Orson Scott Card blasts StarTrek

See this link: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0505/card.php3

(First, as an aside, let me say I think it's hillarious that he wrote a column for Jewish World Review when he makes no effort to hide his Mormonism.)

This strikes me, in many ways, as sour grapes. Orson Scott Card is a science fiction author himself, and while he has two or three good books, by and large he uses his fiction for philosophical grandstanding...like many sci fi writers do (Asimov did, Gene Roddenberry did, Anne McCaffrey does, Frank Herbert did, Robert Heinlin did.. and on and on). Unfortunately, his (Card's) books have never really been best sellers due, I think in large part, to the overwhelming Mormon "theology" he spouts off in them. His largest series by far other than the Ender series (which started as a trillogy and has only recently expanded) centers around a man with many wives and how empowering this is to women and so on and so forth. So the fact that the masses haven't swarmed to swallow his undigestible philosophy makes reading his criticism of an author who managed to start an enormous television franchise smell like outright jealousy and poor sportsmanship. Card is not know for writing fiction for the joy of fiction - he writes fiction because he has something he wants to say and this is a convenient platform. That's fine. I have no issue with that. But to condemn in a wholesale manner someone who does that as well and does it in such a way that it spawns a whole culture (because really, Trekkies who are really into it are their own culture) seems a bit hippocritical. StarTrek may be dead for now with the cancellation of Enterprise, but my guess is that it won't be gone for long - and until then, the re-runs will persist. Whether you watch them for the sheer enjoyment of the show (the original series with it's retro costumes and the characters we all love) or for the political statements and social issues they address in the forum of scifi (take a gander at any of the wars and conflicts that you see in any of the shows and you can draw parallels to the world situations of today - and whether or not you agree with their viewpoint, they make some interesting points in a way that lets them separate out any immediate naysayers who see a particular skin tone or hear a particular accent and block out the rest, their minds made up), these shows are something that will more than likely continue to be part of the American television legacy.