Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game
amazon.com
amazon.com
Is that really true? The first Orwell book I read (Homage to Catalonia) was required for a history class -- a class that had previously assigned some truly awful literature. So I was pessimistic and I read it grudgingly at first. But halfway through the book, I realized I loved it.
Ender's Game: http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2009/j_harris_... Speaker for the Dead: http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2009/j_harris_... Children of the Mind: http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2009/j_harris_...
More art by John Harris here (not my blog): http://colorcubic.com/2010/09/07/the-science-fiction-art-of-...
"Of course, those who approached Ender's Game skeptically or because they were 'forced' to read it can hardly imagine their response is valid for those who read it as volunteers or with belief: No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading."
You probe his definition by asking, If someone reads it skeptically but voluntarily, does that count as hostile? That's a good question. I don't think we have enough information to answer it, because Card does not state how to weigh skepticism and forcedness against each other.
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.
I guess it was 1999 when this was written, though, so the norms for online reviews had not yet been established.
I'd argue they carried the same social role as blogs. To me, the key vision is that online, self-published essays could be widely read and influential.
-edit- Actually referencing the book, they do eventually become part of "newsnets", being paid for their work and gaining a wider audience.
It also describes them using temporary anonymous accounts, injecting deliberately inflammatory comments into discussions to provoke a response. >_>
On a more salient point, I always find it interesting to compare the idea of anonymity in the Ender world compared to what we have now. I'd be curious in seeing Card's take on it; despite how prescient the idea of a blog was, I don't think he ever conceived of how massively outweighed the signal could be compared to the amount of noise.
It wasn't a 'blog' per se, more of a forum, I think ... I only dropped in once or twice and my recollection was that the discussion was (at the time) more about his religion than about his writing.
But if he'd just wanted to speak to fans he's certainly had an outlet to do so for a long time, and had it at the time the review was written. Presumably he chose to write the response in the form of an Amazon review consciously, and not for want of some other venue.
It's one thing to fake a review, but there's nothing wrong with using that spot to talk to your readers.
I'd call this an analysis more than a review. Whatever you think it is, I found it a pretty honest and open piece coming from someone who has such a personal stake in the book.
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
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.
I never really identified with it, but maybe if I'd read it at twelve instead of 24 then I would have. (Though I'm kinda glad I didn't.)
I say this not to disparage the book. A fairly well-written book that speaks to a lot of people is much better than a very well-crafted book that speaks to nobody (I'm looking at you, Mr Joyce). And I'm sure there are relatively crappy works of art that I like just because I identify with 'em. But Ender's Game is just one of those love-it-or-go-meh-at-it books.
Personally, having read it at an early age, I found the science part of the sci-fi to be very captivating and philosophy to be interesting.
From a sci-fi historiology perspective, you can see parts of the Bradbury style space-as-wild-west, while also some of the Gibson-esqe interconnected computing. I also found that the philosophy of the ansible to be related to some of Philip K Dick's warped sense of reality books.
Analogous to Card's statement, lately I've come to realize that I like movies better when they don't explicitly tell you everything. I think a good formula for writing is to lay all the facts out, then remove one or two of them from the script.
Better to have all the facts there, but not in your face. Commonly, a film with focus on a key point, or dwell on an image, to ensure that the viewer gets it, and I think that's a mistake. A good example of a movie that gets it right is Silence of the Lambs, in which all the information is there, but the viewer needs to separate the wheat from the chaff.
We have to remember that negative experiences effect our users more, and complaints will in general outnumber the praise, even if the the number of users who are unhappy are outnumbered by happy users by orders of magnitude.
Alternatively, haters gonna hate.
Oh yeah, that and his crazy is often showing...
I can't agree. Speaker for the Dead (and sequels) characters have a lot of complexity in their arcs – perhaps because they're mostly not children. I'd say the Speaker series is a perfect example of how to create characters with nuance, depth and multiple motivations.
(Or better yet, don't. It, enders game, and enders shadow all did it. Three strikes and you're out imho, certainly when one of them is the book the author is known for)
And two of those books are the same story told from the perspective of different characters. And although that is part of the plot of those books, I don't see how you can say that's all there is to those characters. The pivotal moments in Ender's life are his acts of violence, not the adults' manipulation.
And the other isn't really about naive children realizing adults are manipulative, either — the characters just happen to be young. Volemak (the main adult in the story) actually is a good man, and the children who oppose him are the antagonists.
Seriously, I have a laundry list of complaints about Card's writing (the Homecoming series in particular), but your complaints seem pretty shallow and sound like you're levying heavy criticism without ever giving them a chance.
