29
Raise a Glass for the Ole Perfesser
If someone from another planet came to earth and asked me to find two sentences that summarized the insanity of Glenn Harlan Reynolds, I’d probably choose these two:
Is America in danger of civil war? Not immediately, perhaps, but famed science fiction writer Orson Scott Card thinks that we’re in enough danger that he’s authored a cautionary tale entitled Empire that’s set in more-or-less present times.
Is America in danger of being invaded by the Mole People? Not immediately, perhaps, but famed science fiction writer Stan Lee thinks that we’re in enough danger that he’s authored a cautionary tale entitled The Fantastic Four that’s set in more-or-less present times.
Above: Comic book… or prophecy?
But wait! That isn’t even the best part of Glenn’s column! Check out this doozy (my emphasis):
Card’s cautionary tale is worth bearing in mind. Civil wars are, traditionally, among the most bloody, and the hardest to prevent once the ball gets rolling. So what do we do?
One question is “who’s ‘we’ here?” I don’t see much of a sign that the American public — which, after all, overwhelmingly favored centrists in this month’s elections — is as divided as Card suggests. But — as Card also notes — the elites are much more divided [...] To the “activist” crowd on the left and right, people who don’t share their views 100% are evil, and on the other side.
Wow!! Who are those awful, nasty elites who accuse people they don’t agree with of being “on the other side?” I can’t believe anyone would be so partisan to accuse their fellow Americans of treason and…
Wait a minute, what’s this?
March 26, 2003
THEY’RE NOT ANTIWAR — THEY’RE JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE: A continuing series.
posted at 08:54 AM by Glenn Reynolds
And this?
And, once again, it looks as if another “peace” group isn’t really for peace, but simply on the other side. And, apparently, on Kerry’s side as well.
And what about this one?
I WARNED EARLIER that if Americans concluded that the press was on the other side, the consequences would be dire.
Now it looks as if things are already dire…
Or who could forget this classic:
Various lefty readers email to say that Ward Churchill is not the authentic face of the Left.
I wish I agreed with that. But, sadly, he is its very image today.
When Ted Kennedy can make an absurd and borderline-traitorous speech on the war, when Michael Moore shares a VIP box with the last Democratic President but one, when Barbara Boxer endorses a Democratic consultant/blogger whose view of American casualties in Iraq is “screw ‘em,” well, this is the authentic face of the Left.
Etc., etc. No one does shameless hypocrisy like the Ole Perfesser. He is truly one of a kind.
Evan said,
November 29, 2006 at 16:21
You had me at “Orson Scott Card.”
Gary Ruppert said,
November 29, 2006 at 16:26
It’s not an accusation if it’s true.
And in France, there’s 700 areas not controlled by their government.
Yet France won’t be declared to be in a civil war by the MSM.
Brad R. said,
November 29, 2006 at 16:30
Gary- if you think I’ve committed treason, please inform the FBI and tell them to arrest me. Otherwiese, STFU.
spencer said,
November 29, 2006 at 16:30
>Yet France won’t be declared to be in a civil war by the MSM.
Wow, I hadn’t heard about all the violence and bloodshed in France, Gary. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
[backs away sloooooowly . . . ]
ifthethunderdontgetya said,
November 29, 2006 at 16:40
I gotcher authentic face of the right, right here.
His Grace said,
November 29, 2006 at 16:43
Guys, Gary is yet again right. See the MSM continually shows us footage of the freshly painted schools of Lyons and Marseilles while not reporting on those 700 dangerous areas. In Iraq, they want the terrorists to win, so they don’t show any painted schools and obsess over the fact that there are death squads engaging in ethnic cleansing.
But I think that Gary and I have to prove it to you. I’ll tell you what, I’ll go to France Gary and report the truth on how dangerous it is. I’ll really put my neck on the line walking the areas of Paris where the radical militias of Jacques-al-Sadr run rampant and tell the world the truth. You go to Iraq and show the world how safe it is by walking around downtown Baghdad.
Tulkinghorn said,
November 29, 2006 at 16:54
Oh, Gary.
What the hell are you talking about? Drop a link, at least, or bugger off.
Then again, just bugger off.
g said,
November 29, 2006 at 16:56
“And in France, there’s 700 areas not controlled by their government.”
Oui, c’est vrai! Le salle de bain de ma tante n’est pas controle par le government!
Tulkinghorn said,
November 29, 2006 at 16:56
When Ted Kennedy can make an absurd and borderline-traitorous speech on the war, when Michael Moore shares a VIP box with the last Democratic President but one, when Barbara Boxer endorses a Democratic consultant/blogger whose view of American casualties in Iraq is “screw ‘em,� well, this is the authentic face of the Left.
It is not the face of the Left (sic). It is the face of Congress.
bwahahahahha, etc. putz.
steve_e said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:01
Uh oh, the Wolverines are sharpening their butter knifes.
I sense a little wishful thinking in that write up.
“…shadowy forces use terror and assassination to trigger a civil war in an America sharply divided along Red/Blue lines.”
Some outside force will make the conservatives go nuts and start killing fellow Americans. After 8 years of bloodshed we’ll find out there was no outside force, just a bunch of idiotic, impotent, pasty, white men who want to be tough and manly like all those handsome, muscly movie actors.
Doc Washboard said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:11
This sudden Orson Scott Card fetish on the Right befuddles me. I have seen him mentioned two or three times now in various Righty blogs as “PROMINENT DEMOCRAT Orson Scott Card,” with the subtext of, “He’s our kind of Democrat because he believes in all the nutty things we do.”
Since when did Orson Scott Card become a “prominent Democrat?” Prominent SF writer, yes, and he’s written some interesting things, but how on earth can he be held up as an expert on anything political?
Also: I love the phrase “the last Democratic president but one.” It has a delightful air of a) grasping desperately to make some kind of meaningful connection with anything at all, and b) the snooty anglophilic fussiness of someone who wants to come of a just a leeeetle bit more toney than he actually is. Is he talking about Jimmy Carter? If so, why the hell couldn’t he just write “Jimmy Carter?” The guy has been demonized enough by the Right to have a recognizable name, hasn’t he?
Finally: am I the last person on earth to know that Atlas Pam was the publisher of the New York Observer?
Tulkinghorn said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:15
OSC is not even a “prominent science fiction author”, or prominent anything else, for that matter.
Pug said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:18
Finally: am I the last person on earth to know that Atlas Pam was the publisher of the New York Observer?
No, that would be me. I had no idea until I saw your comment.
dbt said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:22
OSC is fairly prominent as a sci-fi writer, which is to say not at all. His first work was genius and he’s spent the rest of his career trying to convince us it was a fluke.
TC said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:22
Sorry Pug.
I claim last person, I just found out now.
Phoenix Woman said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:26
Actually, Orson Scott Card is a prominent MORMON and conservative, and always has been. (By the way: I’ve heard it stated that “Scott Card” was the name his parents gave him, and the “Orson” is something he picked up from a D&D character he played.)
Sarcastro said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:28
It’s not an accusation if it’s true.
English. Do you speak it?
filkertom said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:28
Oh, Card is prominent, all right. Best-selling author, and, up to maybe fifteen years ago a popular speaker at SF/fantasy conventions. Used to do a gig called the Secular Humanist Revival.
And then he went full-blown Mormon and became virulently anti-gay.
In a lot of ways, he’s a perfect spokesmodel for the Right — eloquent, passionate, religious, and he used to do this secular thing but not any more. They can bring up portions of his past, and not bother with why he’s alienated a whole bunch of his own audience.
qvatlanta said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:28
He is a prominent science fiction writer with a very mixed output…. some of it very good, some of it absolute drek.
