smart. Speaker is maybe a little bit trickier than its predecessor, in part because there are references to the earlier book, and in part because there are more moving parts—Ender, Piggies, Hive Queen, all those kids of Novinha's. It sometimes feels like you need a scorecard to keep everyone straight (Card helpfully provides one at the beginning of the book if you look carefully). But even with all those characters, this is still a base camp book. Even if you don't read Ender's Game first, it shouldn't be too hard to follow this one.