Don't miss Sadly, No! on this, either. Glenn Reynolds might just be the most disingenuous person alive.
I will confess to that I actually enjoyed one of Card's science fiction books in a cotton-candy or page turner sort of a way. But, then I read more about Card.
Like Tom Cruise, once you realize how crazy Card is, you simply cannot look at anything they do again.
It's so goddamned good, people!
The lieutenant coughed. "Sirs, I'm being asked to bring you in for debriefing. I believe those are your bullets in the bodies down there, right?"
"Well, technically not our bullets," said Reuben. "They were borrowed weapons." He still in the black humor of combat.
(Typos Card's.) It mostly reminds me of the awesome spy novel I started writing when I was in sixth grade.
He still in the black humor of combat.
Oh, yeah. I mean, if it was grammatical, it would be just another example of him belaboring the obvious for the benefit of the readers he seems to think are idiots. But the prose makes it a thing of true beauty.
Disenglennuous. Best neologism ever.
I remember hearing the argument that Card's politics stood independent of his fiction writing. So much for that!
Comparing it to Card's perfectly servicable prose from earlier in his career honestly made me wonder if he'd had a stroke or something, but I decided that he just assumed that readers of revanchist fantasies about how Marylanders aren't real Americans wanted to read books that read like they were written by passingly bright sixth-graders. (The relevant chunk of the blogosphere provides some evidence that he's right, too.)
I hope Dan Simmons raises his game, because Card is a hard act to follow.
Is it true that Dan Brown claimed that he learned everything he knew from Card?
I became aware of him as an opinion writer, and have never read a word of his fiction. My son seemed to like Ender's Game, but didn't have much to say about it.
Ender's Game was really good (at least I remember it being so), but this guy is a serious fucking bigot and froot loop--I've been boycotting him for a decade.
Once again demonstrating that what unites the right is hatred for the left. And of course it's kinda true what Card says about closed minds and all that, but the open-minded superrubes of the right are...comical.
Oh dear. Card's a cousin of sorts.
I was impressed by the original short-story version of Ender's Game, not so much the novel. I've read a bunch of his other stuff, but none of it has been all that interesting (the first couple of Alvin Maker books were cute, and then they got deadly dull).
But man, he's crazy these days. You know what this book sounds like? The text version of that comic book people were blogging about last spring sometime, with Sean Hannity as a cyborg radio host in the Al-Qaeda-dominated Amerika of the future.
It reads like he's been reading nothing but PowerLine for the last few years, and was really super-impressed by their prose style and intellectual verve.
This sort of thing only makes me like Tom Wolfe more.
9 gets it exactly right, and don't feel bad, Jackmormon. He's also a North Carolinian.
Having read all five online chapters-- I confess with some shame-- I can report that Empire could easily have been just another crappy genre book, good for killing some time at the airport and not especially obnoxious. But he had to go shoehorn in the Princeton Hates Freedom exchanges that make this read like Sgt. Roark.
Don't be ashamed, Labs! It's magnificent!
"No, don't turn there -- we're not going to try to shoot from the Jefferson Memorial. The Independence Av bridge and the cars on it will block any kind of clean shot." Reuben directed him up to West Basin Drive as he checked to make sure both weapons had full clips.
"You realize this is Friday the thirteenth," said Cole.
"Screw you," said Malich.
I went to a reading of his when I was pretty young (13 or so), and beforehand someone distributed a copy of one of his essays about gay people. He was of course asked about it, and his response, which was basically that gay Mormons were doomed to celibacy, was clarifying to me. I decided that it was consistent with Church doctrine, and pretty much the only position a public Mormon could take without getting in trouble, but totally unacceptable to me.
Haha! "Sgt. Roark" is exactly right.
See, now that Card has come out with an explicitly political novel, I have to wonder whether Ender's Game has similar doctrinaire qualities. Not that that would make it any worse as a story, but I've heard lots of people go beyond praising it as a good read; it seems to occupy a position of Great Importance in the sci-fi canon. Although since I know next to nothing about the sci-fi canon and don't really remember Ender's Game, I don't feel comfortable doing more than wondering.