Here’s the Fagistan perspective:
Notorious P.A.T. said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:28
science fiction writer Orson Scott Card thinks that we’re in enough danger
Let’s all get up and dance to a song by a Mormon whose best book is about little kids zapping giant bugs to save the world.
JB said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:29
Nothing on the Observer’s masthead indicating her connection. If I’m wrong about this, however, I would be in the running to claim last-person-ness.
Mudge said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:32
Lasties on Pam. Whoa that doesn’t sound just right.
Supermen defeated the Mole Men in like 1953. They should present no real problem. If I remember correctly, their favorite weapon was a manhole cover, or is it now a person hole cover….or, heavens forbid, a Pamhole cover. That image is too intense..forgive me.
jerry said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:33
Why just this morning I did battle against two unarmed chocolate croissants.
They lost! Bwa-ha-ha!!!
ajay said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:35
Actually, I think the real prize is a little further down the Reynolds article:
I’ve noted before that one of the great American accomplishments was to get over the Civil War without the kind of lingering bitterness that often marks — and reignites — such conflicts elsewhere.
What? No lingering bitterness at all? Not even a little bit?
Hold on…
I’ve noted before that one of Yugoslavia’s greatest legacies is the harmony between its different ethnic groups.
I’ve noted before that one of the best things about France is the beautiful tropical beaches that stretch down its Pacific coast.
I’ve noted before that one of Canada’s greatest accomplishments was the construction of a navy of immense moose-shaped Zeppelins with which to defend the Saskatchewan rock candy mines.
Hate Encrusted Eyes said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:40
Glenn wants there to be Civil War, that’s why he talks about it, he’s promoting the idea amongst his trogolite fans. He’s trying to send one of them off the deep end so he can fulfill his fantasy of having a Democratic Congressmen hurt or killed.
He’s a sick little mind. The worst America has to offer.
nilsey said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:43
ajay —
wow, good catch. it’s not even cluelessness, it’s just reynolds’ wishful denial of reality. and it always has been.
Steve T. said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:43
No one does shameless hypocrisy like the Ole Perfesser. He is truly one of a kind.
Actually, no. He’s a very common type, someone who, despite his pretentions to technosavvy, still has not fully absorbed the reality of the online world. Used to be, you could be talking politics at your favorite bar and say any damn stupid thing for immediate effect that you liked and nobody would remember a month later. Or if they did, they couldn’t document it. Even if you got that damn stupid remark into print, say a letter to the editor, if someone wanted to call you on it a year later it would take too much search time in the library to be worth it. Only the pro columnists had to worry about that, and even they didn’t worry very much.
Now, anyone who can spell google can find anything you ever posted easier than they can find their car keys. Until all these amateur pundits — and not just on the right! — really, really understand this, their own words are going to keep coming back to bite them on the ass again and again and again.
Eli Rabett said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:43
Card is simply a successor to the Heinlein school of SF, great (but diffident) man saves all. Very comforting for fourteen year old boys.
Ginger Yellow said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:44
“When Ted Kennedy can make an absurd and borderline-traitorous speech on the war, when Michael Moore shares a VIP box with the last Democratic President but one, when Barbara Boxer endorses a Democratic consultant/blogger whose view of American casualties in Iraq is “screw ‘em,â€? well, this is the authentic face of the Left.”
I love this line of argument. What does it say about the “authentic face of the right” that, say, Curt Weldon hosted the coronation of Sun Myung Moon as Emperor of the United States? In a contest of our boogeyman is loonier than your boogeyman, the Republicans are always going to come out looking worse. At the end of the day “Michael Moore is fat, and Democrats hang out with him” doesn’t really cut it.
r€nato said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:44
I’ve noted before that one of the great American accomplishments was to get over the Civil War without the kind of lingering bitterness that often marks — and reignites — such conflicts elsewhere.
Yeah that’s why the South still calls it ‘The War of Northern Aggression”, Confederate flags are everywhere, and South Carolina doesn’t really care much for celebrating the Fourth of July.
TS said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:44
Sweet Jesus. Pamela of Atlas Shrugs was never Publisher of the New York Observer. Until recently, it was Arthur Carter, who founded the paper.
The shrieking harpy was merely an associate publisher, meaning she oversaw the sales staff. She was, in other words, a well-paid baby sitter.
I hate to get all Instapundit on ya, but I laid this myth to rest here. (http://tinyurl.com/y6tyfk)
tofubo said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:44
i’ll take michael.m/jimmy.c @ a convention over ahmed.c/laura.b@ a convention any day of the week
http://www.jar2.com/4/Pictures/Bush-Chalabi-Union.jpg
Tulkinghorn said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:44
OSC published the ‘Ender’s Game’ novella in 1977! The novel came out in 1985. There have been 20 years of sustained dreck since then.
He is prominent like the writers of ‘Macarena’ are prominent.
r€nato said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:46
Glenn wants there to be Civil War, that’s why he talks about it, he’s promoting the idea amongst his trogolite fans. He’s trying to send one of them off the deep end so he can fulfill his fantasy of having a Democratic Congressmen hurt or killed.
yep. They can’t stand the fact that they lost BIG TIME three weeks ago, so they fantasize about killing all their enemies and seizing power. That’ll shut those liberals up, for good.
It’s Glenn’s Final Solution to ‘the liberal problem’.
Of course, you won’t find Glenn or any other of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists on the front lines of this civil war.
Steve said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:51
I don’t see much of a sign that the American public — which, after all, overwhelmingly favored centrists in this month’s elections — is as divided as Card suggests.
I haven’t been keeping up with the blogs for the last week or so, so I have to ask: is this “centrist landslide” concept the meme they’ve actually decided to go with?
Jrod said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:52
At risk of revealing myself as a closet fascist, I must retort: Card is not fit to sniff Heinlein’s dead asshole. It’s like comparing George Carlin to Larry the Cable Guy, assuming that Larry managed to be funny one time early in his career.
pluky said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:00
I read a lot of early Orson Scott Card in the 80’s and was quite impressed (”Unaccompanied Sonata” is a master work, IMO). I started to lose him with the “Alvin Maker” series, however. Too much pseudo-Americana hooey for my taste. As to his politics, who cares?
Captain Goto said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:00
is this “centrist landslide� concept the meme they’ve actually decided to go with?
Pretty much, except when they’re saying “The Democrats lost by winning”.
Chad said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:01
Orson Scott Card and Instapundit? Dear God, it’s like a real-life Lex Luthor and Dr. Doom team-up.
TC said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:03
Ironically enough, they consistently ignore a REAL master of both science fiction and hard science, Isaac Asimov, who once said “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
Tulkinghorn said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:05
I am just waiting for the Samuel Delany novel about an American civil war.
ifthethunderdontgetya said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:07
Steve, the centrist meme actually began before November 7, when it became clear the Republicans were going to lose.
Funny thing, the voters rejected right wing corruption, and the right wing occupation of Iraq. This was quickly interpreted to mean that the Democratic party should move to the right, by war loving centrist interpreters.
themann1086 said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:07
Card is the epitome of Sensible Centrist turned Wingnut. He literally ran a website preaching his “moderateness” and all that.
Ender’s Game was good. The rest of the series was decent, though it never came close to EG, let alone more prominent writings. The rest of his stuff is utter crap. Shame I have some of it on my shelf…
norbizness said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:10
That thing don’t look like no mole I ever seen.
Dorothy said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:12
Also: I love the phrase “the last Democratic president but one.� It has a delightful air of a) grasping desperately to make some kind of meaningful connection with anything at all, and b) the snooty anglophilic fussiness of someone who wants to come of a just a leeeetle bit more toney than he actually is. Is he talking about Jimmy Carter? If so, why the hell couldn’t he just write “Jimmy Carter?� The guy has been demonized enough by the Right to have a recognizable name, hasn’t he?
