Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Speaker for the Dead - Piggies



Orson Scott Card calls them Piggies. They are the native creatures of the distant planet Lusitania that Humans discovered more than 3000 years into the future. Book is very interesting to read considering that I even started sketching its characters before finishing it. There are multiple concepts that got me excited and would be very interesting to visualize. I have some ideas for the Bugger’s space ships as well as Buggers themselves. One thing that I find very annoying is the constant reference to the church, scriptures and hidden as well as ‘in your face’ Christian symbols. I understand that Bible is deeply rooted into human culture and makes it easier to explain many concepts but does it have to be everywhere? 3000 years into the future, really? It felt like the author had some sort of internal struggle as he was writing and I am afraid that in the end logic did not win, though I am not finished with the book. Anyway those are my thoughts, ideas and a little exercise at character design.   Speaking of which, Piggies have a very deep/ biological connection to the nature that greatly affects their physiology and life cycle. At this point I only played with the male Characters. I would like to spend some time exploring little mothers, Wives and small ones. If I will ever get to that…


2 comments:

Susan Henking said...

Ok. these are not quite how I imagined them; but I do find the book itself provocative.

Unknown said...

Susan thanks! That is the beauty of it we all see it differently. I sketched those as I was reading the speaker for the dead and even my own views have slightly changed after I finished the book. At the beginning many facts were hidden I though that Piggies had sinister/ dangerous/deadly side. Actually as I am reading Xenocide it turns out they do have a certain degree of danger for humans.