Anyway, my time is worth too much to be scientifically rigorous. I gave him the benefit of the doubt twice already, and am not willing to do it again. And to be honest, I would suggest that anyone who thinks I somehow "missed something" in his works is giving the man far to much credit.
The point of Ender's Game was to explore the notion of the ideal human. Ender's shadow also addressed that topic. The adults merely represent forces beyond the protagonists' control, as most adults are in books featuring child characters.
The process of character development is one in which the children discover their own nature and the natures of those around them. The reader is intended to ask him/herself which nature is "best" and to thus view a difficult and opaque moral question with the clarity of comparing a group of friends. Quite ingenious, especially when you consider that this is a children's book. I challenge you to find a more insightful novel of ideas with equivalent appeal to the same young demographic.
I tend to classify really silly opinions as "loopy" rather than "evil", as long as they don't actually advocate violence or similar. OSC has loopy opinions, not immoral ones.
Yeah, I am pretty sure that doesn't concern me in the slightest.
Edit: fixed stupid corrective spelling thing...
Use your imagination and consider circumstances where people with the "right" opinions are outnumbered, and considered dangerous. I _hope_ that I'd be saying the right things in Berlin 1935, or Richmond 1855, or Birmingham 1958, or Moscow 1920 - 1985. But I'm damn sure I'd be _concerned_ about the reaction to those remarks.
The problem with these "homophobes" is their closed minds, right?
It seems either you believe your opposites have a more open mind than you do (so you can convince them despite your unconcern about being perceived as being like them), or you are writing opinions you hope your intended audience will like so they will like you. Perhaps you are writing for a judging God or people you consider to be your social superiors (people who can upvote.) You might reply that you write your opinions only for yourself, but because you wrote them here instead of a desktop text editor I think you want some other benefit.
If this is close mindedness, then your statement "you believe your opposites have a more open mind than you do" does not concern me in the slightest. This is exactly the sentiment I was expressing earlier.
To me, you sound like the thought police.
In my moral code, we're entitled to think what we want, and nobody has any business condemning us based on our thoughts. The line is our actions: if we do something to someone as a result of our thoughts, that crosses the line.
I've said to a few gay friends that I personally think that homosexuality is gross; but I also think that broccoli is gross. The fact that I feel that way doesn't have anything to do with the way I view them as people, and certainly not how I treat them -- not any more than my distaste for broccoli affects my relationship with eaters of broccoli. And everyone I've talked about this attitude with seems to think it's a perfectly reasonable one to hold.
Furthermore: if Scott Card's stated opinions on homosexuality were as.. mellow.. as yours, then you wouldn't see me caring quite so much. I'm not sure why you're defending yourself when I'm talking about Scott Card...
If however, someone expresses and endorses kind and progressive social statements, I certainly do use that when judging their character.
Similarly with Card, I am a reader of his fiction and so I don't care what color socks he wears, how often he showers, or whether he has a framed picture of Ronald McDonald on his wall.
At best one might claim that such a statement is ignorant. I think we start to get into trouble when we assume that an expert in one narrow area (such as fiction writing) should be/act non-ignorant in other areas of life. That is wishful thinking. It also suggests that we ought to expect "more" from someone with a narrow talent. Should a NFL player have perfect spelling? Should an olympic pole vaulter have a nuanced understanding of morality?
Human aptitude is very narrow and we should appreciate it where we find it and not look to put anyone on a broad pedestal.
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 other views. None the less, it is possible.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer#Life_as_an_.C3.A9...
Do I want to ask Jobs or Card or Fischer for voting advice? No thanks. For advice on what sexual partner to pick? No thanks. It's the premise that we should somehow look to these achievers for wisdom outside their domains that is absurd.
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 particular ethical/moral significance only strengthens my belief that we must hold Scott Card to a higher level.
But hey, this is just how I operate. For each their own I suppose.
^particularly when they start using their talent to spread their hate, and start letting it seep into their other 'manstream' work.
While I agree that Card's views on homosexuality are disturbing, stupid, and quite shocking considering the considerable depth with which he appears (from his fiction writing) to understand difficult moral issues around demonizing members of a group, I think this is a dangerous precedent to set. Sure it'd be nice, but I think the consequence is inevitably that we are disillusioned b/c of some skeleton that is revealed (Tiger woods) or we prop up untalented hacks who happen to express all the right views (like Stephen Colbert, whose comedy is at best a crude sort of clowning).
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.
