Orson Card Scott's new book: Fighting evil liberals

[LiviaOlivia]

Wednesday, November 29, 2006
by roy
alicublog.blogspot.com

COME, LET US TREASON TOGETHER. I seem to remember days when The West Wing was derided as a liberal fantasy. At least that fantasy was relatively benign; apparently some conservatives are dreaming of something a little more rough.

Behold Orson Scott Card's new novel, Empire, summarized thus by Publisher's Weekly:

When the president and vice-president are killed by domestic terrorists (of unknown political identity), a radical leftist army calling itself the Progressive Restoration takes over New York City and declares itself the rightful government of the United States. Other blue states officially recognize the legitimacy of the group, thus starting a second civil war. Card's heroic red-state protagonists, Maj. Reuben "Rube" Malek and Capt. Bartholomew "Cole" Coleman, draw on their Special Ops training to take down the extremist leftists and restore peace to the nation...

You can read the first five chapters here. I did, with great, great pleasure. The heroic Army Man action figures speak a dialect that's half Ralph Peters and half Sgt. Rock:

"You look pissed off," said Malich.

"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."

"They won't be so happy when they see where it leads. They've already forgotten Sarajevo and the killing fields of Flanders."

"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."

"And maybe we will," said Malich. "A lot of Americans would love to slam the doors shut and let the rest of the world go hang."

"And if we did," said Cole, "who would save Europe then? How long before they find out that negotiations only work if the other guy is scared of the consequences of not negotiating? Everybody hates America till they need us to liberate them."

"You're forgetting that nobody cares what Europeans think except a handful of American intellectuals who are every bit as anti-American as the French," said Malich.

....Also worth mentioning: Army Man #1's wife is a brilliant liberal, but "unlike the ersatz Left of the university, Cessy was a genuine old-fashioned liberal, a Democrat of the tradition that reached its peak with Truman and blew its last trumpet with Moynihan." We are let to know that she bakes cookies.

~snip~

But we can legitimately have fun with Mr. Card, who, again according to Publisher's Weekly, ends the novel with "an afterword decrying his own politically-motivated exclusion from various conventions and campuses, the 'national media elite' and the divisive excesses of both the right and the left." Like Cessy, Card considers himself a political moderate, though (as we have shown here) he is the sort of moderate who believes that Democrats are evil wimps and that homosexuality should be punished with jail time. Again reserving judgment, it would seem Card's fantasy of treacherously-used liberals finally brought to heel by Red State wolverines reflects this highly unusual definition of political moderation.

~snip~

http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2006_11_26_alicublog_archive.html#116481609430550766

[LeftyMom]

1. How sad.

He used to write books that were thoughtful and worth reading.

[endarkenment]

2. he wrote two good books (1+2 of the ender series)

all the rest of his books were total crap.

[iamjoy]

20. I Liked Pastwatch

it was very interesting. Some people in the future can look at the past almost like it's a television show. And they see how many of the excesses of Western civilization (human greed, disregardfor other cultures, etc) led to the current state of the world (impending catastrophe in which billions would die).

I thought he was progressive in his world view, like most science fiction writers

Then, I read some forward he had written where he talked about hypocritical liberals supporting free speech, but blocked pro-lifers from being within so many feet of an abortion clinic. It was so scathing, I couldn't reconcile it with the man who wrote that great alternative history.

[uppityperson]

26. Pastwatch was interesting, not so male/female defined roles, but somewhat.

I liked Pastwatch best of his, was the first of his I read also. Not gratuitously nasty, but interesting how he portrayed Columbus. I tried reading this current book and suffered through about 20 pages before deciding I didn't need to waste my time. I must admit there have been very few books I have put down like that one. I too found it odd that he could write 1 decent book then the rest, eh.

[pitohui]

6. no he didn't -- he was "cult of cruelty" from day one

from his very first short stories he was about cruelty and wingnut-ism

i don't how anyone can read "ender's game" and not see the pleasure this man takes in child abuse and mass murder, it's a stroke book for pedophiles, i felt unclean having read it

and even before that, he had short stories such as the one where the king cuts pieces of flesh and entire limbs and organs off people's bodies to eat, can't remember the name, at the very beginning of career, someone will think of it

i had the misfortune of meeting this person after the ender's game phenomenom took off and he was every bit as ugly and hateful as you'd expect, i'm told he is actually quite two-faced and could be very seductive to those he wanted to be that way with...classic sociopath apparently

i'm glad that he is finally showing himself openly because apparently large numbers of people are not critical readers, i've been amazed for over two decades that non-psychopaths think ender's game has something to say to them...er...no

i mean, hell, gene wolfe is apparently a nasty conservative blue meanie too but at least mr. wolfe can write

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. Oh well. Color your work with politics and you automatically eschew

a particular audience.

[mzteris]

4. OSC's a nutjob.

I used to LOVE his work, until I realized just how crazy he was.

A war-monger of the first degree.

Creepy with some serious sexual issues.

And probably has a Christ-complex.

