Up way too late after playing MUA

[thebitterguy]

Before I go to bed, I give you this:

An article about Orson Scott Card & Ender's Game.

I think the author may be several degrees of paranoid/just plain nuts, but it's fun to read.

I like how, by the end, Card didn't even WRITE the book.

Comments

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

The accusastions are certainly interesting. I've enjoyed anthologies edited by Orson Scott Card, such as Dragons of Light and Dragons of Darkness.

I've ghost-written for folks before. (Look for early Knights-of-the-Dinner-Table comix that have either 'criminy' or 'crummy heck' in the dialogue.) I've seen other folks use a cult of personality to get others to do work for them. I really wouldn't be surprised if Card got some folks to at least flesh out his Ender books.

That's a better explanation than not knowing what he wrote himself, which would make him out to be crazy.

[absinthe-dot-ca.livejournal.com]

Well, the premise that Orson Scott Card is an asshat is, from everything I've heard, correct. It's been a couple of years since I read Ender's Game, though, and I never read the sequels. (Nor, for that matter, have I read any Hitler biographies, much less the footnotes.) Thus, I really can't comment on the other statements in the article. I guess that the reasonable thing to do would be to go to a library, pull the appropriate edition of the Literary Review, and read her essay and Card's response. However, I am neither reasonable nor near an English-language library.

Is there a point to this? Not really. See you next week!

[uhlrik.livejournal.com]

The article is paranoid claptrap and an out and out ad hominem attack rather than a reasoned argument. Straw man from the beginning. You're right that it's fun to read, up to a point.

Sure, Card's right wing. Card's religious beliefs also dwell heavily on repentance. Whether or not Card based Ender on Hitler should not disqualify the man for praise or awards. There are a number of other books that take pretty much the same argument that he's attacking, such as Niven's Inferno... where Benito Mussolini helps lead a man through and out of Hell, and is ultimately freed from the place himself.

The writer seems to be arguing that freedom of speech is alright as long as the speaker agrees with him rather than with Card. I could be wrong, but that's what I carry away. That is one of the two messages I see in the article. The other (and probably primary, given the article's title) is that he thinks Card is a dick and wanted to attack him personally over the internet. Heck, whether or not Card is a dick... I don't really care. I don't know the man. Bravo to the writer. He wins the internet.

I will admit that I didn't have time to read a few of the sections, but there are more important things in my life than finishing up an article that was poorly formed from the start.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I can't comment usefully about the claims about similarities between Ender and Hitler, both because I've not read the article being references (which I definitely want to look for) and because I know little about Hitler's life. However, Card's responses (both on the phone and in print) to this piece seen spot on, at least from several reports of fans and interviewers talking with him.

From my PoV, the best part of that piece was the link to the
excellent John Kessel article, (http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm) which I think was absolutely correct in it's claims and was also considerably less loopy that the piece you linked to. For all I know, Card did have some of his wackier coreligionists helping him write Enders Game and Speaker for the Dead, but in the absence of any real evidence to that effect, there's little useful that anyone can say about that.

I stopped reading his work simply because he's so clearly a totally wacked out homophobe who is deeply obesessed with with pedophilia and the sexuality of adolescent boys. In either case, I read several of his books and all contain scenes that have the uncomfortable and unpleasant feel of an author's sexual obsessions leaking through onto the page. The clearest example of this is his novel Songmaster. I have far better things to do with my time than to dive into the depths of an author's particularly vile and twisted psyche.

[righteousfist.livejournal.com]

I actually didn't know Card was such a wingnut. Ugh. I still think Ender's Game is a pretty great book, however.

[thebitterguy]

Oh, yeah, Ender's Game is cool. The sequels/spin offs never caught my interest.

[elizalavelle.livejournal.com]

For myself when I'm reading Card's work I don't think about his personal beliefs. I like his stories, I really like the Ender series, and if the guy is right wing in his personal life that doesn't really affect me when I'm reading a good story. If his story made me suddenly change my side of the political spectrum I'd have to stop and think about it but I think how Card chooses to live and what he chooses to wright can be separated it some degree.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

These days, his politics and his writing seem to have converged. Here's a discussion of (http://fagistan.blogspot.com/2006/10/i-give-up.html), and an excerpt from his eye-bleedingly bad and deeply offensive latest novel (http://www.hatrack.com/osc/books/empire/empire_01.shtml). I first thought this novel was a joke or parody, but sadly, it's not. Definitely a man in desperate need of anti-mormon aversion therapy.

[elizalavelle.livejournal.com]

*note to self, avoid new Card books* that one is horrible! The writing style is not engaging at all and the subject, ugh. I'll just stick with his older stuff and not move onto this new writing.