Does someone else have the link to that scathing essay on the "innocent genocide" of Ender's Game? There's a lot of weird shit in that novel, but, having recently reread it, I think so much of it is bouncing around uncontrollably that it doesn't have a single describable doctrine.
21: You're thinking of this John Kessel essay.
The original story was a pretty simple, well written, war-is-hell story. You take a kid, train him to be a killer, and have him commit genocide for you by telling him that it's all a simulation, using him up in the process. The expansion into a novel, with the survival of the alien chrysalis and the presumption that Ender wasn't all that badly damaged by the experience, made it much less coherent.
This dialogue is so awful. Looking back, the dialogue in Ender's Game was bad too. I cannot take joy in this.
I think Ender was pretty damaged even in the novel, but then I kind of like the incoherence of the long version.
(Caveat: I haven't read the shorter version. It's not too hard to figure out where it was, though.)
The excerpts people are posting are clearly wish-fulfillments. The impression I got from the pieces of his I read at Beliefnet was of a very pessimistic guy, who feels he's outvoted on everything he cares about. I remember his conviction that the Boy Scouts were going to lose their appeal, which would mean the end of one more thing he held dear.
"the Boy Scouts were going to lose their appeal"
He might as well be worried about CB radios going out of use. This battle was lost when the scouts adopted the term "Webelos."
27: `empire' s/b `speaker for the ego', you're saying?
erm, no it wasn't. 29 was though.
the Boy Scouts were going to lose their appeal
...to the Supreme Court.
Ah, but I prefer my interpretation. Nobody will want to be a scout anymore, once the institution is infected with teh ghey.
err, what I should have said was:
Aside from Souter, I don't think any of the justices are predisposed towards Jamborees as it is.
The nice thing about his earlier novels, especially Ender's Game, is that they contain some real moral ambiguity that comes with seeing things from different people's/charaters' points of view. The last couple of books I read by him before I gave up entirely didn't have any of that.
35 - And yet Ender's Game has one of the traits that's been in present in science fiction for a long time, the presupposition that fannish smart people are both inherently better suited to leadership and more morally virtuous than everyone else and should be in charge. (Obviously the brother and sister in the novel undercut this, but only slightly.) Slan is the book I can think of where this tendancy seems most pronounced ("Slans are fans!") and most fascistic. I'm sure John Clute or Tom Disch or someone has written an essay on this that I should have read. (Moorcock's rant about Starship Troopers isn't quite what I'm getting at.)
36: Isn't a tendency to reinforce the target audiences prejudices a feature of weak fiction more generally?
Peter is probably my favorite part of Ender's Game. We're supposed to believe that this psychopathic liar will be a good boy-king, but that's so impossibly thin it infects every other element of the novel with doubt.
36 - Sure, but there's a very distinct tendancy towards a sort of... dork messianism in a lot of bad (and even some pretty good!) science fiction that I don't see happening elsewhere, even in more explicitly authoritarian fiction. I mean, nobody's going to mistake Left Behind for a William Gaddis book, and its political sympathies are perfectly clear, but it doesn't have the same sense of junior high school ressentiment that pours off of Ender's Game.
The Kessel essay is really good and gets at a lot of what I'm thinking of, thanks.
39: That's roughly what I meant by `target audience'.
40 ... more explicitly: The way that some sci-fi falls into this trap with respect to, say, teenagers that self-identify as clever, is exactly analagous to the way some novels target middle-class tropes.
The Kessel essay is really good and gets at a lot of what I'm thinking of, thanks.
Yes it is good. I don't know who said it originally, but my favorite line on this, delivered in reply to a question on when the "Golden Age of Science Fiction" was: "The Golden Age of Science Fiction is twelve."
Reminds me of Lindsay Anderson's If, which I thought of a lot (alot?) during the Columbine mania.