I think the professor intends “the last Democratic president but one” sounds much, much more recent than “Jimmy Carter, you know, that one-term guy way back before Reagan? Didn’t you guys have ‘Jimmy Carter Era’ as a prom theme last year?”
And wasn’t Mr. Weighs-Moore invitied into the box by Amy Carter? Maybe Jimmy was just being polite.
Bloggofascist said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:17
… If Lex and Dr. Doom spent all day in their underwear munching cheetos and writing internet stories about how someone ought to rule the world with an Iron Fist because humans are a bunch of lazy, ignorant, cheeto-munching animals.
Ex-Fed said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:17
Why doesn’t he cut the foreplay and just go straight to hyping the Turner Diaries?
waitingforvizzini said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:24
“Uncle Orson” Sucks he lives here in Greensboro. He writes a lame ass column for a righty tabloid (rhino times) titled uncle Orson Reviews Everything.
dwbh said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:28
Sorry TC, now *I* claim last person! Eat it!
(If we were playing The Price Is Right, this is where some dickweed would come in and bid $1.)
Robert Sneddon said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:31
Just to give you a taster of what OSC is writing today you can have a look at chapter 5 of his new near-future novel, “Empire” here.
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/books/empire/empire_05.shtml
The White House has just been blown up, the President of the United States has been killed and the protagonist is talking to a guy in the National Security Advisor’s office on the White House lawn. Is he discussing how to get the Government up and running again, finding out who did it, anything like that?
“Yeah,” said Cole. “The terrorists are crazy and scary, but what really pisses me off is knowing that this will make a whole bunch of European intellectuals very happy.”
Nope. The worst thing about this tragedy as far as he’s concerned is that some Europeans who exist only in his xenophobic imagination might feel satisfaction over the assassination of the President.
Orson’s lost it. He’s written a few good books in the past, a lot more stinkers more recently but he’s now decided to dispense with plot and story and simply write America-uber-alles wankfests and get people to buy them.
The SF community calls this phenomenon “The Brain Eater”. Heinlein succumbed to it eventually. There are a few others — James P. Hogan has turned anti-Semitic and Velikovskian recently, for example, and there’s also Dan Brown from the technothriller end of the spectrum. Once the Brain Eater has started chowing down on that tasty ol’ grey matter it’s time to cross the author off the “must-buy” list as there seems to be no cure, sorry to say.
islmfaoscist said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:35
Any relation to Andy Card?
TC said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:36
That’s too bad about James P. Hogan.
I liked a lot of his stuff.
The Brain Eater explains a lot, including Dennis Miller.
Ugluks Flea said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:44
r€nato said,
November 29, 2006 at 17:44
…South Carolina doesn’t really care much for celebrating the Fourth of July.
I wish. They start lighting fireworks 2 weeks beforehand, and a sulfurous smokey pall hangs over the whole state on the 5th.
OTOH, the SC GOP doesn’t have a “Lincoln Day Dinner” cause… well, you know.
Jeff said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:48
Atlas Pam is the owner of Universal Motors. It’s her husbands family business. They sell shitloads of FORDS to the yellow cab industry.
el ranchero said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:59
ONE DOLLAR!! ONE DOLLAR!!!
Seriously, though, isn’t Ol’ Perfesser in Tennessee, and applauded a guy in South Carolina who wrote that blue states would secede!? Have they ever bothered to look out their window at all the Confederate flags?
Face it, Glen, it wasn’t the blue states that seceded in 1860 (South Carolina, I believe, actually seceded twice), and it sure as hell ain’t the blue states having “issues” romanticizing last century’s traitors.
random_guy said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:59
By the Perf’s logic, it would pretty much only be bloggers doing the fighting anyway, and we all know how eager the wingnut bloggers are to actually participate in war, rather than just cheerleading for it. I don’t see what kind of violence the Perf is hoping for, unless the wingnuts plan to threaten us with cheetos of mass destruction.
“We must act now. We can’t let the smoking gun turn into a cheeto-dust cloud”
Eric Blair said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:00
I saw that book on the shelf in a B&N the other day, and thought it was dumb.
Go look at the most recent places there have been actual ‘revolutions’ the last century. Did any of them even remotely resemble the USA before it happened?
I’ll answer that for you: No.
Any sort of ‘revolution’ or armed revolt against the Federal Govt. would mean that large amounts of various state and local governments were revolting, say, like in 1861.
And that, simply isn’t going to happen. There’s nothing that even comes close.
I think the comment about ‘brain eater’ is quite apt.
islmfaoscist said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:04
Short list of great science fiction authors with blogs who haven’t gone completely coocoo bananas born-again Christian apocalyptical:
David Brin.
Someone help me out here, is that all we have to fight this insanity?
Iain Banks has a website, but not a blog.
Douglas Adams has gone to the Restaurant at the End of The Universe.
Who am I missing?
Notorious P.A.T. said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:07
Joy! We can read the first five chapters of Card’s latest opus online:
http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2006_11_26_alicublog_archive.html#116481609430550766
I think the Conservative Humor Movement has found a new member.
islmfaoscist said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:08
Iain Banks.
Read them all. Then send email imploring him to write faster, dammit!
random_guy said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:09
Also, this topic might make a good category for the photoshop duel. “The blogging civil war”.
random_guy said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:13
(And if this topic does get chosen someone with more ski11z than me has to photoshop that classic fat-guy-in-a-diaper pic so that he’s riding a bomb a la doctor strangelove)
rkrider said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:13
We can kick the mole people’s ass…….bring it on!
BushYouth said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:24
“Finally: am I the last person on earth to know that Atlas Pam was the publisher of the New York Observer?”
No f-ing way. I could have sworn she was on a recent edition of ‘Trading Spouses’. There was this truly psychotic nut that talked and acted just like her. One of the kids in here ‘new’ family finally assualted her.
mdhatter said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:25
Gee I wonder what Margaret Atwood thinks about our collective future?
Scientifically speaking, of course.
Hubris said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:30
From Chapter Five:
Yeah, Cole understood that. In fact, it seemed the most likely thing to happen. That, or an unexplained “suicide” in a park somewhere.
———————————-
“I bet they’re already ‘advising’ Americans that this is where our military ‘aggression’ inevitably leads, so we should take this as a sign that we need to change our policies and retreat from the world.”
Orson Scott Card books should be the next subject for the ongoing Photoshop challenge; e.g., Empire II: Scare Quote Unit.
Avedon said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:31
Thank you, best laugh I’ve had in days. Ah, now I understand perfectly. And I’m really seriously watching out for giant planet-consuming guys come to eat us up.
(I particularly want to smack Glenn for that Ward Churchill=Ted Kennedy quote. What a dip.)
mdhatter said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:32
thanks for fixing my open tag. (what preview button is that?)
sf said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:33
Quality SF writers who aren’t wingnuts:
Charlie Stross
Ken MacLeod
Ian Banks
Alastair Reynolds
Cory Doctorow
Bruce Sterling
Neal Stephenson
Richard K. Morgan
Those are the best of the best of current SF writers and they are all leftists of one kind or another (or at least, anti-fascist)
Pocket Rocket said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:36
Whenm I was younger I read OSC’s Ender series and Alvin Maker series and probably various other novels authored by OSC. I stopped reading his novels after getting vaguely creeped out by the fact that all of his novels seem to center around young boys, and that almost every novel had at least one scene that would describe the boy’s body in what could be characterized as erotic detail. That, combined with his more recent “hate teh gays” attitude makes me kind of wonder about him.
Ed Drone said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:36
“Once the Brain Eater has started chowing down on that tasty ol’ grey matter it’s time to cross the author off the “must-buyâ€? list as there seems to be no cure, sorry to say.”
