[REVIEW] Why I Hate Orson Scott Card

This hate isn't complete, of course. I'm not that upset with him.

Ender's Game is a very enjoyable book. I think of it as Lord of the Flies (or, perhaps more appropriately, Battle Royale) translated into space opera. Childhood and adolescence in extremis are always interesting things to read about, especially once you've escaped those two phases.

The various sequels to Ender's Game were hit-and-miss, to a certain extent. There was some interesting characterization, and there were some interesting ideas. (The descolada and the concept of ramen come most immediately to mind.) Too frequently, Card's narrative voice lapsed into didacticism too often. Even so, I never finished one of these sequels feeling that I hadn't had a good time.

Ender's Shadow retells the story of Ender's Game from the viewpoint of Bean, Ender's preternaturally bright young friend at Battle School. Card's idea to write what was remix of Ender's Game was brilliant inspiration. Unfortunately, in Ender's Shadow Card's didacticism dominates an interesting narrative.

But that novel's sequel, Shadow of the Hegemon? And the latest extruded products, which I refuse to dignify with names? They are nothing but didacticism, the most jejeune grand geopolitical schemes composed partly as a way to retcon his future history (Ender's Game, written in the mid-1980s, featured a Warsaw Pact that had conquered all of Eurasia from the Netherlands east through to Pakistan) and partly as a way to express his outrage with short-sighted policies. We Need Order, you see; and, on an Earth newly free of the threat of Bug conquest, his Battle School graduates are free to behave not as human beings, but as monomaniacal world conquerors much too interested in translating their games of Risk onto the real world, with little or no motivation. His characters are mere tissue wrapped around bold grand ideals, flags which flutter proudly in strong wind but fall limp as soon as the air grows still.

They could have been so much better. But they aren't, and Card knows why they are the way that they are. He thinks it's all well and good, though. And for that, I hate him.

[NON BLOG] They let me sing?

Through my ongoing participation in the Rainbow Voices of Toronto chorus, and as a consequence of my fluency in French, on Saturday the 5th of March sometime after 3 pm at Zippers on Carlton Street here in Toronto, I'll be joining a segment of the choir in a medley of French traditional songs: "Tous les garçons et les filles," "Dansons, "Les feuilles mortes," "Hymne à l'amour," "Sous le ciel de Paris."

This will be interesting.

[BRIEF NOTE] On Criminalizing HIV Transmission

From the Toronto Star:

An HIV-positive Hamilton man is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of two women who had been his sexual partners.

Johnson Aziga, 48, is believed to be the first person in Canada to face that charge in an HIV-infection case.

He had originally been charged with endangering the lives of 12 women who had been his partners.

Both of the women Aziga is accused of killing were from Toronto. One died Dec. 7, 2003, and the other died May 19 of last year.

Their deaths have been classified as first-degree murders because they are alleged to have resulted from sexual assaults, which automatically elevates the offences to first-degree murders.

All the women in the case are considered to be victims of aggravated sexual assaults because they are said not to have known they were having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive person. Previous cases have established that one partner cannot give true consent if the other fails to disclose an HIV infection.

Googling last night, I found two hits on his name. The first one was from the website of the Sex Trade Workers of Canada.

HIV ALERT!!! HAMILTON, ONTARIO There's a guy who has seen many women in the Hamilton area. He is HIV positive and knows it. The latest info we have on him is that he does not specifically target sex pros. But 18 women he has seen in the Hamilton area have reported that they are now HIV positive.
His real name is JOHNSON AZIGA. His birthdate is 1956-06-06. He is BLACK with short hair, medium build. Hamilton police are concerned he may have seen women in Sault Ste. Marie, Toronto, Brantford and Peel Region.

The second? From issue 36 of Cell Count (PDF format), official newsletter of the Prisoners AIDS SupportAction Network, responding to the Toronto Star's article "Needle Swap Needed in Prisons; report says" (28 October 2004). Sample paragraph:

Prisoners or ex-convicts need to be informed about the use of criminal sanctions to prosecute persons who engage in activities that risk transmission of HIV. It needs to be stated explicitly that criminal sentences could be used as punishment or deterrence of HIV transmission even though the National AIDS Strategy is not to criminalize HIV/AIDS transmission.

Two articles cached at the website of The Globe and Mail (1, 2) and another at UgandaNet go into greater detail about the case.

The case of Charles Ssenyonga, a Ugandan immigrant to Canada who was brought up on criminal charges for infecting women with HIV comes to mind. June Callwood, in 1995, published Trial With End, detailing the case.

My immediate reaction? If--and this is a big if--Aziga did know that he was infected with HIV, and if he allowed himself the luxury of unprotected sex with people who didn't know about his HIV seropositivity, the book should be thrown at him. His partners should have insisted on safer sex, true; but the ultimate responsibility lay with him. And yes, this goes for homosexual sex, too.

Thoughts?

UPDATE: 4:35 PM: ponycow has a discussion at her livejournal, and there is a discussion thread at rabble.ca.

[META] Blogroll Additions

I've added RESEAUNATE.90, a blog commemorating the 90th anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide to my blogroll. I've blogged in the past about other genocides (the Holocaust, Rwanda). I'd be remiss if I didn't do all that I could to point people to the 20th century's prototypical genocide.

Non Tibi Spiro and Silt3 have also found their way onto my blogroll.

Go, visit.

[BRIEF NOTE] Douglas Coupland Comes Out

Via Opinionated Lesbian:

Advocate reporter: Doug, are you gay?
Coupland: Well, only if you'll be my date at the Tonys.
Reporter: It's a date.
Coupland: [Laughs] There was a funny... do you ever watch "Will and Grace"? The minstrel show?
Reporter: Occasionally.
Coupland: Karen says to Jack, "You're gayer than a clutch purse at the Tonys." [Laughs] I thought that was one of the best lines. How come The Advocate has never called up before?
Reporter: Well, frankly, it's because you've never gone there in interviews before. But I heard you had a new book coming out, and I thought, 'Damn it, I want to ask.'

I'm not surprised. Reading Microserfs back as a teenager, there was something about Coupland's voice--a certain sort of flatness, a lack of resonance relative to the inward lives of his characters--that struck me as queer.