41 - Yeah, I see what you're saying. I just don't know that teenagers (and/or the morally stunted) really are the target audience for great swaths of presumptively adult science fiction. Not counting this OSC book, of course.
This thread is making me hyperventilate.
The Farber Signal should be focused on a cloud for all to see at this point.
The ender's game short story is on the internet
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/stories/enders-game.shtml
make sure both weapons had full clips
I hate right wingers who try and fake their gun nuttery. Magazines, not clips. What a douche.
yeah, the accurate gun nutters are so much .... erm, nevermind.
46: Wow, I'd remembered it as different (and, IMO, better than) from the novel, but not quite how short and simple it was.
46,49 I've always liked the short story better than the novel (probably because I read it first) and I think its simplicity is part of its strength.
Upon reading all the comments I see that LB said exactly what I wanted to in #24. So what LB said.
yeah, the accurate gun nutters are so much .... erm, nevermind.
I don't ask much of these people. But for Christ's sake, if they're going to try and butch up with some gun talk it wouldn't kill them to do a little homework.
"...make sure both weapons had full clips..."
I hate right wingers who try and fake their gun nuttery. Magazines, not clips. What a douche.
While "magazine" is more technically correct, "clip" is two syllables shorter, and thus real combatants will face evolutionary pressure to adopt the term.
"real combatants will face evolutionary pressure to adopt the term."
Then "magazine" would have died out in Vietnam. I suspect the real terminology is "Fuck! I'm out! Gimme!"
A couple of things occur to me, first that, although this "Empire" (how Hardt and Negri must be chortling to themselves in between doing lines of blow off some prostitute's posterior!) seems to be generically similar to other texts mentioned above and in the links such as The Turner Diaries, Red Dawn, etc.; and although we know how fraught a position it becomes to try to discern authorial intent, I'm guessing that when Orson Scott Card sat down to write this work, he was trying to come up with something more like an antidote to The Plot Against America.
The other thing is that even though there is a strong claim to be made for reading Ender's Game as a disgusting apologia for the abuse of children, I can't believe that Card's earlier protestations of liberality were completely dishonest, given the denouement of that novel. You'd pretty much have to go back to the 17th century to find any traditional conservative who could agree with what the book has to say about war and genocide. Certainly the Rapture-and-Reaganomics crowd would take little solace from it.
Did anyone else notice that the helmet that the soldier in the foreground on the book's jacket is wearing looks much closer to the German WWII design than to the modern US PASGT helmets? Makes the thing look like a Harry Turtledove novel.
I pointed a friend to the linked articles. Our new favorite line is "they've already forgotten Sarajevo and the killing fields of Flanders."
Yeah I was pretty impressed with that line too. But I have not read the whole thing, just the bits quoted by the several purveyors of ridicule.
55:"go back to the 17th century to find any traditional conservative who could agree with what the book has to say about war and genocide"
"Maezr smiled. "A hundred years ago, Ender, we found out some things. That when a commander's life is in danger he becomes afraid, and fear slows down his thinking. When a commander knows that he's killing people, he becomes cautious or insane, and neither of those help him do well. And when he's mature, when he has responsibilities and an understanding of the world, he becomes cautious and sluggish and can't do his job. So we trained children, who didn't know anything but the game, and never knew when it would become real. That was the theory, and you proved that the theory worked." ...EG, from link
"Don't you know when you're dead?" The boy shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked a rock back to the monkey bars. Anderson smiled and shook his head. "Kids," he said. Then he and Graff stood up and walked on out of the park." ...EG, last lines
Card's insight is into the necessary innocence of efficient warriors, and their necessary sacrifice by the society that protects and destroys them. It is an insight of a nature, well, like understanding that the Carthaginians and Aztecs had it right all along. Civilization and culture needs to eat its children. Literally. Freud and well, Alice Miller?
It could destroy a mind.
Essays Based on the Work of Alice Miller ...Arthur Silber has done a ton of work.
