I have read two books, "Forever Free," by Joe Haldeman and "Speaker For the Dead," by Orson Scott Card. These two books, while differing in many ways have similar aspects of the plot. The writers with similar spontaneous writing styles depict life in the future in similar ways. Both books illustrate life on obscure, newly settled planets. On planets like this, in both books, compared to earth and older civilizations, is kind of third-world.
             "Forever free" has a more interesting plot and bolder, more complex character descriptions. "speaker For the Dead" unlike its enthralling predecessor "Enders Game" has a less interesting and semi uneventful plot. In each book the oldest people were highly respected and were thousands of years old due to faster than light speed travel.
             "Forever Free" Is a book about a group of space war vets who live on an ice planet without most of the modern technology available to people of more thickly populated, more advanced civilizations. All humans besides those in the colony on the ice planet have evolved into a genetically identical race collectively called "man." Man has a group mind in which individuals "tap in" to upload and download thoughts and memories. Also a part o this group mind is a very advanced race of aliens with a mental capacity thousands of times that of a man. At the end of the book, in a long suspenseful climax we discover that all life in the galaxy was just a multi-million year experiment conducted by a supreme being or force.
             "Speaker For the Dead" is about a civilization of people who colonized a planet inhabited by an alien race which they call the "piggies." The town is inside a high fence and the people are not allowed to make contact with the piggies who live in the forest outside the gates. There are, however, three people who are allowed to make contact with the piggies for research and experimenting. These biologists are only allowed to study the piggies and take notes o...