"'manstream' [sic]"
Ah, the perils of tiny keyboards. :/
And before I get accused of being his fanboy, I can't stand Ender's Game. I think it's the most overrated piece of garbage in history of sci-fi.. sometimes it reads like a work of a 12 year old. Terrible writing, worse, incredibly naive plot, I have no idea how it can be considered a "classic" and works by far better sci-fi authors like Clifford Simak, Robert Sheckley, Henry Kuttner, Alfred Bester, etc are unfairly forgotten.
Having said that, I think the Card's masterpiece is the insults he wrote for Monkey Island game... now that's a great piece of writing!
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 advantage came from a tremendous empathy with his adversary.
In the end, Ender had to be fooled into destroying the Buggers precisely because of this empathy. He never would have been able to commit a genocide if he thought it was actually a genocide, but he could do it in the context of a video game.
And, for what it's worth, the childhood bullying delivered by Ender's brother was also a function of Ender's love for his brother. We see very soon that Ender is capable of tremendous violence, but he tolerates mistreatment from Peter because he loves him so much.
It is this victimhood which endears Ender to any reader who has felt victimized, by showing that in some cases there is great physical and moral power beneath the surface.
The author of this strange hit piece is clearly trying to rile up various reactive political groups against Card. Sure, card is a Mormon and appears somewhat socially conservative in his personal beliefs. He is clearly not homophobic and became defensive when he sensed that the author was trying to broach the subject which had probably caused him much pain.
Sure some people believe that anyone who doesn't advocate same sex marriage qualifies as homophobic... The author of the Salon piece clearly thinks that state recognition of same sex marriage is hugely important.
I'd argue that through his books Card has done far more good (by enlightening people about important moral issues) than any harm caused by his traditional view (restricting the word "marriage" but not the state sanctioned bond between two people).
The remarks about Card yapping and flirting suggest a very immature person wrote the article. Clearly at a certain point Card was trying to be polite and let the interview finish without incident... something that was framed as "shutting down"... Bizarre stuff.
From "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality" by Orson Scott Card:
"Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message to those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society."
So the man actively opposes it gay marriage. He supports laws that make homosexual acts illegal. He doesn't think that gays should be protected from getting fired because of their sexuality. How is that not homophobic?
Even an argument that homosexuality altogether is immoral and should not be socially acceptable behavior is not the same thing as being afraid of persons that perform homosexual acts; it's merely ostracizing the behavior, as one may ostracize a person for meth use, though it'd be silly to call one that supports meth prohibition a dopephobe just because he doesn't think meth use should become a social norm.
You can dislike a behavior without fearing it, and you can have rational reasons for that dislike. The term "homophobe" is applied to try and stop people from criticizing the gay rights agenda by labeling them as irrational bigots if any protest is raised.
I think the issue of employment discrimination is a bit of a straw man. If an employee isn't working out he/she will be fired eventually for some reason. If a firm's corporate culture is homophobic, chances are there will be some technicality that allows for the firing of an individual in spite of any laws restricting hiring/firing reasons. I think this applies to all such laws "protecting" any group.
In the interview he specifically stated that he supported laws that protected people from being fired based on race but NOT homosexuality.
There are certainly legitimate reasons to not support laws protecting people from discrimination. If Card had been against them in GENERAL and I had cherry-picked his opposition to those laws protecting sexual orientation, THEN it may have construed a straw man argument. But I did no such thing. I did not misinterpret his position; he was not opposed to such laws in general, but ONLY those regarding sexual orientation.
In the interview, Card says "I find the comparison between civil rights based on race and supposed new rights being granted for what amounts to deviant behavior to be really kind of ridiculous. There is no comparison. A black as a person does not by being black harm anyone. Gay rights is a collective delusion that's being attempted" (emphasis mine).
Calling homosexuality "deviant behavior" upsets me, but the really revealing part, I think is the bit I emphasized. The implication certainly appears to be that (by parity of reasoning) "A homosexual does harm someone simply by being homosexual".
If that's not homophobic, I don't know what is.
I don't think there is a way to gather hard evidence without engaging in unethical conduct (that is, any psych experiment that would give data might irreparably harm people and thus would be wrong).
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.mormontimes.com/article/10233/State-job-is-not-to...
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/
We're talking about someone who writes stuff like this:
"The argument by the hypocrites of homosexuality that homosexual tendencies are genetically ingrained in some individuals is almost laughably irrelevant. We are all genetically predisposed toward some sin or another; we are all expected to control those genetic predispositions when it is possible.
[...]
Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those whoflagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society."
(Source: http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html)
And there's a lot of similar-level, oddly familiar sounding looneyness in his writings on various other political topics as well. It's perhaps most disturbing - or fascinating - that a writer as articulate would be content to be such a cliché. At times I wonder if it's all an act.
