are his books really popular? i only know of him from his asinine essays.

His books are very popular. Ender's Game was great. That article is a bunch of hooey.

Card is conservative and a devout Mormon. The latter, especially, greatly limits his view of the world. Within that, though, I find him thoughtful, humane, and intelligent.

And I say that as someone who had a lengthy private correspondence with him a long time ago—1990, maybe—where we discussed gay rights. This was back when he had what was then a relatively small community on CompuServe. Anyway, I argued in favor, he argued against. He was well-mannered and mostly reasonable...but constrained by his belief system. I wasn't able to convince him of my view, but he did acknolwedge that I made some dents in his arguments.

Overall, I've long thought that he was good, intelligent person. He starts from some premises that I will not accept. So do a lot of people. That doesn't make them evil. And being conservative in the way that Card is doesn't make him a fascist, either. He's who he is.

He's a gibbering loon.

That's a dodgy article.

"Enders Game was about Hitler. We have proof, but we're not going to show it you. You'll have to find the obscure magazine backprint. Or believe us. Which is easier."

"I went to a convention and someone threatened to hit me. I'm not explaining what that has to do with Card, but I believe he is ultimately responsible."

and the all time classic...

"Card didn't write Ender's Game. It's too good. In later conversations, he didn't remember every single fact in the book. The third in the series was inferior. That's proof."

Here's an actual quote.

it is simply impossible that Ender's Game and Speaker were written by someone who did not have a very detailed knowledge of Adolph Hitler's life. There are very exact parallels in there that you wouldn't even notice unless you read the footnotes to the most detailed Hitler biographies.

I think Orson Scott Card is a stupid dangerous man, but this article is nothing but hot air. Until the author publishes the "Ender is Hitler" article and it's peer-reviewed by people I trust I'm gonna say that he's talking nothing but rubbish.

The Ender's Game stuff was not good. It was crap. It was crap even by the regrettably standards-lowered SF yardstick.

Card wrote Unaccompanied Sonata early in his career, which was swell when I was 12. Meant something to me around the time my balls dropped. But he's never risen higher than that, I reckon, and I remain boggled that anyone other than self-absorbed adolescents (as I was) think that his later output is anything other than tedious gollywow hackery.

The linked rant was pretty dumb (though fascinating in a gossipy sort of way), but the John Kessel article it linked is excellent -- long, but well worth your time.

Oh, and Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are wonderful SF. I've long gotten over the fact that bad men write good books.

*jinx!* [/heavy gravity]

I've long gotten over the fact that bad men write good books.

I'm having more and more problems dealing with this issue. I've never read the Ender books but I loved the Alvin books and mostly liked the Memories of Earth series but I'm not sure how much more of his stuff I really want to read. It's not a really a big issue since Grad school has kept me from doing any recreational reading for years anyway but someday I'll read again and it probably won't be Card's stuff. Unaccompanied Sonata was a great story though, I remember reading that in Omni many years ago.

read some le guin or slonczewski as penance. ;o)

Donna Minkowitz's 2000 interview with Card in Salon is cranky and good, too.