ewee (28/26): Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

Well, it seems like Card gets better as the series goes on. Speaker for the Dead is more substantial storytelling, with more interesting characterization and plot development. Admittedly, it's still fluff, but one with such good anesthetic properties that it absorbed me with ease. It also helped that I was taken with the idea of having someone speak for the dead. That is, the idea of marking the life and death of someone by researching and understanding the whole person -- both good and bad, as well as their connections to family, friends, work, community. It's also fairly sensitive in its exploration of "other," even going so far as to set up a hierarchy of alienness. And it manages to weave together the stories of Novinha's family and their various hurts into a very readable whole.

Overall, a good equation: more good fluff = less television.