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Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

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Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#91

Post by nl »

puredemo wrote: post #89
nl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same experience with Watership Down: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down I was set to read it when I was 14 or 15 in English. What 14 or 15 yo boy wants to read a book about a rabbit? I was wrong, and loved it, then went and read every other book Richard Adams wrote. So I guess it's not impossible , but at the same time I was probably broad minded enough to change my mind. Many people won't.

How are his other books?

Pretty decent from memory - I enjoyed them at the time. But I read them ~15 yo, so YMMV.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#92

Post by a1k0n »

icarus_drowning wrote: post #45
starwed wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then again, Ender's Game included the general idea of blogs as a plot point ... (Not sure what else you would classify Peter/Valentine's self-published online essays as.)

Aren't they explicitly described as forum postings?

Yeah, it's described as something more akin to Usenet than anything else from what I remember.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#93

Post by nl »

Stormbringer wrote: post #85
latch wrote: post #28

I always thought of Ender's Game of something like a child's book. Something like Harry Potter to LoTRs. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, I mean, Harry Potter got a whole bunch of people reading. But seeing this explanation helps me better understand why I feel like that, and what it means. I'd call this an analysis more than a review. Whatever you think it is, I found it a pretty honest and open piece…

The short story was much better. There is speculation that the full length novel was ghost written. Essentially somebody asked Card a bunch of questions about it, and he didn't know the answers to any of his questions... see also: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/5/28/22428/7034 NB: I'm not claiming it's true, just pointing out that a claim has been made

I call BS on premise of that link, and on the original essay (which is now online: http://peachfront.diaryland.com/enderhitlte.html)

Claims like this fail the Occam's Razor test:

I've seen Elaine's notes and heard Card on the phone, and there is no doubt in my mind that the Hitler Hypothesis is correct; it is simply impossible that Ender's Game and Speaker were written by someone who did not have a very detailed knowledge of Adolph Hitler's life. There are very exact parallels in there that you wouldn't even notice unless you read the footnotes to the most detailed Hitler biographies. I also tend to believe that Card does not have that level of knowledge about Hitler.

It would be simpler to assume that a story where a person causes the extinction of a species would have some similarities with a war in which genocide occurred.

I've read Card's books and I have reasonable knowledge of Hitler and I didn't notice any particular parallel. I suspect that the claim that he doesn't know his own books comes more from a reluctance to engage in a telephone debate rather than the idea that he didn't write them

I say that as someone who really liked Ender's Game, but thought Speaker for the Dead was crap. I had always assumed that Speaker for the Dead had some kind of Mormon message, but I think these accusations go way too far and are unsupported by the evidence.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#95

Post by nl »

burgerbrain wrote: post #68
nl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a better comparison would be with Bobby Fischer. Fischer idolized Hitler, denied the Holocaust, was antisemitic and wrote fanmail to Osama bin Laden[1]. But the same Bobby Fischer played beautiful chess that it's impossible not to admire. I don't have a good philosophical framework to process how I can admire the beauty of Fischer's play (and Card's writing) and yet disagree incredibly strongly with their oth…

I don't believe its all that hard to respect Bobby Fischer's chess (while despising everything else about him), while at the same time failing to respect Scott Card in general. Unlike chessplayers, authors play an important role in society by creating literature for that society to consume. They therefore, in my opinion, should be examined with more scrutiny.^ The fact that people hold up Ender's Game as a work with…

I think we agree, although I don't find your point about authors needing more scrutiny convincing. I think any public person creates an example for their society, and that can be just as damaging.

However, my feelings regarding Card are more nuanced than just "respect/disrespect". For example, he has a blog where he gives information to aspiring writers. If I was an author should I ignore that useful information because I don't respect his moral views?

My current feeling is that information on it's own doesn't have a moral stance, and so I can respect his advice in one area but not in others. Yes, I agree this is a slippery slope, but I don't know what the solution is. Should I reject Fischer's advice on chess? Card's on writing? PG's on startups (because I don't agree that Lisp is a silver bullet? :))

particularly when they start using their talent to spread their hate, and start letting it seep into their other 'manstream' [sic] work.

I don't think Ender's Game showed any particular homophobia. There is some moral ambiguity in the book (which is kind of the point), but I didn't see anything very hateful in it.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#96

Post by wging »

hugh3 wrote: post #3

Unfortunately does nothing to change my view that authors should probably keep away from their own reviews. If he'd had some brilliant new insight that would be one thing, but instead he just comes off as slightly more defensive than anyone who has sold tens of millions of books should. I guess it was 1999 when this was written, though, so the norms for online reviews had not yet been established.

No post body was provided.

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#97

Post by nl »

william42 wrote: post #53
grandalf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author misunderstands what Card is trying to say in response to her questions. Also, she evidently misunderstood Ender's Game quite a bit as well. Ender was suited to be a brilliant military commander precisely because he hated killing so much. A more bloodthirsty commander would have fallen for certain traps, committed certain errors of judgment that Ender was immune to. The nuance here is that Ender's strategic…

«Sure, card is a Mormon and appears somewhat socially conservative in his personal beliefs.» Not just «somewhat», he believes that armed insurrection is justified as a response to gay marriage: «Because when government is the enemy of marriage, then the people who are actually creating successful marriages have no choice but to change governments, by whatever means is made possible or necessary.» see http://www.mormo…

This is plainly a opinion piece written to support the Mormon's role in defeating proposition 8 (gay marriage) in California in 2008 (note the date of the article). That role was controversial, see [1], and Card is supporting it here.

We don't need to stoop to the level of playing dirty politics by taking things out of context in HN.

Card's attitudes to homosexuality is enough without accusing him of things it's pretty clear he's not trying to say.

[1] http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/18/prop-8-documentary/

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#98

Post by tedunangst »

andrewvc wrote: post #4

I'll just point out that the thing I didn't like about enders game was that the book felt too monotone. It has a great twist at the end, but everything leading up to it is linear, predictable, and while initially exciting, quickly becomes uninteresting.

That happens with short stories that become novels. If the short story was good enough to be worth converting to a novel, it already has everything it needs to be great. What more can you add?

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#99

Post by Entaroadun »

nandemo wrote: post #79
tptacek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a textbook terrible HN comment. It sources what may be the single worst literary interview ever conducted (the author interviews herself snickering at her subject) to illuminate the worst-kept secret in all sci-fi fandom (that Orson Scott Card is a devout socially conservative Mormon), all in service of the conclusion that social conservatives are "terrible" people. NOTHING GOOD CAN CONCEIVABLY COME OF THE EN…

Indeed. I wish I could collapse down a subthread a la reddit.

Ah, but you can. :) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbkfcamiocfccgmcjn...

Re: Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game

#100

Post by burgerbrain »

nl wrote: post #95
burgerbrain wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe its all that hard to respect Bobby Fischer's chess (while despising everything else about him), while at the same time failing to respect Scott Card in general. Unlike chessplayers, authors play an important role in society by creating literature for that society to consume. They therefore, in my opinion, should be examined with more scrutiny.^ The fact that people hold up Ender's Game as a work with…

I think we agree, although I don't find your point about authors needing more scrutiny convincing. I think any public person creates an example for their society, and that can be just as damaging. However, my feelings regarding Card are more nuanced than just "respect/disrespect". For example, he has a blog where he gives information to aspiring writers. If I was an author should I ignore that useful information beca…

Enders Game is not the book I had in mind with that statement, but his "Homecoming Series" are definitely... 'getting fringe', to put it kindly.

"'manstream' [sic]"

Ah, the perils of tiny keyboards. :/

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