AHA! I see a good SF plot-line here! Good writer starts getting weirder and weirder, and he’s not the first. Investigation by our hero/heroine/boy-scout troop reveals a viral/nano/intergalactic-bug infestation, attracted to good writers of a freedom-loving sort. This v/n/i-b thingie is the product of international fascists/theocrats/intergalactic bugs, attempting to take over the world by narrowing the minds of its denizens, making it easy to control their now-reduced minds.
Should be good for a cult film / Star Trek / Dr. Who episode, maybe with sequals (or sequins, in the musical version).
Ed
Charles M said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:37
FWIW, a pretty compelling vision of a right wing coup is George R R Martin’s “Night of the Vampyres.” Dates from the 70’s (IIRC) but better than any of Card’s recent dreck.
liberalrob said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:38
I liked Card’s novelization of The Abyss. Then again, he didn’t write that one himself.
Other than that, can’t think of anything of his I’ve liked. I remember Ender’s Game as a short story, I think in one of those Jerry Pournelle “There Will Be War” anthologies.
The thing about fiction writers, they know the audience isn’t interested in real life. The reader is trying to ESCAPE real life, and live vicariously in a world where one man CAN make a difference. We all want to read about heroes, not about mass movements. When we read fiction, we are all romantics. So it’s no surprise to me that writers mostly tend to be romantics themselves.
I’ll second the David Brin nomination. Here’s a link to his blog.
Nads said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:38
I was reading an OSC book about 3 yrs ago, became bored out of my f#$king gourd, and put it down to pick up George RR Martin. Haven’t looked back since. I think the OSC book is still dog-eared around here … somewhere … I’ll look above my toilet.
RobW said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:40
Some outside force will make the conservatives go nuts and start killing fellow Americans.
Ahem. That would be Satan. He’s the only reason any of them ever do anything bad. It’s the perfect belief system: do good, and God smiles on you. Do evil, and blame the devil. Party of personal responsibility, my ass.
Is America in danger of becoming overrun by short-lived, but intensely self-aware superhuman mutants? Perhaps not immediately, but famed science fiction writer Philip K. Dick thinks that we’re in enough danger that he’s authored a cautionary tale entitled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (aka Blade Runner) that’s set in more-or-less present times.
Islmfoascist: Dude! Neil Stephenson! Ursula LeGuin! Bruce Sterling! William F-ing Gibson, fercryinoutloud!
it sure as hell ain’t the blue states having “issues� romanticizing last century’s traitors.
Well, I live in a purple state, Nevada. This county, Clark, which includes Las Vegas (and 70% of the state’s population) is reliably blue. So what is our college team mascot at UNLV? The Runnin’ Rebel. He’s a cartooney figure of a Confederate general, sort of like Yosemite Sam only taller.
Only in the west. If the University of Georgia or North Carolina tried this, there would be riots and righteous condemnation, while the rednecks would prattle on about “heritage.”
The part that really bugs me about it (besides the fact that I’m a former Southerner and don’t exactly look at the Confederacy with anything resembling pride) is the total ahistoricity. Nevada wasn’t just a Union state. It was specifically carved out of Utah Territory for the express purpose of being a Union state! That’s what the “Battle Born” motto means.
Maybe it’s just because I’m a history major that this really, really bugs me. It doesn’t seem to bug anyone else. That our teams also completely suck, now that seems to bug people.
Hmmm… Bug People? Do I sense another imminent threat to America? Somebody call O.S. Card!
Indy said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:41
I thought Lovelock was a really good book.
//kind of disturbing to empathize with a protagonist that is a genetically altered cyborg monkey who is forced to have masturbatory fantasies about his human female owner, but hey.
kevin said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:43
Add China Mielville to the list of good SF (if you include fantasy in that category) authors who aren’t right wing. Hal Duncan would probably qualify, though he is new, as would Jim Vandemeer.
mikey said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:47
It’s not an accusation if it’s true.
Sorry I’m late. If it’s not an accusation if it’s true, what exactly is it? Should we let everybody who’s actually guilty go? I mean, if it’s true, it’s not an accusation, right?
mikey
Dan Someone said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:57
Technically, I think you want to read stuff by Iain M. Banks. He uses his middle initial when he writes his sf, and drops it for his non-sf fiction.
And I heartily second reading Ken MacLeod and Alastair Reynolds. Charles Stross has his bright spots, but his stuff is not consistently good.
And I have no idea about their politics. Which is as it should be.
RobW said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:57
Ah, yes, Margaret Atwood. I read “Oryx and Crake” over the summer. She’s a treasure.
As for novels about mass political movements, how about the Mars series from Kim Stanley Robinson?
You know, I did read Lovelock years ago. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Hell, I even enjoyed Folk of the Fringe, a collection of Mormon-proselytizing short stories. With Card, it’s a matter of style. I’ve not read anything of his in many years, but I used to be a fan. Not for his messages, hell no. I just find him incredibly readable; the stories roll right along, and his characters believable and sympathetic. I haven’t read all of his stuff, or even most; I’ve read some of it, including the Ender series. Too bad he’s a wingnut, but the guy can write. I’ll bash his faith and his politics all day, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s really quite skilled.
But what do I know? I also still like Duran Duran, so clearly I have atrocious taste.
Decker said,
November 29, 2006 at 19:58
There’s already been a cautionary tale named Empire, a graphic novel by Mark (Kingdom Come) Waid and Barry (drawer-guy) Kitson. It’s not timeless prose, but it has a freaky dystopian future, where the Superman-type failed to save the day. Definitely a better read than Ender’s Game.
nolo said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:01
I am just waiting for the Samuel Delany novel about an American civil war.
Dhalgren.
Robert Sneddon said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:02
Dan someone: I’ll tell Charlie you think he’s inconsistent when I see him in the pub tonight. Ken will be there too so I’ll pass on your hearty secondings. Ian M. might drop by; he doesn’t always turn up to the meetings of the People’s Revolutionary Scottish Socialist Science Fiction Writers Vanguard Party meetings but he has been known to stick his nose in.
themann1086 said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:06
Second China Miéville. Hell of an author. “‘Tis the Season” is a must read. Hang on…
Ok, found it.
Thorlac said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:08
I second Richard Morgan and China Mieville. I’d also add Neal Asher to that list. Any recommendations on which Iain Banks book to start out with?
renska said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:08
Huh. Did a Google search on Iaian Banks (the above link doesn’t work) and caught sight of this link: Orson Scott Card has always been an asshat.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/5/28/193926/689
J— said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:12
Take me to the other side!
RobW said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:19
It’s not timeless prose, but it has a freaky dystopian future, where the Superman-type failed to save the day.
Oh god, this reminds me of a short story I read years ago that I would love to find. Can anyone help me out here?
It was called, I think, Ubermensch. In it, Superman’s alien-creche landed, not in the midwestern US, but in Germany. He grows up as Klaus Kint and comes of age in the 1930s. As his powers become obvious, he dons a brown and black uniform and becomes a Nazi superhero.
The story is told as a retrospective, an interview with him in Spandau prison, confined in a kyptonite-lined cell where is has been jailed for war crimes, like the Albert Speer interviews.
Anyone else ever hear of this? I have no idea who wrote it. I don’t even recall where I read it, if it was in a mag or an anthology.
DAS said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:39
I gotcher authentic face of the right, right here.
Ummm … why isn’t this guy in Gitmo? If the justification for going into Iraq when we were attacked by Al Qaeda was that terrorists are all roughly equivalent, why should this guy be treated differently than other terrorists? Why is he not languishing in Gitmo?
mat said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:39
Bad Science Fiction = really bad science + laughably bad fiction.
