As a boy, I was horrified by tales from the bigger kids of how Juvenile Hall was overrun by roving packs of gibbering, adolescent rape-gangs and lurking, loner Booty Bandits once the lights went out.
Imagine my disappointment to find out this wasn't the case when I spent the weekend in Juvie for GTA.
Carrie from "Turning Point" (first of the Sholan Alliance series) didn't exactly have it great either, living on a planet where humans were repressed by a race of lizard dudes, and she had an empathic link to her sister who was an active resistance fighter. It was an unhealthy link as the sister would (without really knowing it) shunt most of the pain and such to Carrie.
I bought a very dog-eared hard cover copy of Psion at a used book store a long time ago, and thought it was a great read, but assumed it was kind of "throw-away" science fiction. I had to hunt down Cat's Paw, and I guess I didn't even know about Dreamfall. I will have to walk down to Barnes over my lunch hour to pick that up, as I really enjoyed the first two.
I have no sympathy for Bean whatsoever. He's a flat, annoying second character trying to take over the protagonist, and for that, I shall NEVER forgive him.
@tetracycloide: That's exactly what I'm talking about. Could never get into the Shadow series. I like Ender too much, but before he got all religious/Morman.
The mormon thing is just OSC projecting his own stuff.
None of the sequels or the parallels come close to Enders Game. Younger folks might enjoy the extension of the story, but Enders Game ended right where it should have. I've read most of em BTW.
I can't say I hate Bean but he's certainly not as compelling as Ender is. Even Valentine is more fun to observe.
@Grey_Area: Sorry, That's mean of me. There were some parts of the 3 House books he and Anderson did. I just wish they stopped there. Beating a dead worm, let it go guys.
Thanks for adding Citizen of the Galaxy; this is my fave Heinlein Juvenile, since I read as a kid, and when I reread it about 1 1/2 months ago. It's aged pretty damn well (excepting the 1950's diction), and would be a fantastic script for a film.
I remember reading a review of the book and it claimed it was more than just an anti-slavery book not because it claimed it was a racist but rather the concept of slavery is anti-humanistic. It's an interesting idea because it more or less invalidates the obvious parallels with Thorby and the then current US Civil Rights Movement.
To be honest, it was the first book I ever read where I really had to seat back and think about slavery outside any other parameters such as culture, race, or history, and why it was inherently, and innate evil. Good job Heinlein.
@Zidel333: It is still good stuff and would make a great movie, although the vastly different settings might make it a tough sell for the mouth-breathing masses. And while I loved the anthropology part of the Free Traders, that's also going to be hard to get across, with the moieties, the girl-trading, the languages.
And the slavery part would probably make Hollywood assume the lead should be black, and we'd get Will Smith's kid cast to mug around and screw it up.
Ah, it reminds me of my old da, who, when I would complain about having to hold up the corner of the house that was starting to sage because of the slop from the industrial pig pen he built against the house, right outside the crack in the wall of the closet I was allowed to use for the two or three hours of sleep I got a night, would say, "Quit yer whinin', or I'll give ye somethin' to whine aboot!" And then he'd break my cheekbones again.
Objectively, I don't care. In terms of a "boycott," I'm not going to stop reading someone who's a good writer just because she...I dunno, believes in the estate tax. That fact isn't going to stop me from buying her book.
On the other hand, I don't think you can totally divorce art from politics. I think that an author's political beliefs will out. Not all authors, not every work, and not to outlandish degrees, but it's often there.
Put another way, Heinlein ruined Heinlein for me, because once I understood his political bent, I could see it constantly in his writing, and, since I don't quite agree with the man, it felt like browbeating.
Secondly, sf is an incredibly political genre. The very notion that space travel is good is a political statement that carries a number of political assumptions, much more so than horror or lit-crit. It is much harder to divorce a sci-fi author from her political leanings.
Oh, I get it. It's been almost a week since we've picked on Orson Scott Card so it's time to write a new post so we can all do it again.
What might be more interesting would be a rundown of well-known science fiction writers and their overt political and social views - both right and left-wing.
Of course, then we might have to talk about someone other than Card...
@ngallion: Well I didn't actually mention OSC in the poll... I did end up including him in the tags b/c people were talking about him so much. It's just a topic that's been on my mind, because he and a few other writers have this issue come up all the time. I would also say Cory Doctorow is someone whose politics interfere with some people's enjoyment of his work, although not mine.
