"Magic Street" by Orson Scott Card

[Andybaby]

Orson Scott Card has the distinction of having swept both the Hugo and Nebula awards in two consecutive years with his amazing novels Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. For a body of work that ranges from science fiction to nonfiction to plays, Card has been recognized as an author who provides vivid, colorful glimpses between the world we know and worlds we can only imagine. In a peaceful, prosperous African American neighborhood in Los Angeles, Mack Street is a mystery child who has somehow found a home . Discovered abandoned in an overgrown park, raised by a blunt-speaking single woman, Mack comes and goes from family to family -- a boy who is at once surrounded by boisterous characters and deeply alone. But while Mack senses that he is different from most, and knows that he has strange powers, he cannot understand how unusual he is until the day he sees, in a thin slice of space, a narrow house. Beyond it is a backyard -- and an entryway into an extraordinary world stretching off into an exotic distance of geography, history, and magic.
Passing through the skinny house that no one else can see, Mack is plunged into a realm where time and reality are skewed, a place where what Mack does seems to have strange effects on the "real world" of concrete, cars, commerce, and conflict. Growing into a tall, powerful young man, pursuing a forbidden relationship, and using Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream as a guide into the vast, timeless fantasy world, Mack becomes a player in an epic drama. Understanding this drama is Mack's challenge. His reward, if he can survive the trip, is discovering not only who he really is . . . but why he exists.
Both a novel of constantly surprising entertainment and a tale of breathtaking literary power, Magic Street is a masterwork from a supremely gifted, utterly original American writer -- a novel that uses realism and fantasy to delight, challenge, and satisfy on the most profound levels.

Well this was an interesting novel. OSC has problems with the tone In the first 3 chapters, it seems really like a 50 year old white guy trying to be a 12 year old black boy in the ghetto. That coupled with the strangeness of the first 3 chapters, a guy loosing total control to a homeless guy. An entire chapter about a two boys walking to go find some place to smoke some weed, the conversation of two women in the neighborhood, and the conception and birth of a baby in less than an hour.

The book throws a whole lot of crazy at you at first, and then it all starts to make sense after that, OSC stops trying so hard and just writes, the story flows into you as each mystery is unfolded. All the magic in the world is revealed, he ties a lot of the fantastic fiction into this, focusing mostly around the fairies in a mid summers night dream.

It was an original look on old fables and very enjoyable. And it’s nice to see a story with an ending from OSC.

[Andurian]

I can only urge that people boycott books by Card. He has advocated violent revolution against the US government should gay marriage become widely legal.

[Andybaby]

Originally Posted by Andurian

I can only urge that people boycott books by Card. He has advocated violent revolution against the US government should gay marriage become widely legal.

Heinlein also wrote revolutionary Essays, doesnt mean a thing, seriously.

He writes those essays to Invoke discussion, honestly, no one will ever change their views on gay marriage, but for those who dont care, when they read something like that they are pushed to the Pro gay marriage side.

Card is also a widely Religious man, yet he writes science fiction, and in this novel, he makes a Priest not believe in himself and doubt his service to god. and in the alvin maker series, many characters dont believe in god, in fact the white men, those who believes in his god, are a plague upon the land. his writing in novels do not try to convert you.

Essays are essays, In my time i have written many essays which i do not agree with, they are there to invoke discussion. They are there for you to say I disagree with that.

In reading those essays you didnt find them over the top? I believe he wrote it to say quite the opposite.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Andurian

I can only urge that people boycott books by Card. He has advocated violent revolution against the US government should gay marriage become widely legal.

How many threads will you post your accusations on? The above statement is an outright lie. I include the link for people to make their own judgements. Shame!

http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/?id=3237

[Andybaby]

Originally Posted by OSC

Here's the irony: There is no branch of government with the authority to redefine marriage. Marriage is older than government. Its meaning is universal: It is the permanent or semipermanent bond between a man and a woman, establishing responsibilities between the couple and any children that ensue.