Weird, very weird.

Even the stuff people "like" - if you analyze it you realize what a whack job he is.

Ender beats the shit out of people because he's a pacifist. Uh-huh.

[terrya]

8. Agreed. He's also a completely vicious homophobe.

A while back, he wrote some nasty screed about the evils of same-sex marriage and homosexuality in general.

He's the Rush Limbaugh of Sci-Fi.

[porkrind]

23. mormon douchebag nutjob

A legend in his own mind. I also agree he has some creepy issues regarding homosexuality. Read "Songmaster" sometime.

I liked Ender's Game as a short story, but he tried to make a career out of it. Now he's a joke.

"He's the Rush Limbaugh of Sci-Fi." <<-- LOL!

[Orrex]

5. Never liked him anyway, the smug, pretentious asshole

And that's some of the worst dialogue I've ever read.

[hedgehog]

7. I am always intersted in sci-fi influenced by religion.

Generally, it's Roman Catholics who stand out fo rme, like calling to like I suppose. The Sparrow and Children of God by Mary Doria Russell come to mind. When I first came across Card's series about Alvin Journeyman, I fell over because it was so clearly a Morman fantasy.

[RamboLiberal]

9. Here's another one "Prayers for the Assasin" by Robert Ferrigno

I saw praise for this one on some "gun enthusiast blogs". I'm thinking this one may be their new "Turner Diaries".

From Amazon.com

From Publishers Weekly
Taking post-9/11 conspiracy theories that blamed the attacks on Zionist agents as the seed for this unusual thriller, Ferrigno (The Wake-Up) posits a nuclear terrorist onslaught in 2015 on New York City, Washington, D.C., and Mecca that has all the earmarks of a Mossad operation. The blue states are moved by these horrors to convert to Islam, while the red states break away from the Islamic Republic, forming a Christian republic in the South. By 2040, three major parties struggle for control in the Islamic Republic: the moderate State Security forces, under Redbeard; the Black Robes, a fundamentalist religious police force; and the top-secret Assassins, under the Old One. When Sarah Dougan, Redbeard's niece and a respected historian, reinvestigates the 2015 attack for a new book, The Zionist Betrayal?, the Old One sics his deadliest assassin on her. Running from Seattle to Vegas, Sarah has a protector in her lover, an ex-fedayeen soldier named Rakkim Epps, whose agnostic POV anchors the novel. Fans of instapundit politics will love this thriller, which has the cinematic motion and atrocity F/X of a good airport read. However, Ferrigno's gimmick—the transformation of America into a cartoon version of Islam—lends the proceedings a damaging air of implausibility. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Prayers marks a departure for Ferrigno, whose previous books focused on life in contemporary Southern California. In Ferrigno's neo-Orwellian world, Mount Rushmore has disappeared, LAX has become Bin Laden International, and midday prayers interrupt the Super Bowl. Critics expressed different ideas about the plot, using words such as "preposterous," "credible," and even "ordinary" to describe it. There's no doubt, however, that Ferrigno raises important questions about religious freedom while handling the subject of Islamic faith with great insight and evenhandedness. If the plot sometimes overwhelms character development, he still allows his creations to air their own opinions without moralizing. In sum: a fast-paced thriller with timely appeal.

[Fire Walk With Me]

10. Are some of those his views or the characters in the book?

I'm not sure of what Card's actual politics are, excepting that his religion is Mormon.

Note that the guy who is set up to help create the conditions for the conniving to seize power is named "Rube".

http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/10/messages/891.html

Honorably serving the dishonorable is a bitch. Having your patriotism used to destroy the country...

This is a lot like the first three chapters of the "Star Wars" trilogy, with someone manuevering the rest into handing him power. Always beware of those who gain from conditions of chaos; they might just be behind it all.

I see the left-wingers in the book as well-intentioned excepting when they kill all of the policemen in NYC.

Not may favorite book by Card by a longshot. I tasted "video game" when odd tech began appearing, and reading the afterward, now know why. It felt a bit tied-down, and it was, due to his having to use an established plot and characters.

And if the polarized conditions are fed into fighting here or abroad, the only winner will be chaos itself. It seems so very likely that something could tip things into destruction, and as such, destructive responses must be avoided at all costs. We must view this as a survival situation.

BTW, I find L.E. Modessit Jr.'s books to be quite good regarding socio-political issues and explanations. Check them out. Adiamante, Flash, etc.

[Fire Walk With Me]

11. BTW, the book implies the right wing as being the cause of all the trouble.

They managed to flush out the potential resistance and negate it too.

[Fire Walk With Me]

14. Also, he fails to condemn the right wing, and the wingless, for their agendas and actions.

Telling? He would be guilty of being the Torrent character if the book is an attempt to rouse troublemakers into action, and supporting the idea of an American Empire to boot. But it's only fiction...?

[Bridget Burke]

12. Here's Card's site--check out the politics for yourself.

http://www.hatrack.com/

From "World Watch":

The election is over, and the victory of the Democrats is having precisely the consequences in Iraq that anyone paying attention should have predicted.

