I've never been a big believer in a person's politics affecting their art. If Adolf Hitler had done some rather fantastic paintings, they wouldn't be less so just because Hitler was the man behind the brush. The paintings wouldn't any the less beautiful just because a deplorable man painted them, and conversely he wouldn't be any less evil just because he's painted some pretty pictures. Why do I bring this up? Because I'm going to talk about Orson Scott Card.
First of all I'm not calling Mr Card evil. Some of his politics are definitely questionable. However, I am a huge fan of Ender's Game, the first book being a sci-fi classic in my opinion. The sequels are a different kettle of fish but I still thoroughly enjoy them.
However, the name Orson Scott Card gets trotted out and there are people out there who go bat shit crazy. Sometimes I have to agree, his recent re-editing of Hamlet to fill it with homophobia is just plain wrong. Other times I really don't, for instance I remember when the Xbox Live Arcarde title Shadow Complex was coming out and the news that OSC had helped with the story had set off calls for a boycott. Judging by its sales figures this was generally ignored. I know I certainly did, and in my opinion its one of the best games ever released on XBLA.
It also seems that OSC enjoyed the story so much that he decided to work a bit more in the world and wrote a novel, Empire, that runs concurrently to the game (actually I think it overrules the game with its own story but we won't get into that here). The book I also thoroughly enjoyed. Now this was the first time I had ever read OSC outside of the Enderverse but to me it was just your average novel, the politics being what fitted the story, of course the writer's own coming through a little but nothing overwhelming.
This week I finally started on Hidden Empire, the sequel, and My God is it ever preachy. It starts early on as each chapter starts with a bit of a speech from the possibly evil President letting OSC air his thoughts on a number of issues, first of all hitting a range of subjects like our unpreparedness for stopping an Earth bound meteor, global warming and fossil fuels. Some he has a point with, others I disagree but all are massive generalisations with huge faults in the arguments.
Then there's the main woman's home life which is so sweet to start with I think I may have developed diabetes. But then it all goes a bit Pete Tong when the eldest kid starts arguments about what it means to be a good Christian for a few chapters. Then it takes over the whole sodding book for a while with religious types staging protests so they can bugger off to deal with the sick.
Now OSC is nice here and doesn't just have Christians holding the moral high ground but all the religions (though they certainly start it). It's never someone doing it because of their morals or it's wrong to leave the sick with no care, it's always because of religion. This is bullshit. It's like saying no one will ever join Doctors without Borders or some other great outfit unless they have God in their life to make them nice. People are quite capable of doing good deeds without having to thank the Bible/Qur'an etc.
I guess my real problem is that this is a sequel to what was a political thriller, while this is propaganda masquerading as a political thriller.
