Orson Scott Card
| Name: | Orson Scott Card |
| Also Known As: | |
| Occupation: | Writer |
| Medium: | Novel, Comics |
| Works: | Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon |
| Official Website(s): | http://www.hatrack.com/ |
| Fan Website(s): | |
| On Fanlore: | Related pages |
Orson Scott Card is a novelist, critic, public speaker, essayist and columnist. He is best-known best as a science fiction author. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards.
Card's Attitude to Fan Fiction
His site says this:
I'm flattered; and then, if they try to publish it (including on the net) except in very restricted circumstances, I will sue, because if I do NOT act vigorously to protect my copyright, I will lose that copyright -- and that is the only inheritance I have to leave my family. So fan fiction, while flattering, is also an attack on my means of livelihood. It is also a poor substitute for the writers' inventing their own characters and situations. It does not help them as writers; it can easily harm me; and those who care about my stories and characters know that what I write is "real" and has authority, and what fans write is not and does not. So it's all pointless. I'd prefer simply to ignore it when it happens, but the way copyright law functions, I am told that I cannot ignore it. [1]
This is ironic when considered in context of the fact that Card has authored at least a few works of fan fiction:[2][3] "Card ... explained that although fanfiction is terrible and unimaginative, he wanted to write it to prove how much better his fanfiction was than everyone else’s fanfiction."[4]
From a June 2010 Wall Street Journal article: "After spending years fending off fan fiction, and occasionally sending out "cease and desist" letters through his lawyer to block potential copyright violations, science-fiction novelist Orson Scott Card has started courting fan writers. Mr. Card, author of the best-selling "Ender's Game" series, is planning to host a contest for "Ender's Game" fan fiction this fall. Fans will be able to submit their work to his Web site. The winning stories will be published as an anthology that will become part of the official "canon" of the "Ender's Game" series."[5]
Some of Card's Views on Sexuality
Many fans - for example, Aja, author of an essay on Card and slash - perceive homoerotic subtext in Card's Ender series. In canon, Ender Wiggin has a deep fixation on his brother Peter Wiggin, kisses his best friend Alai, shoves Bean up against walls and has him sleep in his room, and then, in a bizarre twist, falls in love with his son-in-law when in the body of a woman.
In Songmaster, Card depicts the life of Ansset, a "Songbird" trained night and day for his sole purpose in life which is to sing beautifully to influence the powerful. Songbird disciplines are roughly analogous to the castrato tradition in grand opera; Ansset is given drugs to prevent his maturing until he is nearly twenty. As a young man, he falls in love with a male friend, but owing to an after-effect of the drugs, at his first sexual experience he experiences intense pain and nearly dies.
Many other works by Card display his obsession with sexual and scatological references.
Card is outspoken in his opposition to homosexuality and gay marriage.
These facts look funnier when you put them next to each other.[4]
References
- ^ FanWorks.org : Fan Works Inc. - Help & Tools Index : Orson Scott Card, Archived version, links to Interview on Orson Scott Card's site, accessed 2012-6-17
- ^ "21 Authors Who Write Fanfiction". Lawrence Public Library. 2021-12-14. Archived from the original on 2021-06-03. Retrieved 2021-12-26.
- ^ including The Originist, a work of Isaac Asimov fanfiction, and Hamlet's Father, an explicitly Shakespearean story.
- ^ a b Romano, Aja (2013-05-07). "Orson Scott Card's long history of homophobia". Salon. Archived from the original on 2022-04-21. Retrieved 2021-12-26.
- ^ The Weird World of Fan Fiction by Alexandra Alter, The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2012 - accessed 2012-6-17