why hast thou forsaken me?

[ironymaiden]

i was happily reading an amusing eljay post, which led me to Chronotic Log, where i found a post about Orson Scott Card.

*sigh*

i've mentioned previously that i loved this guy's books, but in recent years he's just gone batshit loco. it's not so much about his odious politics, but about steadily deteriorating storytelling, awkward prose, and giving established characters the equivalent of personality transplants. (i'm not going into the reproduction obsession or the way a fun alt history turned into a full-on Mormon fantasia...)

i still have some great novels he wrote on my shelf, and i can't help but perk up when i see his name. there was a time when i could pick up anything he had written and be transported into richly realized worlds with interesting characters that i cared about.

but this is just painful. it's an in interesting concept...at first i thought that i would get it from the library so that i could give it a fair shake, but i couldn't even finish the leaden first page of the excerpt.

i already had decided that Mr. Card wouldn't be seeing any more of my money, and now he certainly won't get any of my time either.

Comments

[eyemage.livejournal.com]

i feel the same...

such proven talents twisted in madness.

its just sad.

[mrdorbin.livejournal.com]

I saw it in the bookstore the other day. I decided not to bring it up because it would make too many people sad. I'm now afraid to go back and reread Ender's Game for fear looking at it with a newly critical eye might ruin it for me.

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

I bailed when I realized fifteen years ago (it was the first book of Homecoming) that he consistently tortures his child protagonists -- not just runs them through the mill but actually hurts them. Often it feels as though he's doing it only for the shock value. I still feel queasy when I remember one egregious scene.

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's some bad prose. I feel sorry.

[lleather.livejournal.com]

yeah that excerpt was...not good...

:/

grrr

[webcowgirl.livejournal.com]

Ick. Thnks for the warning. I had to stop reading the alt history series about three years ago when it started looking like it was taking the same trip to kookieville the Homecoming series was (what with it's approval of sex with barely-pubescent girls and glorification of the tearing down of women's power). WTF is wrong with Card these days? Did he forget it was right wing American nuts who bombed Oklahoma City? I guess he just doesn't like to remember the stuff that's inconvenient for him. Maybe he can go be a guest speaker at Mars Hill or something.

Can I say again how glad I am that the Ds took over Congress?