I finished reading the book recently and one of my first thoughts was "the movie is gonna stink". The book could very well be a Poe story the way it's written. Every word is chosen for the final effect. All the character's development and what he does is preparation for that crucial moment in the story, pretty much like "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar". You could even remove the ending and it would still be an awesome story.
And then when I thought about the movie the first thing that came to mind was all the possibilities for visual effects in the battle room. And now the first thing I see from the director is mentions of the battle room. So, are two hours of visual effects enough to build up the climax of the story? Will they split the novel in two to be able to do it in the second film? I sincerely hope they manage to get it right.
If you think the first book is a masterpiece, don't read anymore in the series. It will ruin it for you. :) I "like" some of the later ones, but none are as well-written, impeccably paced, or engaging as the first in my opinion.
I don't doubt we'll see some adaptation of the story for film, but at its core, I think it should hold up fairly well. Let's just hope we don't end up with Bean being a Jar Jar Binks character or something stupid like that.
FWIW Speaker For The Dead also won both the Hugo & Nebula awards. It's fairly different from Ender's Game, so I can see why some folks might not like it but I thought it was pretty good. It's worth checking out at least.
The series does tend to follow the law of diminishing returns. Speaker For The Dead feels more mature and literary, but was less fun to read. Xenocide and Children of the Mind, in turn, are scarcely worth getting through, and the payoff at the end isn't worth the suspension of disbelief or, indeed, the trouble.
IMO, Speaker For The Dead is the true masterpiece and Ender's Game is simply a necessary bit of back-history to setup events for the Speaker story to be told.
I've found that seems to happen with most novel series. I guess they suffer just as movie sequels do. From my experience, on average, quality is maintained for the first two books, and then it starts to nosedive.
I'd say read the whole Bean series, but only read the lastest in the Ender series. You'll get caught up with Ender and you don't have to wade through most of what many people have described as bad storytelling (friends).
Here's the thing: You probably disagree and even loathe the personal politics of many of the artists whose works you enjoy, be it writing, paintings music, games, etc. If you go down the road of selecting works based on a merit outside of the work itself, then you will spend more of your time researching people than ever experiencing a work.
My view is that as long as the work itself does not reinforce terrible positions on issues social or otherwise, then the work should probably be evaluated in a vacuum.
I agree that doing a bunch of research to decide whether or not you agree with an author before reading his works is silly, but at the same time, if you are made aware of them, there's nothing wrong with letting that determine whether or not you want to support the person by purchasing their works.
In the case of Card, he unfortunately has put his position in some of the books. It can be rather subtle, but there was definitely an example of it in Ender's Shadow.
> Here's the thing: You probably disagree and even loathe the personal politics of many of the artists whose works you enjoy
The thing that is most infuriating about OSC is that his stories imply a philosophy completely opposite those he espouses in his political writings.
For example, one of my favorite short stories is OSC's Unaccompanied Sonata. The story has a message about the cruelty and ultimate impossibility of making someone deny their core self.
But then in real life, OSC says stuff like gay people already have marriage rights because they can get married, just not to their own sex. How can the guy who wrote the above story think something like that? Like I said, it's infuriating.
What is your response to this point though? I don't see how it is anything but completely valid; the point is that there is no objectively defined action that is prohibited for one group and allowed for another, so the "equal rights" argument is a canard. Perhaps there are other arguments to be made, I certainly don't want to get into that here, I am simply responding to your feeling that this is an infuriating thing to say.
Would you have accepted this as a valid argument back when anti-miscegenation laws were in effect?
"There's no issue, black and white people can get married. Just not to each other."
I also wonder how OSC would argue against changing the law so that ONLY homosexual marriage was legal. By his argument, he should have no problem, since he would still have marriage rights, only to another man.
> your feeling that this is an infuriating thing to say.
It's infuriating in light of the subtext of the linked story, which is that ultimately you can't deny your true self. When he makes an argument that gays have rights if only they would deny their true selves... Arg!
Well, yes and no. I think it's true that a simple inequality argument likewise doesn't apply in the case of anti-miscegenation laws. However these laws denied individuals a natural right for no good reason and were therefore immoral and illegitimate.
How to establish the natural right though? Fairly easy in the case of mixed race marriages-- No one at the time thought marriage between the races was impossible or unthinkable, they just didn't want it to happen. That's why they wrote laws against it. And note even that the history of such laws is rather skimpy![1] The overwhelming majority of human history attests to the possibility of the free mixture of races.
