I don’t know whether to be surprised that no one has recommended the Ender’s Game series or not. They’re not terribly realistic in the tech (especially toward the end of the series), and don’t address the idea of a technological singularity, but they’re a good read anyway.
Oh—I’m not sure if this is what you were thinking of by sci-fi or not, and it gets a bit new-agey, but Spider Robinson’s “Telempath” is a personal favorite. It’s set in a near-future (at the time of writing) earth after a virus was released that magnified everyone’s sense of smell to the point where cities, and most modern methods of producing things, became intolerable. (Does anyone else have post-apocalyptic themed favorites? I have a fondness for the genre, sci-fi or not.)
A poorly thought out, insult-filled rant comparing scenes in Ender’s Game to “cumshots” changed your view of a classic, award-winning science fiction novel? Please reconsider.
If you strip out the invective and the appeal to emotion embodied in the metaphorical comparison to porn, there yet remains valid criticism of the structure and implied moral standards of the book.
I did not believe this was possible, but this analysis has turned EG into ashes retroactively. Still, it gets lots of kids into scifi, so there is some value.
A really great kids scifi book is “Have spacesuit, will travel” by Heinlein.
I did not believe this was possible, but this analysis has turned EG into ashes retroactively.
I’ve heard that effect called “the suck fairy”. The suck fairy sneaks into your life and replaces books you used to love with vaguely similar books that suck.
The suck fairy always brings something that looks exactly like the same book, but somehow....
I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to enjoy Macroscope again. Anthony was really interesting about an information gift economy, but I suspect that “vaguely creepy about women” is going to turn into something much worse.
I recommended “A Canticle for Leibowitz” and “Jericho” earlier. Also, Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead would have been the next two books on my list, though I read them when I was younger and don’t know if they would be appealing to adults. How do people think Card (a devout Mormon) does at writing atheist/agnostic characters (nearly all the main characters in the series)?
I haven’t really thought about his portrayal of atheists, but he did a good enough job of writing a convincing, non-demonized gay man in Songbird that I was speechless when I discovered that he firmly believes that such people are going to hell.
He believes that they are sinning. Mormons have a really complicated dolled-up afterlife, so if he’s sticking to doctrine, he probably doesn’t actually expect gays as a group to all go to Hell.
Edit: He did a gay guy in the Memory of Earth series too (the plot of which, I later found, is a blatant ripoff of the Book of Mormon). Like the gay guy in Songbird, this one ends up with a woman, although less tragically.
I have to say. It is an interesting coincidence that he has written two gay characters that end up with women. Especially since he is absolutely terrible at writing (heterosexual) sex scenes/sexuality- I mean really I’ve never read a professional writer who was worse at this.
Is there any significance to how OSC avoids using the standard terms for gay, but instead uses a made-up in-world term for it that you have to infer means “gay”. (At least in the Memory of Earth series; I haven’t read the other.)
Is there any significance to how OSC avoids using the standard terms for gay, but instead uses a made-up in-world term for it that you have to infer means “gay”.
wtf? that’s the kwyjiboest thing I’ve ever seen. omg lol
I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all. The way I understand it is that under Mormon doctrine, the act, not the temptation towards the act, is what’s a sin: so a gay character who marries a woman and (regardless of whether he actually has sex with her or not) refrains from extramarital sexual activity is just fine and dandy. The Songbird character didn’t get married; the Memory of Earth one did. But the former, while not “demonized”, was presented as a fairly weak person; the latter was supposed to be a generally decent guy.
Where does OSC even attempt to do so? He generally just leaves the actual sex scenes out of the books, to the best of my recollection. Would that Turtledove had shown similar restraint.
It has been a while since a read any Card but Folk of the Fringe included a really bizarre story about sex between a young white boy and an middle-aged native American. The Enders Game sequels almost all include ostensibly sexual relationships and he tries to describe aspects of that and moments when, presumably, the characters would be experiencing sexual attraction.
Ok, I was thinking more in terms of straight-out sex scenes, as in Turtledove, where the tab goes in the slot. I must say I didn’t find OSC’s writing on sexual attraction particularly awkward; what about it did you dislike so?
Sorry, really late reply. Was just looking over this thread and happened to see this.
Card’s writing that involves sexual attraction just comes off as asexual. I never got the sense that the characters were actually sexually attracted to each other; affectionate maybe, but not aroused. It’s like the way sexuality looks on tv, not the way people actually experience it. I recall reading Card himself say that he didn’t think he was very good at writing about sex or sexual attractions in an interview or something. It might have been in the Folk of the the Fringe book somewhere but I can’t find it in my library.
Ok, I guess I agree with that. He either cannot or will not write such that you feel the emotions associated with sexual attraction; it is an area where he tells rather than showing. Perhaps this is a deliberate choice based in his Mormon religion; he’s also rather down on porn. Either way, though, it seems to me that his stories rarely suffer from this. To take an example, ‘Empire’ is way worse than the Ender sequels, but it’s not because of the sex; indeed it has effectively zero sex in it, even of the kind you describe. Rather it suffers from being nearly-explicit propaganda.