People who dig bad science fiction are generally the types who couldn’t tell you the boiling point for water but like to opine that aliens are, like, you know, kidnapping people and stuff, and use wormholes to travel billions of light years in a matter of seconds, and stuff.
Ginger Yellow said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:46
“Who am I missing?”
Well Philip K Dick went completely cuckoo bananas, but not in a Christian way.
zen_more said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:47
In France, the areas not controlled by the government are called “O la la les happy”
Kathleen said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:48
Over one hundred comments and no one asked The Most Important Question?!?! Come on people.
How can the Mole Man be moving so fast that he prevents Invisible Girl from turning invisible?
David Weman said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:54
Someone has to say it:
“Stan Lee” shuld be “Jack Kirby”.
snarkout said,
November 29, 2006 at 20:59
Rob, you got the name right. It’s a story by the British writer Kim Newman, who also wrote “The McCarthy Witch Hunt”, in which HUAC investigators put Samantha Stevens on trial.
realchesherkat said,
November 29, 2006 at 21:10
“Who am I missing?”
Bruce Sterling has a blog called “Beyond the Beyond” at wired.com
tavella said,
November 29, 2006 at 21:14
Oh god, this reminds me of a short story I read years ago that I would love to find. Can anyone help me out here?
You are looking for Ubermensch, by Kim Newman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cbermensch!
jenniebee said,
November 29, 2006 at 21:23
It is not the War of Northern Aggression! It is The Late Unpleasantness Due to Northern Irreconcilability to the Concept of Southern Independence.
… although “Lee Surrendered, I Didn’t” fits much more neatly on a bumper sticker…
JKessel said,
November 29, 2006 at 21:30
The truth about OS Card’s ENDER’S GAME and its apology for genocide.
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm
Anne Laurie said,
November 29, 2006 at 21:50
I am just waiting for the Samuel Delany novel about an American civil war.
You’ve read Octavia Butler’s KINDRED, right?
Dan Someone said,
November 29, 2006 at 21:55
renska: I would recommend any of the Culture books by Banks. The first one I read was The Player of Games, which was one of the earlier ones, but I don’t think they need to be read in any particular order. Check out the “Science Fiction section of the official Iain Banks website — I strongly suspect the books are shown there in order. The Culture books are the first three (Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Use of Weapons), Excession and Look to Windward (and Wikipedia says that Inversions is also a Culture book, though I don’t see it).
Damn, looking at that page makes me want to go back and reread them all. Shmancy new covers… mmm…
Scoopernicus said,
November 29, 2006 at 22:24
Isaac Asimov never succumed to Brain Suck, but he was always pretty apolitical. His sci fi writing kinda dropped off at the end, but his science fact was always spot on.
TheDeadlyShoe said,
November 29, 2006 at 22:44
Heh. That was also the first one I’ve read. My favorites of the culture books were The Player of Games and Look to Windward.
Noones mentioned Jack McDevitt, who’s awesome in my opinion.
Adam Hart said,
November 29, 2006 at 23:26
I’m glad someone else (Pocket Rocket) remarked on the odd, Congressman Foley-ish homoeroticsm of Card’s books (the naked fight-to-the-death between under-age boys in Ender’s Game comes to mind, while a similarly perplexed Card fan once read me a passage from another Card novel in which some young men comment on their naked underage brother’s anatomy) though whether this makes his current homophobia more or less explicable is a good question.
I loved Ender’s Game when I read it, so Card’s current incarnation as a bats**t wingnut is especially dispiriting.
TomB said,
November 29, 2006 at 23:27
Let’s try to close that damn link. OK?
Dayv said,
November 29, 2006 at 23:30
William Gibson has a blog.
He doesn’t have a blog, but everyone needs to read Random Acts of Unspeakable Violence, by Jack Womack. It’s an amazing piece of dark, near-future sf showing the fairly believable collapse of American society and government entirely from the perspective of a young girl’s diary entries. It’s the first (chronologically, not in order of their writing/publication) in the author’s Ambient quintet. More info here. I started reading these books after reading a glowing recommendation on Gibson’s blog, which brings us back to the beginning of my comment.
Herr Doktor Bimler said,
November 29, 2006 at 23:32
Struth. From a Gary Ruppert drive-by dog-poo delivery comment, to nominations of SF authors, in only 100 comments. I kinda wish that Gary would come back and put more detail on his Intifada-in-Paris fantasy, so that we could have the satisfaction of exposing it to unfriendly facts, but that is not the Way of the Gary.
I went off Iain Banks after Complicity. But because whisky is a subject close to my heart — and even closer to my stomach — I gave him a second chance and read Raw Spirits, his attempt at gonzo journalism on the whisky trail . That wasn’t a good idea; it turned out to be self-indulgent shite in which Banksie comes across as one of the vapid, unself-aware yuppie characters, obsessed with cars and other boy-toys, that he used to skewer so mercilessly.
Charles Stross has his bright spots, but his stuff is not consistently good.
Not so much a consistency problem, but he’s trying different styles and subject-areas, which can’t all be guaranteed to appeal to the same reader. The Atrocity Archives reminded me of the the last job I had.
OK, I’ve done my part in turning a political blog into S,N-Con.
Dayv said,
November 29, 2006 at 23:33
He doesn’t have a blog, but everyone needs to read Random Acts of Unspeakable Violence, by Jack Womack.
Wow, way to mangle basic sentence structure, Dayv. This book doesn’t have a blog! No, wait, I mean some guy named everyone!
mark said,
November 29, 2006 at 23:42
I’m just sad to see the FF #! cover; I had a poor but serviceable copy as a kid, and I trusted it to my idiot cousin Donald, who threw it away. At least I still have an atomic power grip on my Spidey #6!
Robert Green said,
November 29, 2006 at 23:46
china mieville is not just a non-righty–he’s a full blown late model marxist, i think. there’s an article he wrote somewhere…
perdido street station is pretty fucking brilliant. he can be magisterial, if i may.
alistair reynolds is not just a great sci-fi writer (think vernor vinge at his best) but is also a huge fan of world’s best rock band The Fall. he has fallcon in all his novels and stories. he thus combines my geeky love of epic sci-fi with my geeky love of post-punk art rock weird mancunian ranting.
Van Diem said,
November 29, 2006 at 23:47
To David Weman: What, Stan Lee didn’t write the FF? He’d kick your — if he saw that. True, he did it together with artist Kirby, but it was a Lee production fer sure…
Excelsior!
Lee Ving said,
November 29, 2006 at 23:53
“Let’s have a war…”
When the civil war starts, first thing we kill all those morons who voted for Nader in 2000….
valentinian said,
November 30, 2006 at 0:01
“I hope that both the people and the press will make some conscious efforts to moderate the tone…”
Man, if that isn’t punch-in-the-mouth-worthy hypocrisy, I don’t know what is…
Chris said,
November 30, 2006 at 0:02
Most people don’t get off the couch to VOTE in America so who realistically expects them to pick up a rifle and risk their lives for a political goal?
Whispers said,
November 30, 2006 at 0:19
Gary said:
“And in France, there’s 700 areas not controlled by their government.”
I’ve been to one of those places, I think. It’s called “the American cemetery at Normandy”. It’s controlled by the US government.