The difference between my outlook and Card's is in how we define "acceptable." I say, homosexuality is not harmful, so it should be allowed. Card uses a different measuring stick for his morality. That's all.
He does not cite any scientific knowledge to support this position, but he does take the time to point out that science can't prove him wrong yet (via a, quote, "science has barely scratched the surface" statement).
Of course he's also not giving any explanation for exactly why homosexuality is supposed to be sinful in the first place.
That entire angle is tired, old, trite, familiar. It's also stopping short of thinking things through fully, in the service of his personal agenda: If science has only scratched the surface so far, then it follows that what he takes for granted in his own text has to be called into question as well. Yet there is no uncertainty about his position in his text; he is very sure of himself.
And that's the part that really makes me wonder. This guy seems too intelligent to buy into half-assed argumentation of this kind - so what makes him write it?
Admittedly this does run the danger of opening up the pandora's box of the entire religion topic. I just can't for the life of me understand how someone rationally thinking could be satisfied with non-explanations like "To act otherwise is to give more respect to the opinions of men than to the judgments of God." (also from the text).
Beyond that I agree with your post, i.e. the genetic question not actually being relevant to me when it comes to whether homosexuality is acceptable.
There are certainly a lot of behaviors that we're (as a species if not as an individual) predisposed to, that are viewed as socially unacceptable. For example, the benefits in a Darwinian framework of extramarital affairs are quite well established. It's to a males genetic advantage to have as many sexual partners as possible, and generally men do have such latent desires. Yet society condemns those who act on those desires, even though they're perfectly natural. Why can't we say that homosexuality is similar: something that an individual may be predisposed to for whatever reason, but if he wants to avoid society's scarlet letter, he must repress those desires? [1]
Of course he's also not giving any explanation for exactly why homosexuality is supposed to be sinful in the first place.
I'm not going to dig up citations for this because I'm not interested in proving it. Suffice it to say that there is sufficient text in the Christian Bible that someone who builds his moral codes from what he, personally, reads in its pages can reasonably come to the conclusion that homosexuality is a sin. [2]
[1] Not that I believe that a homosexual should have to repress those desires; I'm merely arguing that this is an internally consistent moral system.
[2] I also acknowledge that there are places in the Bible that might contradict that, or at least temper its severity. My point is that a reasonable person, weighing many passages in the Bible, might come to that conclusion.
He's a Mormon! Two of the core dogmas of that religion are that (1) procreation is a duty, and (2) raising children well in a family is a duty. What you have to understand is that Mormons have remarkably low hypocrisy and cynicism. They give a lot of public lip service to procreation and family values, and then they go home, when nobody is looking, and make lots of babies and raise big families.
So they take it rather personally when a fringe political group (the tiny but loud homosexual lobby) tries to indoctrinate kindergartners that "it's my body and I can do whatever feels good", or hands out fisting kits in high schools. Mormons don't object to this because they are so fearful that their minds are diseased (phobic), but rather out of the belief that those activities do not make a strong basis for a society. (And they have a point. San Francisco's inverted population pyramid has even the secular authorities alarmed. If SF wasn't fascinating enough to attract enough a flood of immigrants, it would be Detroit with queers.)
Mormons are also very big on conscious self control of all appetites and lusts in the service of long-term goals. They don't just say "smoking is bad, mmmkay", they don't smoke. (The tobacco lobby does not diagnose this as the disease of tobaccophobia and hold My Lungs, My Choice rallies.) I suspect that this is the actual reason the Mormons and queers are so allergic to each other: the Mormons tend toward a very low time preference (long planning horizon) and the queers a high time preference (live in the moment). It is almost a law of nature that someone with high time preference will throw a hissy fit when lectured on moral choice by someone with low time preference.
That doesn't mean an author can't experiment with their beliefs, though, and that is where it gets very subjective: do I feel like I'm being lied to or not?
I don't generally spend a lot of time learning about authors I read, though. They tend to exist in a similar space as their characters do in my mind: a place stitched together and colored by the words they have written.
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 ENSUING DISCUSSION.
I've read a bunch of your comments. You are way better than this one.
Please don't write stuff like this on HN.
As soon as I saw Orson Scott Card's name come up, I knew the conversation would devolve into his (wacky) political views.
There's now 59 comments on this thread, and while I haven't bothered to count it seems that at least 45 of 'em are in this rather dull political argument about gay rights. And since nobody has actually showed up with the anti-gay-rights position, we're stuck discussing precisely which nasty names we should call someone who doesn't share our mutual opinion. Even this rather narrow corner of debate space has apparently got some people rather heated.
And yet, there I am too, throwing my weight in on this boring topic. And this is why politics is something one must actively avoid talking about.