I will never forgive Orson Scott Card for writing Speaker of the Dead. It's a book largely concerned with understanding an alien culture and smoothing over misunderstandings. He shows how two cultures can be in conflict over different social formations shaped by different living conditions, and how that can be resolved when you stop viewing the other as inherently inferior. It's a beautiful story. And yet Orson Scott Card himself is a ferocious bigot of the homophobic variety.
I remember liking Speaker a lot but I haven’t looked at it in twenty years. Can’t remember if that’s the one where the main characters become incredibly important internet shitposters traveling through the galaxy at near light speed.
That was Ender's Game and it was Ender's siblings. They were convinced a human world war would start if the bug war ended, so they put together a plan to trick the world into being nicer by...having online debates through pseudonyms. The sister would write very paranoid stuff about Russia to seem manic in comparison to the brother, who'd write more pragmatic stuff and deconstruct everything she talked about.
I will never forgive Orson Scott Card for writing Speaker of the Dead. It's a book largely concerned with understanding an alien culture and smoothing over misunderstandings. He shows how two cultures can be in conflict over different social formations shaped by different living conditions, and how that can be resolved when you stop viewing the other as inherently inferior. It's a beautiful story. And yet Orson Scott Card himself is a ferocious bigot of the homophobic variety.
I remember liking Speaker a lot but I haven’t looked at it in twenty years. Can’t remember if that’s the one where the main characters become incredibly important internet shitposters traveling through the galaxy at near light speed.
That was Ender's Game and it was Ender's siblings. They were convinced a human world war would start if the bug war ended, so they put together a plan to trick the world into being nicer by...having online debates through pseudonyms. The sister would write very paranoid stuff about Russia to seem manic in comparison to the brother, who'd write more pragmatic stuff and deconstruct everything she talked about.
Somehow it worked?
Holy shit we have decoded the secrets of Russiagate!!!!/s
I never read it but I'm told the last few books he wrote in the Ender series throw everything out and are like "Yeah actually xenocide is good."
Only 3 books you need to care about:
Enders game
Enders shadow
Speaker of the Dead