Orson Scott Card is a terrible person and writer

In that order.

So I'm going to preface this by saying that I loved Ender's Game a lot. A lot a lot. I first read it back in elementary school, and the novel managed to grab my attention and imagination almost as much as Gundam has. I used to re-read it yearly. I've done numerous book reports and essays on the thing. I damn near had it memorized at one point. So I really hope you understand exactly how much had to happen for me to swear the book off.

I did a few years ago, notably around the time the game Shadow Complex was getting a lot of hype. The sequel's to Ender's Game were both fairly forgettable novels, to the point that I wasn't too curious about the rest of Card's output. I still considered myself a fan, though it was more of a lapsed nerddom. That was when I heard about his Empire Duet stories and some of his.... Extracurricular activities. Now, those two things were both enough to get me to swear off Ender's Game. The Empire novels are about a liberal uprising that takes control of the United States through military exertion and then proceeds to hold the nation through a dictatorship.

Anyone with a working frontal lobe can understand why that's a very "Wat." reaction. Subsequently, because Shadow Complex is set in between the novels, I have not (and will not) play it, despite the fact that it's supposed to be very good.

And when not writing, Orson Scott Card is an outspoken Mormon (ew) who happens to be on the board for the National Organization for Marriage and is fairly outspoken in his stance against homosexuality and his want to return to pre-1960's.

Again, working frontal lobe, terrible thing, et cetera and so forth.

So I guess I'm not terribly surprised, per se, that Mr. Card proved himself to be a terrible person again in a new book. But I honestly never would have attributed him as a terrible author.

That new book is, well, not all that new at all. It turns out that Card recently penned an adaptation of Hamlet (Yes, that Hamlet), released as Hamlet's Father. I highly suggest you read that link, by the by. It's for the review that I heard about this from, and I'm going to pull liberally from it.

So right, let's ignore for a moment the fact that Card continues to be a reprehensible person (though it's arguably a greater sin). Here's the changes that Card has decided to make to Hamlet, a play about an incredibly torn prince who needs to do something, but can never decide if it's quite the right thing/time/whatever and so struggles with something that he knows must happen for all five acts.

In this adaptation, Hamlet was never close to his father. The prince is unfazed and emotionally indifferent to the old king's death, feels no sense of betrayal when his mother speedily remarries, and thinks that Claudius will make a perfectly good monarch. Hamlet is also secure in his religious faith, with absolute and unshakable beliefs about the nature of death and the afterlife. He isn't particularly hung up on Ophelia, either.

 So, in perhaps the greatest single instance of Missing The Point I have ever seen, Orson Scott Card has more or less removed everything that makes Hamlet interesting. Gone is the prince that philosophizes on life and action, on death and inaction. Gone is any semblance of sense to the plot. Gone is the artistry with which the Bard did make us empathize with a murderer. Now, this would be bad enough, but Orson decided he needed to take it a step further.

He made Hamlet's Father, the title character of this revision and the entire reason the story happens, a gay child molester. Now, this, in turn, made Horatio, Laertes, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern all gay, because the Old King molested all of them. On top of that, Hamlet's Papa was inadequate at his job anyway (because he was gay), which is another reason that Hamlet doesn't miss him at all.

I just. What. I mean, really. What? In whose deranged mind is it ok to write things like this? It would be bad enough if all he had done was make Hamlet all wishy-washy. That would still rate this as a terrible adaptation unworthy of the very pulp it's printed on. But then to shoe horn in your own anti-homosexual agenda?

Orson Scott Card, you are a veritable waste of a person, and never have I been more ashamed to have once liked a book.