You can know too much about people - it's the curse of the information age. Just an example - I am a big Smallville fan, and my desire to fuck Erica Durance(Lois Lane) plummeted after hearing her ramblings on Stern awhile back. I mean, I am still going to watch and all, but it's irritating to say the least. Orson Scott Card has been at the forefront of Sci-Fi literature for a long time now. I am sure most are at least aware of Ender's Game, and Speaker for the Dead is one of the best sci-fi novels ever. The Shadow novels are like porn for Risk players. But OSC runs a website/blog at Hatrack River, and for some reason I read it religiously regardless of the ridiculous drivel that he consistently posts. . .
A War of Gifts is a new novella in his Enderverse, a Christmas gift to his fans. It has been sitting on my nightstand for awhile, which is kind of odd because normally a 1 nighter by OSC would have been devoured quickly. But I had been reading about this novella for a bit, and was apprehensive. See it's more awkward, heavy-handed political rhetoric than anything else. The story revolves around a Battle School kid who is a pacifist - he refuses to fight in the Battle Room on religious grounds - but was savagely beaten by his Father throughout his childhood. Daddy was a minister of some wacky home grown denomination, and had convinced the kid that Santa Claus was evil. After witnessing a christmas gift exchange between some other students, the boy flips and goes to Colonel Graff. Evidently religion is strictly forbidden at Battle School. The offending kids are reprimanded, but promptly begin to celebrate Christmas openly in rebellion. This sets off a powder keg of religious tension at the decidedly internationalist Battle School. More awkward political posturing ensues, and then Ender comes and saves the day.
All very pedestrian and simple - this is not the kind of thing that OSC excels at. But to tie it to Ms. Durance. . . OSC is LDS. As we are seeing in Mittens' presidential campaign, here and here, Saints in the public eye tend to really go overboard in professing their zeal for "traditional American values," which is code for the intellectually stunted and morally reprehensible brand of Christianity practised by the evangelical movement. It's a defense mechanism - evangelicals claim mormons are not christian, a hateful and dubious claim that tends to really enrage mormons. But whereas your average mormon is probably content on ignoring and avoiding evangelicals at all costs, much like myself, the politically minded mormon cannot. And we all know why. On Hatrack, OSC has for years been espousing his allegiance to the Hate-Darwin crowd, among other things. He has also in various columns defended the literary bona-fides of such luminaries as Tom Clancy and JK fucking Rowling, and insinuating a liberal conspiracy regarding the proliferation of string theorists in physics departments around the country. Oh yeah, and he consistently defends - no recommends - such horsemen of the Apocalypse as American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, and Dancing With the Stars. He claims to be a democrat, but if his progression - or regression depending on where you stand- into right wing orthodoxy is any indication, he is a Sept 11th republican a la Dennis Miller. All this is well and good, and if OSC wants to spout his political views, more power to him - shame on me for continuing to rubberneck at his site. Check it out for yourself.
However, I love the Ender books. I hate to see Ender, and the literature as a whole, become such a blatant vehicle for OSC political rhetoric. I curse myself for reading his site, because I can't help but wondering if I would have been able to shut out his message and enjoy the novella had I not been so familiar with his motivations. Like I curse myself for listening to Stern for killing all my deviant and wonderful sexual fantasies regarding Lois Lane. But hey, at least we still have Supergirl.
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