Refusing to Read

[Galactus]

Also, stick with the Starship Troopers movie. That one IS meant to be satirical. :P

I do :P The movie is infinitely superior to the book :P

[Shryke]

I love the movie. So ridiculously fun.

The book is on my list of things to read, but I'm generally not a fan of Heinlein and I have trouble seeing myself enjoying the book if it was like the movie, but serious.

[Liadin]

Wait, Ender's Game is supposed to ENDORSE the violence Ender does? WTF?

Goddamn....

Does someone have a link proving this point? I too did not get that message from the book. Just because Card thinks the war in Iraq is a good idea (for whatever reason--many people do) doesn't mean he thinks it's acceptable for a young child to be manipulated into wiping out an entire planet.

[Datepalm]

I thought the issue with Ender is that the book is critical of the system, but always makes Enders actions those of an innocent victim - up to and including murder and genocide. Theres a fairly famous essay someplace that rather vitrolically lays it out that I can't remember the name of atm :idea:

ETA - Here it is- thanks Wikipedia.

I don't necessarily see a pro-war theme in Enders Game, to be honest. (I say this without having read much of Cards blogging or commentary on books.) It is effectively critical of the war school and the corruption of a society employing child soldiers. He just apparently thinks being a child soldier is...kind of awesome.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I disagree strongly with Card's turn for the kooky in the last decade. I also don't care for the way he's cramming Mormon theology into everything he writes. I really enjoyed the Alvin Maker series up until it turned into a retelling of the Book of Mormon. However, I do not believe Card is pro-war in Ender's Game. In both Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead he makes the point that actions humans find threatening are not necessarily intended to be threatening by the species offering purported threat.

[IheartTesla]

But with Simmons, I just can't. Illium/Olympos was pretty bad, and that helps, but I can't say the same for Hyperion or The Terror, no matter how much it feels like I should - I still think both are genuinely good, complex books, that don't 'shove down your throat' any simplistic ideological message, and my enjoyment of them not a product of my secret hatred for all muslims and admiration of older men shagging adolescent girls.  :dunno: 

Maybe I should re-read them critically, but I've read both fairly recently - its not like i'm going on fuzzy nostalgia here. 

No, he's a good writer sometimes, and has some blind spots in his world view. Unfortunately the two are not mutually exclusive. I don't know what to make of that though. I think of someone like Lovecraft and his racist views, and the fact that we are somewhat willing to overlook those aspects for someone who gave us Chthulu (and temper it by the fact that the times were different). Of course, Simmons can't have that defence at this point in time.

As for Ender's Game, I always thought the message at the end was that the genocide perpetrated was a mistake.

[Eponine]

Then there are books that other people seem to like and I just didn't. A leisure reading project of mine has been to knock off books on the Time 100, which I am about 3/4 complete. Two books by Philip Roth are on this list and I hated them both. I read the entirety of one of them, and hated it the more I read it. The second one I hated from the start, gave up after 20 pages as I encountered a chapter titled "Whacking Off" and never looked back.

Yea! I hate Philip Roth too.

[Cantabile]

Since this is a GRRM board, I'll mention that I've heard that some people stopped reading SoIF simply due to the political views they read on Martin's views. That seems way over the top to me. Whether or not an author shares one's political views should be irrelevant for enjoying their work when the work doesn't express them, so long as aforementioned views aren't incredibly offensive. Which certainly none of Martin's are that I'm aware of.

[The Evil Hat]

Nothing but quality can put me off an author's work. Lovecraft's one of my favorite authors, and I'd like to think I don't equate black people and apes. I haven't read much Simmons yet, but I'll continue reading him until I read something bad enough to make me stop, not when he says something I disagree with. And as for Martin, unless I'm remembering the wrong thing, didn't he just express general liberal views? I can understand boycotting Card or someone on that magnitude, but just the average view of the other side? That's just bizarre to me; it makes me think that the boycotter has no better method of debate than sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming loudly and repetitively.

[Cantabile]

I don't often read Martin's blog, but yeah, he seems like just a basic liberal to me. There are people that get offended at anything that slightly contradicts their own views, however, so I shouldn't be too surprised. I once had an acquaintance who would actually burn any book he was reading the moment he came across anything that sounded anti-religious. Even a character being an atheist in the book would make him burn it. Absolutely insane.

