Reagan started us on the path to capitulating to Muslims! We forget what guts it took Bush to stay in the Iraq War! Bush beaten up by scientists! MASS PRODUCED EMBRYOS!
I laughed. And then I laughed some more.
Near the end, OSC positions himself as a centrist. He wants us to know that the insane Right is just as bad as the insane Left. Well, honey, you’d know. Nice try at claiming to be a moderate, though.
Can I be the first one to call total utter BS?
Is it just the domain of science fiction writers to run the gamete of political beliefs in their course of their lives?
Card has sipped the Heinlein kool aid a few too many times to ever be a centrist. I haven’t tracked his work thoroughly, but IIRC the ideology (right wing with a flavoring of LDS moralizing) underlying his fiction hasn’t shifted much in the past 30 years.
I’ve always thought that the language and imagery of Ender’s Game was the key to understanding Orson Scott Card.
Lots of teenage and pre-teen boys wrestling in their underwear, desperately fighting an all out battle against ‘the Buggers.’
But It’s not gay, certainly! No, no, it’s just a case (like the Boy Scouts) of young boys bonding with one another! And the Buggers are the enemy, doncha know? Why, their agenda could destroy our way of life forever!
Ahem.
Yeah, there’s nothing sublimated there.
—Myca
I fail at proper trackback, but, I tried, because people who say ‘human life is sacred!’ find new ways to make me angry every day.
I liked your article, Thene.
Maybe Card is trying to prove that centerists can be insane radical lunatics as well?
I read Ender’s game, and I thought, “Hey, this guy is pretty awesome!”
Then I read the next couple in the series and thought, “Well, he’s still a good writer, he’s just caught the Hippie bug — kinda Spider Robinson-ish. And sure, he’s a Mormon, but so are a lot of perfectly nice people.”
Then I read some of his nonfiction. Holy crap, the guy’s a sociopath! And he’s not “the good kind of Mormon”, either; he wants to put gays in jail. Not because he hates them, no, but for their own good, the poor sinful dears.
I encourage everybody to read Ender’s game. (There’s a reason it won a Hugo.) But please, borrow it from a friend; don’t give this asshole any more money.
Thanks for this post, and the great blog!
I didn’t know anything about OSC except that he was a Browncoat until about 6 months ago when I read his rant on gay marriage. I have never been so horrified in all of my life. Enders Game might be a great book, but I just can’t get past the author’s politics. I don’t think I could ever read the book.
I’m really surprised at the number of Ender’s Game fans so far. Honestly? I found the book ridiculously predictable to the point of being really sad. Sort of Dan Brown-esque in it’s overall quality (although admittedly better paced).
Then again, I’ve read stupid amounts of sci-fi/fantasy in the last three decades so I guess there isn’t a lot that is going to surprise me.
I enjoy the Alvin Maker series, but I wouldn’t say they’re good — they just happen to be escapist crap I enjoy. Sometimes my mind craves junk food.
The first Ender’s Game book was crappy but fun (all the stuff with the games in the school, primarily), but the sequels I tried struck me as no longer fun.
(I’ve somehow never had a problem enjoying work by writers or cartoonists I know to be absolute assholes in real life.)
I liked the zero-g stuff in Ender’s Game, didn’t care so much for the plot, and the edition I read had a really pompous self-justifying foreword about how all his critics were proved to be complete morons by the fact that gifted children loved the book or something. But I figured he was a pretty decent SF writer and I cut him some slack. Then I read the screed about how gay people getting married were just like kids playing dress-up or something, and I haven’t been able to take him seriously since.
“I enjoy the Alvin Maker series, but I wouldn’t say they’re good — they just happen to be escapist crap I enjoy.”
I found them really racist.
I read Ender’s Game at a time when my critical faculties weren’t quite as grumpy as they are now. I enjoyed it. I’d recommend it, particularly to young people. If nothing else, it’s one of those books that is a good common point for conversation with a lot of people.
It’s in libraries, though, so I’d ditto the “don’t buy.”
For me (and I am new here, and love your blog!), this brings up an interesting question I’ve been playing with in my own mind, and on my own blog.. Should a writer’s views impact my feelings as a reader? This question keeps coming up for me, and I’m really interested in what others thing.
EssBee,
For me, it depends on the author and the views. In general, there are so many good books to read that I don’t particularly feel the need to go flipping through the work of raicists and misogynists and homophobes. I’d rather throw my money and reading time behind Eleanor Arnason or L. Timmel Duchamp or Karen Joy Fowler.
My reading time is already a scarce resource compared to the amount I’d like to read. Time’s too short for me to bother about reading stuff I don’t love.
My favorite Card book was Songmaster, which featured a gay protagonist depicted in (IMO) a very humane and empathetic way. This fooled me for a long time into thinking that Card was somehow anti-gay only in religious principle (because I can understand the belief that you must do as your religion says do, even if you disagree; not my way, but I respect people who choose that path). In actuality, I thought, he was really OK on the gay.
I feel so naive.
My main problem with Season 6 of Buffy, in fact, was that Card could have written it.
I’ll admit it – I’m a gamer, I loved Ender’s Game to death. Obviously, I had no illusions about it – this isn’t high art here. This was “Harry Potter” for angsty gamer boys.
And yes, I have to agree with Bjartmarr – I got a much better impression of him from his writing than reality (although a Spider-esque hippy wasn’t in my mind). Such a disappointment.
@hf
Season 5 uber alles. Glory was the best villain (although I must admit that I liked the creepy, sad Spike relationship).
Ender’s Game is well worth reading, even owning if you can find it in a used book store. OSC’s politics and general lunacy doesn’t color that book. the first one or two of the sequels are library-checkout possibles, good but not great, and still his personal insanity doesn’t really shine through too very much. i’ve not read any of his other fiction, but his non-fiction… eesh, i’m glad i’m in a different state from the man.
there’s plenty of perfectly good art made by despicable, awful people. Eric Gill’s name was in the news again, recently, as one dramatic example. good authors and artists (“good” with respect purely to their creative skills, that is) do not allow their personal foibles to shine through in their work, or else label their work as non-fiction polemics. ones that can’t do that typically don’t rise to fame of any kind, creatively or personally.
Ender’s Game was good, Speaker of the Dead was better, Xenocide had Ender transporting people around in a box with the power of his mind. And that’s … how that series went. I like the Ender’s Shadow series, I have to say, but reading Empire it struck me that OSC was actually insanely far right, but thought he was centrist. [But … isn’t.] Maybe he used to be far enough to the center so that he was able to disguise it? Because he’s kind of lost that.
[After reading the blog post. And the other thing about gay … things, later down in this discussion.]
Err. … That … was … odd? Especially the thing about gay people. He, uh … missed … the boat. By … a … lot. This … ugh. Bleh, well, I’d already given up on him, but I suppose I’ll just completely give up, now. Sigh.
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