I hadn’t realized, when walking amongst the graves, that anybody would ever use its existence in part of an argument that there was a civil war going on. It is quite possibly the stupidest argument I’ve ever read on the Internet. And I’ve read a lot of garbage, so that’s saying something.
aloysius said,
November 30, 2006 at 0:21
While we’re piling on Card here, I’d like to say a few words about Songmaster, the only novel I’ve read so vile I wanted to physically destroy it while only halfway through. Anyone who wants a sense of the hiessential loathesomeness of Card’s artistic vision should drop by a library and flip through it sometime. Don’t buy a copy, even used, because you won’t want to keep it in your house. It’s got his creepy paedophilia thing in spades, of course: the main character is a beautiful nubile young singing boy with whom the harsh (but fair and honourable!) fascist dictator of the universe falls madly in love. There’s the usual rape, too, as I recall. The real kicker, though, is that Card tries, really really tries, to write an actual gay character as sympathetically as he can. The result is a pitiable pathetic wretch who needs to be dominated and can’t manage his own life on even the most basic of adult levels, a sort of fictionalised Jeff Goldstein. Card is the most ridiculously cartoonish bigot I’ve ever had the misfortune to read.
Card is not a good writer. He is constantly trampling all over art for the sake of showcasing his own violent ubermensch fantasies and sexual pathology. His characters are caricatures who exist solely for ideological purposes, and his dialogue is atrociously polemical. Worst of all, after the original novella all his Ender stuff was dull as a BYU frat party. He’s not fit to tongue Charlie Stross’s malebox.
Jacob Davies said,
November 30, 2006 at 0:55
I hated Ender’s Game. It’s a hideous Mary Sue exercise which could only be loved by people who still believe that one day they’re going to grow up to save the world (without having to work too hard at it).
OSC is a terrible writer and pretty much a terrible person, as far as I can tell.
My experience with SF people (writers & fans) is that most of them are actually reality-based, which these days makes them all commie traitors because they hate Bush, even if some of them would describe themselves as conservatives. They also tend to have some knowledge & understanding of history, which tends (again in my experience) to a more realistic understanding of current events, especially international policy and the real magnitude of foreign threats. That’s only my impression though, I might be projecting.
Heinlein (even late Heinlein) was 50x the writer OSC is (even his most bloated & plotless novels are still kind of fun to read), and his political & personal views as expressed in his novels were enormously less objectionable.
Anyway, if you want good SF writing that takes leftish politics into account, Ken MacLeod is your man.
A lot - I wouldn’t say most, but a lot - of SF has a blind spot when it comes to questions of distribution of power and wealth, the underclass, and the perpetual tendency of the rich to divert all new wealth created by technology to themselves. Or, you know, what leftist politics is all about. I get why, I mean, I like shiny toys myself, but it’s not especially realistic.
Then again neither is most genre fiction, so what are you going to do.
Phoenician in a time of Romans said,
November 30, 2006 at 1:14
Anyway, if you want good SF writing that takes leftish politics into account, Ken MacLeod is your man.
Richard Morgan is easier to read, and still full of the sensawonder. Avoid Market Forces, though.
You also need to read Thigmoo at least once.
ironicname said,
November 30, 2006 at 1:21
Missed a couple of good non-crazy scifi scibblers IMO
John Varley - always good
Eric Flint - some very good, some not so
Greg Benford - always good
Greg Bear - Love his stuff and I think he aint crazy.
Walter John Williams - good - except for Angel Station.
Harry Turtledove - consitently good
ironicname said,
November 30, 2006 at 1:23
er… that would be consistently
fillerbunny said,
November 30, 2006 at 1:28
how long before Gary gets deported?
and Ah! Mole People!
Steve In Louisville said,
November 30, 2006 at 1:39
While we’re giving props to SF writers fighting the good fight, I’m surprised no one mentioned Octavia Butler, whose recent passing ended a stellar career far too early. For a much more terrifyingly realistic vision of civil strife in near-future America, check out The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents.
And Marge Piercy — not a mainstream SF writer, but Woman on the Edge of Time ranks right up there with the works of Ursula LeGuin and Margaret Atwood.
The Brain Eater theory makes frightening sense; I agree that Dennis Miller is a sliming example of it. Christopher Hitchens, too — though his grip on his marbles was probably always a bit shaky. And, uh-oh — do I see something buggy working its way into the shiny pate of James Carville?
Karl Rove II said,
November 30, 2006 at 1:51
I welcome a civil war (so called) here in Unamerica, think of all the morons we could march off to the front lines.
It would be a hefty dose of chlorine in the gene pool.
‘DAMM YOU KIDS, GET OUTTA MY POOL!’
a cranny mint said,
November 30, 2006 at 1:53
If you include the fantasy genre then don’t forget Terry Prachett
Jacob Davies said,
November 30, 2006 at 1:57
Oh and there’s Kim Stanley Robinson. I wouldn’t want to put a precise label on his politics but you can’t read the Orange County series, the Mars series, and now the series about global warming without realizing that, um, he isn’t exactly a wingnut.
Smiling Mortician said,
November 30, 2006 at 2:52
Terry Pratchett, yes. And did anyone mention Alasdair Gray? If I missed it up-thread, my apologies, but I thought Lanark was quite amazing.
And aloysius, I’m glad to hear your detailed venting about the putrescence that is Orson Scott Card. I was subjected to an all-day writing workshop with him when I was in grad school, and after lo these many years, my teeth are still clenched.
Mofembot said,
November 30, 2006 at 3:16
“Orson” is OSC’s given first name. It’s not a D&D name, it’s a mormon name (an early mormon leader was Orson Pratt, for example). He mostly went by “Scott” while growing up in Orem, Utah, and (per a close friend who was a close neighbor) was always quite full of himself early on.
The Alvin Maker stuff has lots and lots and LOTS of mormonism in it, and some of his other work lifts story lines straight out of Mormon scripture (pretty tiresome and unoriginal on the whole).
I note that no one’s mentioned SF/fantasy writer Sherri Tepper (leading me to think that the demographic here must be overwhelminingly male). Her _The Family Tree_ is nothing short of brilliant, with the best surprise twist I have ever, ever come across (and I’ve got a degree in English).
Rell said,
November 30, 2006 at 4:37
Card, at Beliefnet, wrote a critique of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. You can read it here:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/167/story_16700_1.html
I kept thinking, as a Mormon, he should be wary of making fun of someone’s metaphysical construct, considering he follows a supposed living prophet who is God’s voice on earth.
Tehanu said,
November 30, 2006 at 4:41
Sherri Tepper, yes! The Family Tree is loads of fun, but for my money the best political comment in all her books is in The Fresco, in which a number of male anti-abortion activists are forced to bear the offspring of shipwrecked aliens.
I also note that Orson complains he doesn’t get invited to the cool cultural events because of his politics. What a maroon. He actually doesn’t get invited because he writes science fiction. Just look at the New York Times, which ignores all science fiction writers except Ursula LeGuin, and that’s only because even the dumbest mainstream critics have had to back down in the face of practically unanimous academic praise for her.
Kathleen said,
November 30, 2006 at 5:09
I can’t say I know Lois McMaster Bujold’s politics, but I feel confident in saying she isn’t a wingnut. And she’s the bomb.
RobW said,
November 30, 2006 at 5:23
As long as we’re waving our sf geek flags, can I give a shout out to Spider Robinson? I’ll meet ya’ll at Callahan’s.
aloysius said,
November 30, 2006 at 5:41
Smiling Mortician, you’ve actually dealt with that man in person?
…What was it like? What on Earth did he have to say about writing? And, most importantly, did he make you workshoppers all wrestle naked in the showers until someone was killed while he masturbated quietly off in the corner?
mikey said,
November 30, 2006 at 6:04
Her _The Family Tree_ is nothing short of brilliant, with the best surprise twist I have ever, ever come across (and I’ve got a degree in English).
