Tag Archives: orson scott card

Book Review of Orson Scott Card’s “Wakers” (2022)

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© James Pyles

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I finished Orson Scott Card’s novel Wakers last night. Naturally it’s the first book in a trilogy because all books have to be trilogies if not expanded series these days.

Like most people, I was introduced to Card’s writing long ago through Ender’s Game and the subsequent novels in that series. I’m glad to see that Card is still writing and still successful.

In the past twenty years or so, the current gatekeepers of science fiction determined never again to heap any sort of award upon him. This was because he had committed the grievous crime of being religious and making public statements about how his beliefs are guided by such. Between 1978 and 1995, he did win numerous accolades, but the only award post 2000 he’s been granted is the ALA Best Books for Young Adults for “Shadow of the Hegemon.”

Yes, I read “Wakers,” in part, to thumb my nose (like they even know I’m alive) at the exclusionists who run “official” science fiction and fantasy. You know, the folks who claim they want to be “inclusive” and then just shuffle around the players so certain groups are favored at the expense of others, what they say has always been done and they’re still doing it. The only difference is which groups are included and which groups are not. That’s not inclusive, that’s a shell game.

I’m a sucker for an “underdog” (Card’s doing pretty well, but still…) so I checked “Wakers” out of my local public library.

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Tolerance, Intolerance, and the World of the “Stale, Pale Male Crowd”

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Image of the cover of Orson Scott Card’s book “How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy”

On the heels of my blog posts Looks Like the 2020 Hugo Awards Once Again Sucked, Loving and Fearing SF/F Fandom, and the currently highly popular Is SciFi Author/Editor Robert Silverberg Really Racist and Sexist (or has the internet once again lost its mind)?, a library book I just finished and am about to return caught my attention.

Written by Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead) the small book How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy was my choice to re-read in the hopes of dragging myself out of my current writing slump.

Published in 2001, all of the advice about how to publish, market, and, of course, win awards (Card won two Hugos, a Nebula, a Lotus, and in 1978, the John W. Campbell [now renamed Astounding] Award for Best New Writer) are outdated and useless.

But his lessons on how to write remain pretty much timeless, especially when you are actually learning the craft rather than trying to promote a social position, attitude, or bias (I say that knowing that all stories contain the biases of their authors, but lately, it’s gotten so much more obvious and even blatant).

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The Evolution of Religious Themes in My Fiction

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What discussing religion online is like sometimes

I mentioned in the comments section of The Good Robot that I’m not so much writing religious science fiction as writing science fiction with certain religious and spiritual elements. The distinction is important. Except for some noteworthy exceptions, religious science fiction, such as Christian science fiction or Jewish science fiction, will appeal to only a limited audience.

Of course, the same can be said of science fiction in general, but the number of people who will read the latter is probably much larger than those who would read the former.

That said, sources such as Amazon and Wikipedia highlight a great number of science fiction stories that leverage religious themes, but these are sometimes fictional religions rather than ones we are aware of in our world, or very fictionalized versions of religions we’re familiar with in our lives.

I came across an interview with Orson Scott Card at Writing-World.com that reminded me that in most fiction, including science fiction, religious people and religion (specifically Christianity and Judaism) are depicted in unfavorable ways.

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