BTW I Agree with the above statement, and i also agree that gays should marry.

but if a church wants to marry two gays, i think it should be allowed. short and simple.

btw andurian, OSC's website is a great place where you can talk about your feelings about this, it you want to have a rationale discussion about this anyway.

though this thread is about a Novel Written by Orson Scott Card, Attacking Card for his Political Views is as wrong as someone attacking an author cause he is gay. Andurian, who is stopping you from writing a counter Essay? You can even try to get it published, If not, you can post it on OSCs website forum and i bet he would even read it.

(I can see OSC's plan now, OSC writes science fiction to support his plot to overthrow the US government... come on)

[Andurian]

[QUOTE=Andybaby;330728]Attacking Card for his Political Views is as wrong as someone attacking an author cause he is gay./QUOTE]

Attacking people for their political views is entirely reasonable and a longstanding tradition in western culture. If you're saying that attacking people for evil political views (see Hitler, Stalin, Machiavelli) is wrong, I'm not a good target audience.

And equating a political position, which is chosen, with homosexuality, which is not, is ridiculous.

[Andurian]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

How many threads will you post your accusations on? The above statement is an outright lie. I include the link for people to make their own judgements. Shame!

http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/?id=3237

That would be the incredibly high, difficult to count to, outrageous sum of TWO.

OMG, TWO! Such an insanely high number! I'm clearly posting that practically everywhere!

As I posted elsewhere, I was at work and could not post the link. I'm happy you did, so people can go and read firsthand what a reactionary bigot OSC is.

And, as for calling people liars because they interpret things differently than you, shame on you, DesertGrandma, shame on you.

[moz]

Originally Posted by Andurian

Attacking people for their political views is entirely reasonable and a longstanding tradition in western culture. If you're saying that attacking people for evil political views (see Hitler, Stalin, Machiavelli) is wrong, I'm not a good target audience.

My thoughts exactly.

Moral relativism has its place, on the bookshelf next to the books on intelligent design and the celestial spheres. Judging someone because they make stupid choices is sometimes best done privately, but publicly responding to public stupidity is exactly what is required. The essay linked is not reality-based in any meaningful way.

As is common with people who have a grasp of rhetoric, he throws in enough truth to hopefully confuse people, but not enough in this case. Not to mention that the occasional truth stands out because it contradicts the rest of his argument. Oops.

Originally Posted by OSC

The laws concerning marriage did not create marriage, they merely attempted to solve problems in such areas as inheritance, property, paternity, divorce, adoption and so on.

So he's arguing that extending legal recognition of gay partnerships in exactly the same way that some (and only some) other marriages are legally recognised, is going to lead to all sorts of awful things, while solving a heap of messy legal problems for the families concerned. Problems like religions being forced to acknowledge gay people (who he admits he has serious issues with acknowledging). For someone whose co-religionists practice polygamous marriage without state sanction and complain bitterly about that (I suspect he may be alluding to this), he seems awfully keen to keep others in the same bad situation. And the bad outcomes don't seem very bad to me. Perhaps they're only bad because his imaginary friend says so, because he gives precious little in the way of reasons.


That said, I won't buy his books because he's lost the plot. Some of his earlier novels were quite good, but the later ones have gone downhill to the point of unreadability. And the more I find out about his delusions, the more I'm convinced that he wouldn't want my heathen, unnatural, gay-sex-tainted money.

Actually, speaking of weird belief systems that make no sense, our local red Cross have truly bizarre rules about donating blood. Specifically, as a bisexual male I can donate blood if I sign to say I haven't had sex with another guy for the last year. Fine. But my female partner cannot give blood, because she's had sex with a gay or bisexual male.

[Over]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

How many threads will you post your accusations on? The above statement is an outright lie. I include the link for people to make their own judgements. Shame!

http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/?id=3237

I guess this is the polemic part:

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

Biological imperatives trump laws. American government cannot fight against marriage and hope to endure. If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die.

But I have to agree with this:

Please remember that for the mildest of comments critical of the political agenda of homosexual activists, I have been called a "homophobe" for years.

This is a term that was invented to describe people with a pathological fear of homosexuals -- the kind of people who engage in acts of violence against gays. But the term was immediately extended to apply to anyone who opposed the homosexual activist agenda in any way.

A term that has mental-health implications (homophobe) is now routinely applied to anyone who deviates from the politically correct line. How long before opposing gay marriage, or refusing to recognize it, gets you officially classified as "mentally ill"?