The world's a big place, plenty of room for crazies :P

[Liadin]

I thought the issue with Ender is that the book is critical of the system, but always makes Enders actions those of an innocent victim - up to and including murder and genocide. Theres a fairly famous essay someplace that rather vitrolically lays it out that I can't remember the name of atm  :idea:

ETA - Here it is- thanks Wikipedia. 

Interesting read. My impression from that essay is that there's another and more vitriolic essay accusing Ender's Game of being an apologia for Hitler, evidently by interpreting the message of Ender's Game as "it's okay to wipe out an entire people if you see them as a threat and have good intentions." While I highly doubt Card intended to make excuses for Hitler, I can see why Ender's Game might lead some people to believe that: the essay you linked to lays out pretty well how the book bases morality entirely off "good intentions" while considering actual results irrelevant and, hell, Hitler probably did believe that had "good intentions" and was "protecting his people" in some way.

... And everybody I know thinks Ender's Game is actually lambasting video games for divorcing actions from morality. ;)

I once had an acquaintance who would actually burn any book he was reading the moment he came across anything that sounded anti-religious. Even a character being an atheist in the book would make him burn it.

Cants, you know some bizarre people. What did he do with Christian fiction type books with atheist villains, or where the atheist gets converted by some good-hearted Christian by the end? It seems like he'd only be content with books that made no reference to religion at all, since most books that deal much with Christianity have doubters.

[Cantabile]

Cants, you know some bizarre people. What did he do with Christian fiction type books with atheist villains, or where the atheist gets converted by some good-hearted Christian by the end? It seems like he'd only be content with books that made no reference to religion at all, since most books that deal much with Christianity have doubters.

I've known far too many nutjobs in my life, no denying that.

He was only an acquaintance, not a friend, so I don't know too much about his logic for the whole book-burning, or what situations are acceptable. I just know that he read The Power of One and burnt the novel because the protagonist's mother was portrayed as a crazy Christian, and he felt that the author was expressing that Christians are all wackjobs. Thus he was highly offended and torched the book. He torched an anthology of short stories because one of them had a dialogue about religion between two characters, and one of them said they were an atheist.

:shocked:

[aimlessgun]

I thought the issue with Ender is that the book is critical of the system, but always makes Enders actions those of an innocent victim - up to and including murder and genocide. Theres a fairly famous essay someplace that rather vitrolically lays it out that I can't remember the name of atm :idea:

ETA - Here it is- thanks Wikipedia.

I don't necessarily see a pro-war theme in Enders Game, to be honest. (I say this without having read much of Cards blogging or commentary on books.) It is effectively critical of the war school and the corruption of a society employing child soldiers. He just apparently thinks being a child soldier is...kind of awesome.

Interesting essay, and I guess I can see where the author is going. But I feel that the book is pretty open to other interpretations, and Kessel has to go outside the text a few times to shore up his points (I like how Card apparently tried to say the genocide was accidental. :rofl: ).

He also criticizes the 'trick' of the remote warfare in which Ender didn't know what he was doing, saying that "in real life this wouldn't happen". Maybe I'm too literal minded, but you can't dismiss that part of the book. It is true in the context of the story, and if it's existence screws up the application to real world genocidal guilt, then so be it.

[Grack21]

The weird thing about Ender's game to me is how the book has a completely different and opposite message then what the author intended it to be. I'm not sure if that's bad writing, or insanity, or both.

Wait, Ender's Game is supposed to ENDORSE the violence Ender does? WTF?

Goddamn....

Yeah. That was my reaction. One of those things that makes you wonder if you're the only sane person and everyone else is crazy.

Edit 2: Speaking of Card not getting it, he's on the back of all my K j Parker books apparently endorsing her with glowing praise. I say that not because I dislike K j Parker(I LOVE what I've read so far) but because she seems to have a very WAR IS BAD stance. I dunno. The world is nuts.

[lokisnow]

Ender’s game is about a smart kid who feels alone, isolated, misunderstood and friendless while he is tormented by bullies who figures out he can stop the bullying by fighting and can prevent retribution by hurting them so badly in the fight that they’re permanently afraid to ever exact revenge.