Well, maybe, but have you read Lehane’s “Shutter Island”? ‘Cause as far as I’m concerned, that’s the whiplash twist of all time….
mikey
Smiling Mortician said,
November 30, 2006 at 6:30
Hey, aloysius, sounds like you were there. Although the stuff he did in the corner wasn’t quiet enough. Not by a long shot. Mostly he talked about his “craft,” which as far as I could see was nonexistent (although at least he had the decency not to call it “art”) and then I heard him bitching to the head of the MFA program about how the university should be popping for his meals in addition to his entirely unearned stipend, airfare and hotel . . . ah hell. I don’t wanna talk about it. I consider myself still in recovery.
In happier news, I shall put both The Family Tree and Shutter Island on my Saturnalia List. Nothing like a great plot twist while you’re soaking up some sun and booze on a beach outside the U.S. of A. during the holidays (and BTW, what the hell’s wrong with “holiday”? It does mean “holy day,” does it not? What whiners!)
J Edgar said,
November 30, 2006 at 6:36
jerry said,
Why just this morning I did battle against two unarmed chocolate croissants.
They lost! Bwa-ha-ha!!!
Well, duh. They’re French.
.
greenfuzz said,
November 30, 2006 at 7:04
Orson Scott Card is a very well known sci-fi writer, (which as has been pointed out really means he’s not very well known at all) but in no way can he be considered a democrat. I’ve read nearly all his work as a sci-fi fan. He is and has always been an observant Mormon, his most recent work has become more reactionary. He writes a small amount of non-fiction political writing that is pretty right wing, mostly for the Mormon audience. LDS friends have dug up these up and posted them to sci-fi list serves I’ve been on in the past, some are notably intolerant of homosexuals and supportive of the religious right. Many of my LDS acquaintances find these essays to be far to the right of their own beliefs.
His earlier and best fiction has themes that are really about toleration of others, they explore themes of falsely perceived otherness. He has become more of a hack over the years, and seems to have hardened his views to the right. Although he lost two of his children in the past 5 years and I’m inclined to cut him a little slack because I know that loss can wreck you for a while. That said this book could still be a good one, I haven’t read it, even if it didn’t meet with my own political views if it’s good I might still enjoy it. It doesn’t mean I’m going to think its prescient.
The fact that he has written something set in the present day about a civil war really should not be interpreted as meaning much by the punditry class. Fiction writers are constantly writing, this …well fiction stuff. They like to throw up the big “what ifs” and see what happens. This is not a sign of things to come folks, it’s sign of what writers are thinking about, therefore it’s a piece of culture, not a prediction.
greenfuzz said,
November 30, 2006 at 7:22
Also,
I think it’s interesting here that Card’s closeted homosexual themes are mentioned by people who think Heinlen is fantastic. Heinlen is great but if you read enough of his books you will recognize themes of men having consensual sex with their adult female offspring in more than one of them. Even a character traveling back in time to have sex with his mother. (These women are often red heads and twins which is of no value one way or the other. But if you read enough books of his you start to predict the hero is going to bone any twins or redheads that get introduced as characters and you are pretty much always right)
Writers often write about their fantasies, so if OSC has some closeted homo feelings (which I’m inclined to believe he does) then Heinlen has some not so closeted incest fantasies for what it’s worth. I’m pretty sure which one of those makes me feel creepier.
Dayv said,
November 30, 2006 at 7:56
Closing tag.
so I guess nobody else here has read any Jack Womack?
Dayv said,
November 30, 2006 at 7:56
Huh, that didn’t work. Let’s try this…
Dayv said,
November 30, 2006 at 7:57
What the heck?
Dayv said,
November 30, 2006 at 7:59
Multiple open tags. Neat trick, dudes.
Herr Doktor Bimler said,
November 30, 2006 at 8:28
John Varley - always good
I have to disagree with you there, in a remarkably civil way. He’s another point in support of the Brain Eater theory. Last time I checked, he was sliding down the slippery slope towards Heinlein / libertarian economics territory.
Now, Pratchett. Is this the right place to start accusing the cultural Right of waging a War on Hogfather?
The Constructivist said,
November 30, 2006 at 8:49
Hey, enough OSC-bashing. The Alvin Maker series is good historical fantasy on 19th C America; Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide are good sequels to Ender’s Game; and Ender’s Shadow is a smart retelling of EG from a secondary character’s POV. Sure, Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus is truly awful and he’s gotten far too into the wargaming stuff in the rest of the Shadows series, but he’s as serious as Dan Simmons and Kim Stanley Robinson and Sherri Tepper and William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. So while he’s much better than Heinlein or Haldeman on related themes, he still is no Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, Marge Piercy, or Maureen McHugh. But who is?
SF bashers, feel free to bash my course. But as recent commenters have pointed out, dissing all SF as right-wing, for little boys, or worthless makes little sense.
Now dissing all Instapundit posts, that’s another story.
False Prophet said,
November 30, 2006 at 9:06
The only OSC book I read was Ender’s Game, and after I read this essay it was hard to enjoy it anymore. Most of Card’s non-fic writings in columns and such I find aggravating and moronically simplistic.
sanitas said,
November 30, 2006 at 10:41
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit to having two copies of Ender’s Game within reach, not to mention the rest of my OSC collection, but I never thought to use it as a pentagon strategy guide.
The Constructivist said,
November 30, 2006 at 12:00
FP, Kessel’s essay is very well-argued and his upstate/western NY allusions make me just a bit homesick and nostalgic. It makes me rethink my assumption that Card was siding with Haldeman’s Forever War critique of Heinlein’s endorsement of genocide (or xenocide) in Starship Troopers. Yet I think too much hinges on the reader actually feeling sympathy for Ender and simply identifying with him as the innocent victim of abuse whose own violence is justified by the existential threat he (and humanity) faces. And it may even miscast Card’s intentions, I thought the whole point of all the sympathy-building moves for the majority of the novel was to make the revelations of Ender’s killings all the more dramatic at the end and force the reader to reevaluate all that went before. Whether that was Card’s aim or not, I think other readers are as likely to take this from the novel as what Kessel’s argument claims they will.
But certainly the logic Kessel lays out as Card’s is exactly the logic of many right-wing readings of Card and of post-9/11 America (abused victim whose own violence is regenerative and righteous). It’s the same mistake as reading Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower as a manual for how to bring back slavery to America. But no one ever accused Bush of being a good reader.
ubikwity said,
November 30, 2006 at 12:25
A short list of Sci Fi / Fantasy writers that helped shape my progressive world view:
Kurt Vonnegut
Samuel Delany (Nova is a particularly apt representation of an impending global war over scarce resourses)
Phillip K Dick
Arthur C Clark
Roger Zelazny
Ursala K LeGuin (Lathe of Heaven)
Ian M Banks
Larry Niven
JRR Tolkien
Jonathan Lethem (read his response in Rolling Stone to 9/11)
and HG Wells (read his A Short History of the World)
RobW said,
November 30, 2006 at 12:39
Jeez, how did we get this far without mentioning Vonnegut?
We should all bow our heads in shame.
Dagonz said,
November 30, 2006 at 12:41
Neal Stephenson? Neal “neo-con, intellectual-hater, liberals-are-all-pansies” Stephenson? Hell, the man’s got game where writing is concerned, but have you actually read Cobweb?
RobW said,
November 30, 2006 at 12:50
Robert Sneddon said,
November 29, 2006 at 18:31
Just to give you a taster of what OSC is writing today you can have a look at chapter 5 of his new near-future novel, “Empire� here.
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/books/empire/empire_05.shtml
The White House has just been blown up, the President of the United States has been killed and the protagonist is talking to a guy in the National Security Advisor’s office on the White House lawn. Is he discussing how to get the Government up and running again, finding out who did it, anything like that?
“Yeah,� said Cole. “The terrorists are crazy and scary, but what really pisses me off is knowing that this will make a whole bunch of European intellectuals very happy.�
Nope. The worst thing about this tragedy as far as he’s concerned is that some Europeans who exist only in his xenophobic imagination might feel satisfaction over the assassination of the President.