It's not just authors, any time you make a transaction you risk pushing money in a "bad" direction. In many cases worse than somebody just having an opinion but actual bad stuff happening.
For example if you are strongly anti-war it could be argued that you should quit your job and start claiming as much welfare as possible to try and deny the government funds for buying weapons, if you pay tax you are literally funding war.
Still, his point that creative works should be viewed in a vacuum holds merit. If the work itself doesn't express something you disagree with, then there is no reason to rail against it.
Right, but if you want to avoid a certain level of hypocrisy, blindly consuming works from content creators whose views you do not know is at odds with actively blocking one simply because you do not agree with his views on a subject which is external to the work itself.
Well. If by "homophobe" you mean someone who dislikes and works to oppose gay marriage causes, yes. If by "homophobe" you mean someone who literally fears that social acceptance of gay marriage, related causes, and homosexuality in general is likely to undermine the vitality (and virtue) of America, then yes.
But do realize that the guy treats homosexual people with similar levels of dignity and respect as any other human being, at least in the likes of his writing. If you doubt this and wish to see examples in his literature, please read his novel _Songmaster_ - a novel which caught Card a lot of flak from conservative groups who accused it of glorifying homosexuality.
(If you still doubt this afterwards, well, okay, maybe it won't convince everyone, but you'll be much better informed about the nature of the problem and your opinion will have nuance).
Anyway. For what it's worth, I'm sure a lot of interesting authors like C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkein, and many of their less obvious contemporaries would find themselves in a non-dissimilar position if the issue were one in their times - as would a variety of Christian groups opposing gay marriage and similar causes today.
For this reason I find the outcome of the recent Card/Superman hullabaloo disappointing and distressing. It is nigh unto unthinkable that you would actual find any representation in a Card-authored Superman comic which would be anything less than perfectly charitable towards homosexuals - and more likely he would just steer clear of stuffing modern sociopolitical controversies into it. (And it's nice to escape those once in a while, you know? like in comics and stuff. :P)
DISCLAIMER. No further comment is offered herein on the validity or invalidity of gay marriage, related causes, or any group which has opinions on those issues, except maybe for the likes of Westboro Baptist, which almost everyone ever knows is something like the worst people ever. :P
(Postscript. Also, notwithstanding above comments and expression of disappointment, the overall validity of Orson Scott Card or his works is left as an exercise to the reader. But your opinions would be improved by, and deserve to be shaped by, nuance. :)
It is not that he worships a god which only blesses certain marriages. It is that he opposes equal treatment under the law. All gods are imaginary. The people Card wants to harm are real.
It's not a point of view I necessarily agree with, but it is a legitimate point of view that could be argued, as opposed to (say) gay people are paedophiles, which is clearly stupid.
Could you provide more specifics here? There was a good amount of that book which wasn't to like, as it was inferior in quality to the other Ender-related works, so I wasn't paying the bestest of attention, and it's also been a while, but I didn't notice any overt incidents where the writing served to degrade the status of homosexuals as people, and I can't find any particular references on Google. (If you want to hear homosexuals and supporters of homosexuality degraded as illegitimate actors in the sociopolitical arena and the like, Card did a speech in 1990 which did that, which I'm sure you've seen, though the general public should be aware that claims that it's no longer an accurate representation of his views, which I guess is good because it's been like 23 years and anyone who sticks with an idea in one form exactly for 23 years either isn't much of a thinker or hasn't been paying any attention to reality).
The closest I've found is someone's article writing about how Card generally doesn't depict homosexuals - or, for that matter, depict very much sex in general.
Volescu wasn't gay; the scientist Anton was the one for whom homosexuality was strongly implied. And while I see what you mean about him not really treating homosexuality with respect/dignity - spoiler alert, gay character marries a woman and decides that having children is the end-all final meaning of human civilization - he doesn't exactly demonize the character, either.
More than a homophobe, he turns out to hold truly repugnant views on a wide range of subjects. I was really disappointed when I learned this, not by reading about it but by reading a book he wrote post 9/11 (Empire) that I kept expecting to turn into a clever political satire, but never turned the corner.