I think Card intended it to be a pro-war, anti-war book. Pro-war when it's a good thing (it usually is) but anti-war when it is dumbly managed (it always is). He was still mad at people for being opposed to Vietnam (his older brother was a vet) and he wanted to write about a war where it was okay to kill people, like his favorite war, WWII (he read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich when he was nine or ten and has often said it was very influential on him, along with Shelby Foote’s The Civil War). But I think he also wanted to demonstrate his theory that war is mostly a series of stupid battle decisions on both sides (stupidly fought), even when smart people are in charge, so he wanted to show that empathy combined with steel was the ideal combination for a commander, and that such a commander would never make mistakes like Operation Market Garden. And I think he also wanted to show that sometimes you’re fighting for the wrong reasons with the destruction of the buggers. But I don’t think he considered it a really anti-war novel in any respect, he likes wars, wars defend the homeland, and that’s what Ender was doing. He would consider the war Ender fought a necessary war; not a needless war.

Ironically, virtually everyone who reads or teaches Ender’s Game sees it as an anti-war novel. But Ender's whole philosophy, from the very first chapter (when he kills Stilson in a fist fight) is, "Strike First, Use any means necessary, there are no rules, Hurt them so badly they can't hurt me anymore and will be TERRIFIED to ever even think of hurting me again." Or boiled down more simply to the whole novel: Kill first, so you're alive to ask for forgiveness later."

Stop and think for a moment just how very twisted an interpretation of Christian forgiveness that is.

That's kind of the whole point of the final chapter. Note that Ender is upset it is real, but because humans were dying in the starships and because he thought by destroying a planet in training, he would fail the test and never actually have to command in reality. In the final chapter he finds the bugger queen and she forgives him for killing off all her race, so all is well because he tells their story, and if you tell a good story, and tell the truth, committing genocide is okay. There's actually a Joseph Smith connection there--to Ender becoming a Speaker for the dead by discovering the secret, hidden fount of information in the larval queen which led him to write his gospel--the truth-sense/divine inspiration that let him translate the non Egyptian Egyptian heiroglyphics the Book of Mormon was written on and distribute his gospel to the world.

I thought it was an antiwar novel, the novel, along with Dune, were big parts of my worldview shifting away from absolutist conservatism into a more open minded and questioning mindset. I good friend of mine swears that Ender's Game turned him into a liberal almost overnight (he now works in Washington, as a congressional aide), it really took the "Can We Win this War?" Article Card wrote on 9/11 to convince me he really believed in Ender’s philosophy as an effective military strategy and deterrent. That’s the essay where he called for an immediate preemptive strike on the entire middle east along with a permanent occupation of five or more countries in order to hurt the muslims so badly that they would TERRIFIED of ever trying to hurt us again.

It actually would be an interesting thought exercise to play with the concept of whether or not Ender's philosophy inherently employs terrorism to succeed.

[Grack21]

Card is also on the front of The Runelords, talking about how it's ending made him cry and have an epiphany. So, my conclusion is that he is insane.

[Datepalm]

 

... And everybody I know thinks Ender's Game is actually lambasting video games for divorcing actions from morality. ;)

I think thats a really cool interpretation. I suppose the book was published too early (and IIRC its based on a short story thats even earlier) to be part of the 'video games caused columbine', etc, vibe, but still neat. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Lockesnow,

Very interesting take on Ender's Game. However, given the fact that every time the Human Species attempts to, or desires to engage in Xenocide in the rest of the series it is a screw up of tremendous proportions what does that position say about war in general? It seems to me that it's saying choosing to wipe out an entire species is never justified.

[Ormond]

There are few books I can ever think of that I've stopped reading after I started. The Gates of Rome by Iggulden I had to stop after like page 50. I'm all for historical fiction making some stuff up at times but, damn, corn fields in ancient Rome? Not to mention the writing felt like some sort of bad boyscout tie in novel.

I haven't read Iggulden myself and have certainly read other comments about his books being bad examples of historical novels.

However, it is not at all necessarily inaccurate of him to mention "corn fields" in ancient Rome since he is a British author. "Corn" is one of the words which has a different definition in British English than it does in American English. In the USA, we only use the word "corn" to describe the North American plant where kernels grow on a cob. In England, the word "corn" is often just a synonym for "grain". To a British writer, oats, wheat, rye, barley, etc., are all forms of "corn", and if he wanted to refer specifically to what we call "corn" in the USA he would have said "maize".

[MinDonner]

Or sweetcorn.

ETA: I don't think I've ever seen oats or barley referred to as "corn", but it's perfectly normal to use it for wheat.