In the tradition of Jon Swift:
I have not actually read this book, but…
Is it possible that Card’s intent was to portray the National Security Advisor as a complete asshole, more concerned with perception than reality?
I’m just sayin’, that does seem like something Condi Rice would say.
Famous Soviet Athlete said,
November 30, 2006 at 12:50
china mieville is not just a non-righty–he’s a full blown late model marxist, i think. there’s an article he wrote somewhere…
He wrote a great series about Katrina at Leninology.blogspot.com.
hal said,
November 30, 2006 at 12:56
Cobweb’s the one where the hero ends up hijacking an aircraft over the US, assisted by an Afghan-trained jihadi fighter? Boy, that twist hasn’t exactly stood the test of time, has it?
Tulkinghorn said,
November 30, 2006 at 13:22
Constructivist:
Liked the syllabus, as it is well chosen for exploring the serious social and ethical thinking within the genre.
But your unexcused absence policy makes me suspect you are a closet authoritarian after all… is this class scheduled for 7:30 am, or for Thursday evenings?
As for the question of what to make of the end of the Ender series, it seems to exist as a narrative framework for describing how the Mormon cosmology might actually work, what with the constant budding off of new universes for uplifted married couples to rule together.
Phoenician in a time of Romans said,
November 30, 2006 at 13:31
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit to having two copies of Ender’s Game within reach, not to mention the rest of my OSC collection, but I never thought to use it as a pentagon strategy guide.
Oh, I dunno.
The way it’s going at present, it’s quite plausible the Pentagon will be recruiting children in a few years time…
Joshua said,
November 30, 2006 at 14:26
Thanks to whoever linked to my post on OSC’s latest novel.
I remain a staunch defender of almost all of Card’s novels. Some are poorly constructed, and some are miserably didactic, but over all Card is one of the most insightful and compassionate science fiction novelists around — and one of the very few male science fiction writers who puts a focus on family and community and not — as someone above argued — the supermen alone. Any number of his books are really major achievements — but all have social politics that are questionable at best and repulsive at worst. His fiction features only one prominent homosexual character, who is converted by the power of love. Other acts of homosexuality appear in the form of child sex-abuse, which occurs in heterosexual versions as well (as in the truly wonderful short story “Eumenides In The Fourth Floor Lavatory”) — and this seemy underbelly to his writing is what fascinates me the most. Much of it is almost certainly unintentional — that is driven by bias and hysteria — but in other moments there’s so much gushing homoeroticism (as in Ender’s soapy-wet battle with Bonzo in another lavatory) that Card reveals a great deal of his own psychology, and the psychology of violence.
But enough on Card — the “Empire” book (I wrote several posts on it) is clearly the work of a complete wackjob. Taken along with his increasingly hysterical political columns (in which the homosexual movement is explicitly equated with Nazism) it’s clearly not simply a work of imagination about the possibility of civil war. It’s not Harry Turtledove, whose historical imagination is vivid and well-informed. It’s meant to be a cautionary tale and it’s meant to expose rifts in the American electorate that any intelligent person knows are largely created by false distinctions invented by the media. It’s also meant (like Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers”) to be a paean to the military and the need for military leaders to govern. Although I haven’t read it all, it’s clear that from what I have read, and what Card has written in other novels, that he trusts brilliant generals more than conniving politicians, and even his least well-behaved soldiers (like Colonel Graf in Ender) are violating laws and rules purely for the benefit of mankind.
It is worth saying though that Card’s politics don’t spoil his work. Knut Hamsun’s Nazism doesn’t make him a less important novelist either. Distinctions are worth making.
PS: as for him being a Democrat — he’s an outspoken Democrat, if not a “prominent” one. He is also a deluded one. He reveres Truman and Roosevelt as “centrists” but Clinton and Kerry are derided as “radicals” — which is a tremendous historical inversion. Roosevelt and Truman (and Wilson!) were intensely progressive in outlook and enormously divisive. Any of them would have killed for Clinton’s approval numbers.
me said,
November 30, 2006 at 15:32
Brain Eater a.k.a. sycophant sycophanticus
Hangs around SF conventions, is well connected with publishing houses, … oh, I can’t be bothered just now.
David Harmon said,
November 30, 2006 at 15:38
There’s also Vernor Vinge, though his politics are pretty unreadable (The Marooned in Realtime seq
Sadly, No! » The Comedy Never Stops said,
November 30, 2006 at 15:41
[...] A big thanks to Roy for pointing me to this page, which contains several lengthy excerpts from Orson Scott Card’s Empire. The book, for those of you who didn’t read yesterday’s post, is about a civil war that breaks out between red and blue states when “a radical leftist army calling itself the Progressive Restoration takes over New York City and declares itself the rightful government of the United States.” The main plot revolves around “Card’s heroic red-state protagonists, Maj. Reuben ‘Rube’ Malek and Capt. Bartholomew ‘Cole’ Coleman” who “draw on their Special Ops training to take down the extremist leftists and restore peace to the nation.” [...]
Captain Slack said,
November 30, 2006 at 15:55
@The Constructivist: Funny you should mention Dan Simmons, who succumbed to the Brain Eater sometime last April, though nobody’s written a truly worthy reply to him until recently. (Me, I just wonder if Simmons’ cruciform ever itches, and how he likes working for the Pax.)
@Dagonz: Yeah, I dunno how sf could say the author of The Diamond Age wasn’t at least a little wingnutty. (Not to mention that throwaway line in Cryptonomicon about how Randy Waterhouse’s crunchy-granola friends objected to him saying he was right and his ex-wife was wrong, but they’d have objected just as strenuously if he’d said it the other way around, because their objection was to the idea that there are such things as “right” and “wrong” viewpoints.)
Far away said,
November 30, 2006 at 15:59
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned Thomas Disch’s “On Wings of Song”, which to quote one of the Amazon reviews is about a future America (mid 21st century), a politically divided nation of secular excess on either coast, divided by a conservative theocracy in the middle.
And it was written in 1979, so on the prediction front it is as good as foreseeing satellites was in the 1950s.
His later stuff - the Priest, The Businessman etc is pretty compelling, but gets a bit too dark even for my tastes.
Marq said,
November 30, 2006 at 16:00
“Perfesser! Look out! It’s–it’s your words!”
“Egad! Oh, noes!!1!”
[yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! yap! *clomp!*]
“OW! Cripes, my ass!”
And so it goes…
Captain Slack said,
November 30, 2006 at 16:02
Oh, and @greenfuzz: this is just me speculating, but it seems to me, based on some of his recent books, that he’s a not-very-well-closeted gay man who’s been driven further into the closet by a belief that his children were taken from him as punishment for the “sin” that’s wired into him.
David Harmon said,
November 30, 2006 at 16:20
Bah, lousy interface… As I was saying, Vinge’s _Marooned in Realtime_ sequence is driven by technological/strategic considerations, notably the bobbles….
As far as dissing Card on sexuality — bluntly, nudity isn’t *always* about sexuality! Hell, *sex* isn’t always about sexuality! And of course, (sarcasm) thoughout history, everybody under eighteen has been numb *and* invisible from the waist down, unless some evil adult interfered… (/sarcasm). I bet some of you folks have real fun with Butler’s _Lilith’s Brood_ series, much less Delaney.
Yeah, Card’s gone downhill over time, but he’s covered some serious ground in the meanwhile, and I’d say _Pastwatch_ was a high point in the middle of the slope. That’s no particular reason to believe in his politics, of course… fiction writing simply isn’t any grounds for granting someone moral/political credit. And frankly, a lot of people (not just authors) get kinda screwy in their old age.