I surprised Larry Niven hasn't come up yet in this discussion. Some of his later work with Jerry Pournelle, especially, is pretty right-wing-nutty; "Lucifer's Hammer" and "Fallen Angels" come to mind.
And then there was his advice to to the Department of Homeland Security last year to spread rumors within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients to harvest their organs for transplants. "'The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren't going to pay for anything anyway,' Niven said.": [io9.com]
It's really a tragedy that every time someone buys "Ringworld" they are supporting ideas like these.
Well, Usually I'm open to anything. But during reading I can say "Meh, that's poor and unimaginative" and throw it away. Most prominent example: "1984".
This poll is extremely biased. The only "yes" option implies that anyone saying yes is closed minded and doesn't want to read opposing points of view.
There are some authors I simply don't want to fund. If someone is against gay rights then I don't want to give them my money. If, say, Orson Scott Card were to have a bit of trouble affording a meal, I wouldn't feel particularly hurt by it.
@Alchemistmerlin: Sorry... I felt like I was offering three different choices for people who, to varying degrees, felt they wouldn't buy someone's work based on that person's politics. Sorry if the absolute "I won't buy books by anyone I disagree with" seemed a bit flip -- it wasn't intended to be.
03/20/09
Imagine my disappointment to find out this wasn't the case when I spent the weekend in Juvie for GTA.
03/20/09
03/20/09
03/20/09
03/20/09
03/20/09
03/20/09
03/20/09
03/20/09
03/24/09
The mormon thing is just OSC projecting his own stuff.
None of the sequels or the parallels come close to Enders Game. Younger folks might enjoy the extension of the story, but Enders Game ended right where it should have. I've read most of em BTW.
I can't say I hate Bean but he's certainly not as compelling as Ender is. Even Valentine is more fun to observe.
03/19/09
03/20/09
03/20/09
03/19/09
I remember reading a review of the book and it claimed it was more than just an anti-slavery book not because it claimed it was a racist but rather the concept of slavery is anti-humanistic. It's an interesting idea because it more or less invalidates the obvious parallels with Thorby and the then current US Civil Rights Movement.
To be honest, it was the first book I ever read where I really had to seat back and think about slavery outside any other parameters such as culture, race, or history, and why it was inherently, and innate evil. Good job Heinlein.
03/19/09
And the slavery part would probably make Hollywood assume the lead should be black, and we'd get Will Smith's kid cast to mug around and screw it up.
Maybe a miniseries, but not from Siffy.
03/19/09
Ah, good times. Good times.
03/19/09
03/19/09
03/19/09
01/12/09
Objectively, I don't care. In terms of a "boycott," I'm not going to stop reading someone who's a good writer just because she...I dunno, believes in the estate tax. That fact isn't going to stop me from buying her book.
On the other hand, I don't think you can totally divorce art from politics. I think that an author's political beliefs will out. Not all authors, not every work, and not to outlandish degrees, but it's often there.
Put another way, Heinlein ruined Heinlein for me, because once I understood his political bent, I could see it constantly in his writing, and, since I don't quite agree with the man, it felt like browbeating.
Secondly, sf is an incredibly political genre. The very notion that space travel is good is a political statement that carries a number of political assumptions, much more so than horror or lit-crit. It is much harder to divorce a sci-fi author from her political leanings.
01/11/09
01/11/09
01/11/09
What might be more interesting would be a rundown of well-known science fiction writers and their overt political and social views - both right and left-wing.
Of course, then we might have to talk about someone other than Card...
01/11/09
01/11/09
And then there was his advice to to the Department of Homeland Security last year to spread rumors within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients to harvest their organs for transplants. "'The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren't going to pay for anything anyway,' Niven said.": [io9.com]
It's really a tragedy that every time someone buys "Ringworld" they are supporting ideas like these.
01/11/09
I'd heard some pretty atrocious things about Niven...but wow.
01/11/09
01/11/09
01/11/09
There are some authors I simply don't want to fund. If someone is against gay rights then I don't want to give them my money. If, say, Orson Scott Card were to have a bit of trouble affording a meal, I wouldn't feel particularly hurt by it.
01/11/09
Rereading it I guess option 4 would fit my opinion, but it still seems the poll is a bit lopsided.
01/11/09