FWIW, I go a lot farther than Silber or Miller, am a kid's right absolutist, would eliminate all legal institutionalized "rights" of parents, which pretty much means eliminating that ageless original sin of ownership of other human beings from which all other oppression flows.
I was referring to the ending of the novel, not the novella. Specifically pps. 321-324 of the mass-market paperback edition, copyright 1994.
It's not exactly perfect, but it certainly presents a counterpoint to the Fleet officers' views.
Mazer Rackham's entire explanation is, I think, a bit more nuanced than what you've quoted. I read it as highlighting the paradox between the inherent possibility of empathizing with other beings and the political pressure to otherize them. And given where the novel winds up, I'm not convinced that my reading is too generous. "We are workers, and fighters all." -- Woody Guthrie
I'm totally with you on the kids' lib stuff, bob.
I inhaled Enders game in a matter of hours in 9th grade, and even then I was aware that the dialog was clunky. But it was an interesting story with a lot of interesting, science ficitony ideas. And Speaker for the Dead was even more interesting. Xenocide had exactly one interesting componenet but it was already starting to show cracks of wackiness. The Changed Man & the King of Swords collection again had lots of great ideas, and neat plots, sometimesclunky execution, but it was okay, b/c it was shorts. It's when he reaches out for big ideas , relevant, obviously allegorical that things really fall apart. And then I started hearing about the homophobia, and read Songbird. Oh dear god, that man has issues. So. Awful. Still makes me cringe. Pity, b/c to me the interesting story ideas and the plots are the one thing that seem so hard to get.
For my part, reading that John Kessel essay reminded me of the plot of Ender's Game and pretty much served to reassure me that it's not similar to this new work in any way. I get his point that the story reflects a conception of morality he finds objectionable, but that doesn't make it propaganda. (I could list off some great books that reflect odious world views, but it's too easy.) So, let the rehabilitation of Ender's Game begin now, since Card seems intent on destroying his reputation.
You are all just jealous because Orson Scott Card made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs.
I've always seen Norman Spinrad's "Iron Dream" as pretty much the definitive satire on that vaguely fascist teenage dominance fantasy thing that riddles a lot of science fiction.
I hope Dan Simmons raises his game, because Card is a hard act to follow.
Wait, is Dan Simmons on the Orson path as well? Do I have to stop enjoying Hyperion?
The last two in the Hyperion series pretty much run off the rails.
Entertainingly enough, I came home last night and found our teenage (maybe early 20's? In college, but she looks young) babysitter reading Ender's Game, and asking for recommendations for more of the same sort of thing.
67 -- did you point her towards Atlas Shrugged?
"No, don't turn there -- we're not going to try to shoot from the Jefferson Memorial. The Independence Av bridge and the cars on it will block any kind of clean shot."
What a strange piece of dialogue. We can deduce that Card, like Friedman, derives a lot of what he writes from his conversations with taxi drivers.
"Bond changed gear and accelerated hard. The Aston Martin's V12 engine roared louder as he pulled ahead of the slow-moving van in front.
"He rolled down the window with a single motion. 'Oi! Wanker! Learn to drive!'
'Sorry about that, M,' he added. "But it's murder round here this time of day. Muppets like that on the road, and of course it's completely stuffed all the way to Hyde Park Corner. And the coppers don't do anything. If we want to reach Number 10 before Stendhal's men get there and start their attack, we'll have to go all the way round by Northumberland Avenue, 'cos they're digging up the road on Whitehall, aren't they? Bloody typical.'"
I didn't read Ender's Game till I was 25. Enjoyable, but would have been more fun as a teenager.
Wait, is Dan Simmons on the Orson path as well?
Ranting about Eurabia and dhimmitude and everything. Although I don't think he's produced anything as embarrassing as Empire that he's trying to claim as an actual book.
