Wow, fist Niven spouts off racist rhetoric about "illegals" flooding emergency rooms in California, nos OSC is coming on strong as a she-hater.

WTF?

Hey guys, just because you worship Heinlein's long dead dick does not mean you have to turn in to him.

Dammit.

I just started reading Ender's Game and am enjoying it so far. Why does he have to be a douchebag?

Ugh. I kinda liked his Alvin Maker series, and Ender's Game is fun. I loved your blog, and may have to add it to my daily Internet routine.
OSC is my ex-boyfriend's favorite author, but he always burried his head in the sand when anyone mentioned Card's politics. I wish we were still in touch so I could send this to him ;) It's hard to overlook his douchery after reading that.

Ew...our city (in NC) picked Ender's Game as its community common read a year or so ago, and I don;t remember there being any discussion of his, um, opinions. Of course, when the library picked I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, there was all sorts of drama from local conservative religious groups. I had no idea Card had these ieas. Thanks for the post!

What is it with popular science fiction writers? Why do they always end up being such douchebags? I love science fiction but it's stuff like this that makes it really hard for me to be willing to spend any money on it.

man, i liked ender's game as much as the next kid, but i try to avoid any nonfiction he writes, knowing OSC is a total godbag nutjob.

i read your whole post and thoroughly enjoyed your taking him to task nearly line by line.

i especially love how he dismisses the concepts of "fairness" and "compassion" as somehow meaningless. um. i'm not a christian and i'm not about to debate what the bible says (or doesn't say) about gay people, because frankly i couldn't care less, but i'm pretty sure from what i remember of sunday school and church camp that jesus was like, all about compassion and shit. what IS relevant is that fairness and compassion have been deeply held AMERICAN values since our nation was formed (if not always actually practiced). i'm going to go on a law geek rant, but seriously our constitution is lovely in so many ways because a lot of it was written in deliberately vague and aspirational language, leaving it up to the courts (ultimately the supreme court) to interpret and re-interpret those words so that we can continue to evolve as a nation. that's why it's lasted so long. it is EXACTLY the job of courts to decide whether something violates a state or US constitution or not. that's kind of what we pay those be-robed guys and gals to do.

i'm pretty sure from what i remember of sunday school and church camp that jesus was like, all about compassion and shit.

Yeah, I thought I'd heard that somewhere too. Whodathunkit.