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.

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Ah, good times. Good times.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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.

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