So much for that idea.

[m_mcgregor]

Every year or so I do the same thing.

I pick up Ender's Game. I read it. I love it.

Then I pick up Speaker for the Dead. I read it. I like it, maybe even love it.

Then I pick up Xenocide. I start reading it. I start noticing little bits of misogyny, vague racism, and an underlying premise that women exist to "have men's babies," and that this is

Comments

[anonymous]

You know it could make sense if we were in a different universe.But there are so many people with bad diseases and they are straight.

And i'm pretty sure that humanity has enough challenges for a guy who wants to have a family.there is no need for that genetic shit.But the guy was imaginative;he finds idiotic reasons to hate gay people.Which is odd considering that it's none his damn business.

[m_mcgregor]

It makes me particularly sad because he seems to favor evolution and certainly writes that into his stories. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to understand the basic notion that one can contribute to the genetic legacy of their species WITHOUT actually procreating. As a professor I knew once said: "Gay men make great uncles."

[booster17]

Ender's Game was magnificent.

Speaker for the Dead is also pretty good.

NOTHING ELSE EXISTS. THERE IS NOTHING ELSE. I REJECT CORD'S REALITY AND SUBSITUTE MY OWN. [/brain-wash]

......So, what do you think of his two Ultimate Iron Man mini's then?

[mymatedave]

A hundred percent agreement there. His Iron man stuff was pretty cool though.

[m_mcgregor]

I liked his Iron Man stuff until the two main characters started telling each other how it was their right and their responsibility to engage in a secret military strike against foreign soil. The dialogue was basically them explaining why they were the righteous heroes:

"We're going to a factory where they manufacture suicide-bombers and stopping them from 'going somewhere and killing people.'"

"So we're like, a way-more-accurate cruise missile!"

Hooray! Because everyone wants to be a cruise missile when they grow up.

Considering Card's views on the military and why apparently every military action the US has taken from Vietnam to Granada to Iraw was a wonderful idea -- no, a righteous idea -- it kind of grated on my nerves.

[reverend_mort]

Couldn't agree more. While I'm not too familiar with Card's work (I found out about his political views before I bought his books and the idea of putting money into that man's hands started to irk me) I too hate it when an author's political views shine through more then is reasonable. Lord of the rings really never did it for me, because all I could think about was how this guy advocating a regression into feudalism and the dark ages out of some twisted idealistic view that the world was better off when people just plied their fields and had no rights

[m_mcgregor]

Yeah that's kind of what gets to me. I understand that there's going to be viewpoints of the author bleeding through in any story. It's the good authors however who do it in a way where I don't notice. The situations in the story seem real enough that you don't realize one character is a strawman for the other character to knock down with his IRREFUTABLE LOGIC of some bullshit political claim.

[eleas]

I like some of Card's works, I really do. I actually found it in me to overlook the flaws of both Xenocide and Children of the Mind (even though I found both Novinha and Ender, post-fundie, to be revoltingly subservient portrayals, and the treatment of Wang-mu and Jane frankly misogynous), whereas I just can't stand the Alvin series at all. But there's no denying that the man has written his share of howlers.

Reuben Malich knelt over the body and cried out in the keening wail of deep grief, the anguish of a soul on fire. He tore open the shirt of his uniform and struck himself repeatedly on the chest. This was not part of his training. He had never seen anyone do such a thing, in any culture. Striking himself looked to his fellow soldiers like a kind of madness. But the surviving villagers joined him in grief, or watched him in awe.
--Empire, by Orson Scott Card

[m_mcgregor]

Ah yes, I didn't even mention his "evil liberal army takes over the country" book.

[artistshipper]

Abuhwha? How is the treatments of Si Wang Mu misogynous? Children of the mind was a horrible piece of junk, but I'm not seeing the misogyny.

Dare I ask what people thought of Wyrms?

[eleas]

No, you're right. I misremembered. Possibly, it's due to the fact that I see misogyny in almost every portrayal of Card's love interest characters, because that's when his craziness is the most obvious.

[xxmagex]

I have to admit I liked Ender's game. I read the Speaker for the Dead. Something about the Piggies made me go "What?" and I stopped reading the series. I hadn't realized just how off the deep end it had gone.

[m_mcgregor]

Honestly the storylines themselves are mostly still good, particularly in Speaker. It's just that by Children of the Mind you've got characters going from one world full of stereotypical characters to the next: the all fat and happy samoan planet, the all bowing and duty-bound chinese planet, the still-guilty-over-WWII Japanese planet, etcetera, etcetera.

Then you get into the Shadow series, which sucks for a hundred other reasons, not the least of which is Bean becoming the secret main character who actually did all the cool stuff, making Ender into something of a chump. And there's the "I MUST HAVE BABIES!" stuff, combined with a sudden abrupt turnaround of Peter and Peter's parents, where Peter realizes that his (portrayed as quite neglectful and mostly unloving) parents are actually wonderful people and that it is his duty as their son to honor them.