I was about to read Enders Game, and while looking for reviews, I came across a piece regarding his homophobia. I'm really glad, I would have been really upset if I discovered after I had read the book. I can't change the world for the better, but I can choose not to put my money in the hands of bigots.
I'm kinda glad that when reading the book a few years ago (way out of my teenage years) that I found it to be a rather trite Mary Sue story with some very questionable moral conclusions, and thus didn't have to come to grips with some kind of Wagnerian conflict.
Not to mention an anti-Semite, which actually plays a prominent role (Rose da Nose) in the book. Still, Heinlein was a fascist, and L. Ron Hubbard, well...Anyway, it's the age old debate that pops up with artists. Do you overlook their personal issues for the sake of their work? Wagner is another anti-Semetic example.
I'll probably go see it, but I have my issues...
EDIT: I should say I think Heinlein was a fascist. I know that's a contentious point, and various people read him various ways...
Heinlein is generally better read as a libertarian, possibly to the point of anarchist. He wrote about Fascist societies, but reading both his fiction and his nonfiction does not generally lead to the conclusion that he considered this desirable or stable.
I think the people who get that he's a fascist are making the mistake of assuming that because an author writes about it, they are endorsing it. This obviously falls apart under any sort of thought whatsoever, but that's more thought than most people give it. Alternatively, they get it from the Starship Troopers movie, in which IMHO the director misread Heinlein as a fascist, leading everyone else to the same conclusion by the nose. This is not the best source from which to conclude anything about Heinlein; I think it was a good movie on its own merits but little of Heinlein's politics shown through.
In N-Space, Larry Niven directly addresses another example of this; Jerry Pournelle's Co-Dominion future, in which their co-written A Mote in God's Eye takes place, is set in a galactic empire consciously set up to be feudalistic, including starting from a fairly idealistic conception of feudalism where obligations are bi-directional, and decaying (in the sequel) into the sort of feudalism where the nobles begin to consider their privileges their right without any corresponding responsibility. Neither author is endorsing this political structure, per se, but observing the course of human history, one can not deny that under the right circumstances feudalism could very well rise again, and it can work well for a story.
Heinlein was large, and contained multitudes :-) I'm still floored by the fact that he wrote Starship Troopers, his ultimate "fascist" book, during a break in the middle of writing Stranger in a Strange Land, his ultimate "hippie" book. From a high enough vantage point, I guess both the left and the right look like amateurs, and you can't resist the temptation to come up with better moves for both sides...
It's a personal choice, right? It's not like the gay community is going to shun you if you see his film. At least, I'm not going to stop talking to my friends who see the movie. Personally, I love some of his work, but I made a choice not to buy his books anymore due to what he has said publicly about homosexuality. Admittedly, I had already cooled on his works after rereading some of them and realizing just how much Mormon ideology was included.
I wonder if he would be willing to reconsider his beliefs about same sex marriage now that there is more evidence to draw upon. Other staunch conservatives, like David Frum [1], have recently acknowledged that they were wrong to fear that same-sex marriage would somehow undermine the institution of marriage or weaken social integrity.
I think it's cognitive dissonance [1] You admire the works, but can't admire the man. Other people in this category: Mike Tyson, Roman Polanski, Roald Dahl, Julian Assange.
It is probably unfilmable. Many things work great in our heads and don't translate when out on paper etc. in this case the internal monolog of the character is what makes it work, I haven't tried it but I'm sure if you looked at the story from only an observers view Ender looks like a nasty little sociopath. Films with lots of monolog are damn near impossible to pull off.
Most of the books are indeed infilmable, you stated the reason. That's way almost all the movies are _adaptations_ of the books. Mainly the screenwriter has the infamous job to take out the infilmable scenes and hopes that the director is transposing this into art of filming. Some mood states, or emotions are thus found back into the film, but on a different artistic dimension.
There are tools to handle that, for example Ender has plenty of characters around him to help verbalize some of that internal dialogue. It's certainly hard, but it's doable with the right talent.
(Or they could do Avatar's "dialogue with the recorder" and I'll turn into a raging fanboy hate machine)
And then when I thought about the movie the first thing that came to mind was all the possibilities for visual effects in the battle room. And now the first thing I see from the director is mentions of the battle room. So, are two hours of visual effects enough to build up the climax of the story? Will they split the novel in two to be able to do it in the second film? I sincerely hope they manage to get it right.