I don’t know whether to be surprised that no one has recommended the Ender’s Game series or not. They’re not terribly realistic in the tech (especially toward the end of the series), and don’t address the idea of a technological singularity, but they’re a good read anyway.
Oh—I’m not sure if this is what you were thinking of by sci-fi or not, and it gets a bit new-agey, but Spider Robinson’s “Telempath” is a personal favorite. It’s set in a near-future (at the time of writing) earth after a virus was released that magnified everyone’s sense of smell to the point where cities, and most modern methods of producing things, became intolerable. (Does anyone else have post-apocalyptic themed favorites? I have a fondness for the genre, sci-fi or not.)
I had a high opinion of Ender’s Game once (less so for its sequels). Then I read this.
A poorly thought out, insult-filled rant comparing scenes in Ender’s Game to “cumshots” changed your view of a classic, award-winning science fiction novel? Please reconsider.
If you strip out the invective and the appeal to emotion embodied in the metaphorical comparison to porn, there yet remains valid criticism of the structure and implied moral standards of the book.
I did not believe this was possible, but this analysis has turned EG into ashes retroactively. Still, it gets lots of kids into scifi, so there is some value.
A really great kids scifi book is “Have spacesuit, will travel” by Heinlein.
I’ve heard that effect called “the suck fairy”. The suck fairy sneaks into your life and replaces books you used to love with vaguely similar books that suck.
Great name, but unfortunately it’s the same book; the analysis made it incompatible with self-respect.
The suck fairy always brings something that looks exactly like the same book, but somehow....
I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to enjoy Macroscope again. Anthony was really interesting about an information gift economy, but I suspect that “vaguely creepy about women” is going to turn into something much worse.
I recommended “A Canticle for Leibowitz” and “Jericho” earlier. Also, Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead would have been the next two books on my list, though I read them when I was younger and don’t know if they would be appealing to adults. How do people think Card (a devout Mormon) does at writing atheist/agnostic characters (nearly all the main characters in the series)?
I haven’t really thought about his portrayal of atheists, but he did a good enough job of writing a convincing, non-demonized gay man in Songbird that I was speechless when I discovered that he firmly believes that such people are going to hell.
He believes that they are sinning. Mormons have a really complicated dolled-up afterlife, so if he’s sticking to doctrine, he probably doesn’t actually expect gays as a group to all go to Hell.
Edit: He did a gay guy in the Memory of Earth series too (the plot of which, I later found, is a blatant ripoff of the Book of Mormon). Like the gay guy in Songbird, this one ends up with a woman, although less tragically.
I have to say. It is an interesting coincidence that he has written two gay characters that end up with women. Especially since he is absolutely terrible at writing (heterosexual) sex scenes/sexuality- I mean really I’ve never read a professional writer who was worse at this.
Is there any significance to how OSC avoids using the standard terms for gay, but instead uses a made-up in-world term for it that you have to infer means “gay”. (At least in the Memory of Earth series; I haven’t read the other.)
wtf? that’s the kwyjiboest thing I’ve ever seen. omg lol
I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all. The way I understand it is that under Mormon doctrine, the act, not the temptation towards the act, is what’s a sin: so a gay character who marries a woman and (regardless of whether he actually has sex with her or not) refrains from extramarital sexual activity is just fine and dandy. The Songbird character didn’t get married; the Memory of Earth one did. But the former, while not “demonized”, was presented as a fairly weak person; the latter was supposed to be a generally decent guy.
Where does OSC even attempt to do so? He generally just leaves the actual sex scenes out of the books, to the best of my recollection. Would that Turtledove had shown similar restraint.
It has been a while since a read any Card but Folk of the Fringe included a really bizarre story about sex between a young white boy and an middle-aged native American. The Enders Game sequels almost all include ostensibly sexual relationships and he tries to describe aspects of that and moments when, presumably, the characters would be experiencing sexual attraction.
Ok, I was thinking more in terms of straight-out sex scenes, as in Turtledove, where the tab goes in the slot. I must say I didn’t find OSC’s writing on sexual attraction particularly awkward; what about it did you dislike so?
Sorry, really late reply. Was just looking over this thread and happened to see this.
Card’s writing that involves sexual attraction just comes off as asexual. I never got the sense that the characters were actually sexually attracted to each other; affectionate maybe, but not aroused. It’s like the way sexuality looks on tv, not the way people actually experience it. I recall reading Card himself say that he didn’t think he was very good at writing about sex or sexual attractions in an interview or something. It might have been in the Folk of the the Fringe book somewhere but I can’t find it in my library.
Ok, I guess I agree with that. He either cannot or will not write such that you feel the emotions associated with sexual attraction; it is an area where he tells rather than showing. Perhaps this is a deliberate choice based in his Mormon religion; he’s also rather down on porn. Either way, though, it seems to me that his stories rarely suffer from this. To take an example, ‘Empire’ is way worse than the Ender sequels, but it’s not because of the sex; indeed it has effectively zero sex in it, even of the kind you describe. Rather it suffers from being nearly-explicit propaganda.
I went back and checked my source (wikipedia); you’re right, I’d mis-remembered.