The end of that awful Dan Simmons thing linked to in 72:
"It was not the horrors of his revelations about my grandchildren that had shaken me the most deeply, shaken me to the core of my core, but rather the the Time Traveler's last three words. Three words that any Replayer or time traveler visiting here from a century or more from now would react to first and most emotionally - three words I will not share here in this piece nor ever plan to share, at least until everyone on Earth knows them - three words that will keep me awake nights for months and years to come.
Three words."
At.
The.
Mineshaft.
Sleep well, fellow earthlings.
And seriously, is Farber OK? This thread should have lured him in like a big luring thing.
I think Farber decided the tone here was uncongenial.
He posted just a couple of days ago (a week) about getting some dental work. I think he's off the Mineshaft after a couple of spats he got into the last few times he commented.
Wait, what are the three words supposed to be? a-salaam-alaikum?
what are the three words supposed to be?
"Nanu, nanu. Shazzbat!"
I recently read a young adult fantasy trilogy (The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud) that really surprised me with its willingness to portray a central character who might actually develop into a villain. Or if not a villain, a self-involved prick. It had some of the elements of moral social consciousness in Pullman's YA novels, but I thought it went even further in presenting a Bildung that was likely to become morally disappointing.
What really struck me of course was how unusual this sort of focus is in fantasy.
what are the three words supposed to be?
"It's a cookbook!"
Sorry, I reread his rant while on the phone with customer service, but is the reader supposed to know what those words are, and if not, isn't that a horrible cheat?
Obviously, they're "Klaatu Barada Nikto".
Three words that any Replayer or time traveler visiting here from a century or more from now would react to first and most emotionally
Seriously? I'd guess "God bless America".
86: I think it's supposed to be a cheat -- that it's a 'fill in the blank for the most horrible site for a terrorist attack that you can imagine.' You're supposed to go through your own personal fears and come up with "Super Bowl [whatever number comes next]" or "Pennsylvania State Fair".
Also, what's the deal with that hadith? Is that a standard ordering system?
"I'll tell you what it is," said the Time Traveler. "In philosophy and formal logic, and it has its equivalents in science and business management, Category Error is the term for having stated or defined a problem so poorly that it becomes impossible to solve that problem, through dialectic or any other means."
Dan Simmons, genius.
FL: no, the reader isn't supposed to know what the three words are. Though given the publication date, it's possible they were "April Fool, sucker!"
Or "Be seeing you..."
The next mystery: why am I wasting time thinking about this?
91: I think it's supposed to be a cheat -- that it's a 'fill in the blank for the most horrible site for a terrorist attack that you can imagine.'
See 75.
91: I think it's supposed to be a cheat -- that it's a 'fill in the blank for the most horrible site for a terrorist attack that you can imagine.'
See 75.
Also super-awesome: the part where the Time Traveller argues that Athens lost Syracuse because they weren't ruthless enough.
Maybe Simmons just miscounted a little.
"You're shitting me," I said.
"I am shitting you not," said the Time Traveler.
Somebody' shitting me, and I intend to find out who.
In his next "message" he call the story a "Rorschach," so I think LB is right. In some later message, he's building a house, and doesn't seem as concerned with dhimmitude.
103: Well, but the next message is just as batshit. He doesn't recant the howler about Athens and Syracuse nor really explain the gibberish about "Category Error," tries to portray Europe's ghettoes as outposts of an alien "civilization," basically announces that Muslims are not entitled to see self-defense as desirable, and is full of a lot of unwitting self-indictment besides.
Particularly amusing: "the true enemies of civilization tend to be... the men and women, so frequently the privileged elite in each era, who see the need to transform the world for the better." Iraq and Afghanistan, anyone? "We tend to hate and attack first that with which we are most familiar." Liberal intellectuals, for instance? ""First, clear your mind of cant." No kidding.
As for "Rorschach," it's either a lame excuse or Simmons truly doesn't know what the word means.
From the pictures, it's a pretty stunning house, too.
Ok, that was depressing. And here I was, enjoying the start of Endymion,
ending comments with commas instead of periods, it's anarchy!