[Andybaby]

[QUOTE=Andurian;330792]

Originally Posted by Andybaby

Attacking Card for his Political Views is as wrong as someone attacking an author cause he is gay./QUOTE]

Attacking people for their political views is entirely reasonable and a longstanding tradition in western culture. If you're saying that attacking people for evil political views (see Hitler, Stalin, Machiavelli) is wrong, I'm not a good target audience.

And equating a political position, which is chosen, with homosexuality, which is not, is ridiculous.

Im sorry. I ment attacking a Novel for the political views of the author is as stupid as if you didn't read a novel because the author is gay.

And the Points a made address this. the political views of the author have no bearing on the novel itself unless the author brings those views into the novel.

I also love the way you misquote me by taking what i said out of the context of the post(which i cleared up above). And you ignore my opinions of you yourself writing an essay, and my opinions of essays as a whole.

can we stop looking to attack someone?

[daesdaemar]

Anyone who has studied ethics knows that one of its basic tenets is that there is not [necessarily] any relationship between what is moral and what is legal. Moral refers to right and wrong, good and evil. Laws are meant to control behaviors within societies. This control of behavior is necessary [in the view of governments] to maintain an orderly society [within their definition of an "orderly society"]. From a moral philosophical perspective, many laws can be strongly argued to be immoral/evil.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Andurian

That would be the incredibly high, difficult to count to, outrageous sum of TWO.

OMG, TWO! Such an insanely high number! I'm clearly posting that practically everywhere!

As I posted elsewhere, I was at work and could not post the link. I'm happy you did, so people can go and read firsthand what a reactionary bigot OSC is.

And, as for calling people liars because they interpret things differently than you, shame on you, DesertGrandma, shame on you.

I don't think so.

You cannot post such an inflammatory comment with backing it up with the source, without being called on it.

Just to make things clear, I have no affiliation with mormons. Actually, there is no organized religion I have any respect for. My opinions are my own, without being told by anyone, from any party, what to think.

You made a very serious charge based on your interpretation of what you read, without quoting basis for it.

That is every bit as reactionary as what you claim this person did.

Now I'm going to have to go buy all his books.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Now I'm going to have to go buy all his books.

I don't consider an author's opinions when selecting a book. All I care about is whether the book is any good.
I've long since realised that people I'd consider nasty can still make great art - annoying but true .

The real problem is when an author sledgehammers his views into the narrative to such an extent it spoils the effect (I found this with Philip Pullman's 'Dark Materials' books - I actually agree with his views, but got fed up being battered round the head by them).

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

I don't think so.

You cannot post such an inflammatory comment with backing it up with the source, without being called on it.

Just to make things clear, I have no affiliation with mormons. Actually, there is no organized religion I have any respect for. My opinions are my own, without being told by anyone, from any party, what to think.

You made a very serious charge based on your interpretation of what you read, without quoting basis for it.

That is every bit as reactionary as what you claim this person did.

Now I'm going to have to go buy all his books.

DG laying the smackdown!

Andurian - I think you're better off arguing about this somewhere else.

[Andybaby]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I don't consider an author's opinions when selecting a book. All I care about is whether the book is any good.
I've long since realised that people I'd consider nasty can still make great art - annoying but true .

The real problem is when an author sledgehammers his views into the narrative to such an extent it spoils the effect (I found this with Philip Pullman's 'Dark Materials' books - I actually agree with his views, but got fed up being battered round the head by them).

I Agree 100% and OSC defenatly keeps his private life private in his novels.

I'm an Atheist, and though god plays a part in almost all his novels, he isn't trying to convert me. He portrays many of his characters as Jesus Like in Ability in this book and in the Alvin Maker Series, (and to a Lesser Extent Ender)

but in Alvin Maker, Christians are a Plague upon the Land, and Jesus just had a Knack like Alvin Does
in Ender, a Different Cult Religion has taken over the Universe, Speaker for the dead.
and in this Novel their is a priest who recites miracles and doubts his gift is from god and Implies Jesus was a Fairy, or Fairy Spawn.

His writings do not try to change you mind about his religion. In fact in the Speaker Series, it is quite a though provoking series on Xenophobia, which can be applied to Homophobia and Racism.