I gave up buying Card's books after reading Yonmei's 5-part essay,
Dissecting Orson Scott Card. A writer's personal failings may not be reflected in his art, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to give money to homophobic bigots even if I like their art. (And I started to question his art; his sex-phobic approach to storytelling was obvious once I got past the angst of the individual characters and looked at the societies in which they lived.)
I actively seek out info about authors whose works I love; if I think they're despicable people, I don't want to be supporting them. I don't feel better by keeping myself ignorant of people who are working to destroy families I care about.
I reconsidered the content of his books after reading Elaine Radford's essay,
ender and hitler: sympathy for the superman (20 years later).
And I stopped reading him entirely, and stopped recommending his books, after running across John Kessel's
Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality. I hit the realization that these are not ethics I want to support, don't want to expose my children to while they're young. Kessel points out,
Quote:
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In every situation where Ender wields violence against someone, the focus of the narrative’s sympathy is always and invariably on Ender, not on the objects of Ender’s violence. It is Ender who is offering up the voluntary sacrifice, and that sacrifice is the emotional price he must pay for physically destroying someone else. All the force of such passages is on the price paid by the destroyer, not on the price paid by the destroyed.
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