The people of Iraq interpreted the election results the way the extreme Left wanted them to: As a repudiation, by the American people, of President Bush's war policy...

(Then he goes on to say that we DIDN'T repudiate Bush's war policy.)

The trouble is that the people of Iraq don't know that. They only know what our anti-Bush media tell them, which is that our election was an enormous defeat for Bush's war policy, and what their anti-American media tell them, which is that our election was an enormous victory for Al-Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents (a.k.a. murderers and terrorists) in Iraq....

The President's word was given. The American people may have been sold the false idea that the war has been badly run, but they certainly did not vote to withdraw unilaterally from Iraq. The President's word is therefore our word.

From this moment on, if we come to defeat in Iraq, it will not be President Bush's fault. It will be, completely and exclusively, the fault of the Democratic Party. And it is the responsibility of the Democratic Party -- or at least the saner members of that party -- to speak up and do all they can to prevent that defeat.

I cut a lot. But this should give you the general idea.

[Fire Walk With Me]

13. Oh.. Thanks. He believes that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 or something, huh?

The victory to Al Queda regarding Iraq is the creation of a slew of recruits -because- we invaded an uninvolved, sovereign country to steal the oil and move the Treasury into milindus hands. Forever.

Oh well, I wish they could tell fiction from reality, but then again, nearly half of the voters in the US voted for corporate control of the country and outsourcing of their jobs, as well as record exxon profits. Twice.

Oh well, again, I find L.E. Modessit, Jr. to be more quotable and educational. I highly recommend his sf work. He examines no-win scenarios quite well. The Ethos Effect, Adiamante, etc.

[pitohui]

15. you don't get it do you:?

card is more than a rightwing dirtbag who cheers on war, he is actually also a terrible two-faced nasty little person in real life

some of the rightwing dirtbags are actually pleasant people when they're at home, say, larry niven

card is just not a nice person at all on any level at all

[Fire Walk With Me]

16. I guess you're right. I didn't know and didn't want it to be true.

Dang.

[Fire Walk With Me]

19. Whazzat about Larry Niven?

Say it ain't so.

[Greyskye]

27. Niven's an ass

I met him at a Con a couple decades ago. Unless he's changed a lot, he's probably still a jerk. I used to love his stuff - after that experience, I've only bought a couple Niven books - and those were used. :evilgrin:

[Sailor for Warner]

17. I think everyone here seems to

Miss the real crux of the academic arguments in the book about America's place in history and our heated rhetoric. But whatever.

[mzteris]

18. want to try and enlighten us?

I'm not sure what you mean by this in relation to Crazy Card.....

[NuttyFluffers]

21. quelle surprise...

pitohui pretty much summed up a lot of my issues with his works, and apparently his personality doesn't make him any more palatable. never got what people saw in Ender's Game. yes, he's trying to generate great sympathy, and attempting a "philosophical and moral question" about what's going on with the school and Ender. but i wonder why others weren't immediately catching red flags about the child abuse, blatant racist characactures (check the write ups for the jewish, spanish, and other young boys -- totally appaling stereotypes, particularly the jewish one), pseudo-justification of genocide, the obvious Hitler parallels (they even went to "Brazil World" in book two...), the ubermensch ideal and justification, etc., etc., etc. it is such an obvious attempt of sugar making the "medicine" go down. on top of that the writing was pretty atrocious and only got noticeably (and curiously) worse after "Speaker for the Dead." like high fructose corn syrup, i find no redeeming qualities in OSC.

but... people are free to read. like Mein Kampf and others i just ask for a strong capacity for critical thinking from readers. it'll be our only hope to prevent the poisons of our past from polluting our future.

[AngryOldDem]

22. I tried reading Empire.

I gave up about 50 pages in because the plot was difficult to follow and the writing was poor. I think the idea is intriguing, but not the way he was presenting it.

[shimmergal]

24. I tried to read Ender's Game;

couldn't finish it. It was prior to Card's appearance at LACon and I did get his autograph in the book; he was gracious on a casual basis but I know nothing about what he's _really_ like up close.

I _have_ found his non-fiction books on writing to be helpful, however. His MICE theory is something every aspiring science fiction writer should know about. Though I disagree with his statement that a novel can only be strong in one of the four elements.

[Babel_17]

25. Wash your mind of the taste of Card with some Varley

http://www.varley.net/

Great author and he gives good rant. :)

http://www.varley.net/Pages/VarleyYarns/VarleyYarns%20-%202006/Chill.htm

[politicat]

28. Card isn't excluded for his politics; he's excluded because he's a boring hack

Duuuu-uuh.

I barely made it through Ender's, and I say that as a gifted child who was told that this was the best book for gifted kids to read. It was so leaden, and so predictable. And all of his books have been that way.

The fact that he's a right-wing idealogue (along with Michael Flynn) is just another reason he's dull. His work ends up up being more polemic than fiction, and if I wanted polemic, I'd be watching TV, not reading fiction.