I have a huge appetite for SciFi reads. The shelves in my livingroom are groaning with them.
I recently discoverd an author who totally rocks my socks.
So I google the guy, turns out he is a super religion Mormon. my jaw dropped.
how do i now read his book, and not see all kinds of woo-ness creeping out from the pages?
how does this guy connect his complete religious nuttiness with telling stories about sentient life on other planets (didnt the big book say that we are the only ones?). this is guy is totally into his godness, as in he was a missionary.
another book that was ossum, i learned later was a religious bestseller coz it promoted god. huh? i thought it was an exceptionally good piece of scifi.
is there a trend for the religious to write scifi? or was this just co-incidence. surely, if you are so into your bible, its a sin to allude to there being any other kind of creations apart from humans?
Perhaps this nut just understands the difference between fiction and reality. Albeit not in the case of his good book.
I think most of the best scifi writers are atheists. Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clark spring to mind, but there are many more. Which author are you reading? Some are still good writers, even though they are into woo. When I read those I just pretend it’s an alternate universe where things work differently, that way I can still enjoy the story without getting too frustrated.
Arthur Scott Card. I got one of his at the Hospice, read it, loved it, got the first two from my other half, and i had to see if there was more. and the more i read about this dude, the more i disliked him. he actively lobbies against gay marraige, and is a proper woo. now i’m going to read all his stuff, and wonder what is he really trying to say. so sad.
its when i got Invader’s Plan from L Ron Hubbard. I read it coz i knew he was a nut, and i just had to see what is cooking in his mind. and what he writes, is scary. not an quite ok dude.
Can’t find anything about this Arthur Scott Card guy, Wikipedia returns zero results. L Ron Hubbard is a little too wacky, even for me. I’m curious though, did he mention anything about Xenu?
Frank Herbert is pretty cool, have you read Dune?
Yes, and here’s one of my all-time favourites:
ETA: gothcatgirl, I think that author’s name is Orson Scott Card.
'Luthon64
Think she meant Orson Scott Card. He is worth reading that I recall.
L Ron I actually enjoyed thoroughly as a kid. Before he wrote Dianetics after which everything went wrong, or right, depending on where you are standing. His Battlefield Earth and the decalogy (?), Mission Earth was pure comedy gold. I may be forgiven on that I haven’t tried them in many many many years but have very fond memories from them.
LOL That is brilliant! Now I have to read his stuff. Thanks Mefi ;D
Edit: Just finished reading all the other quotes. Amazing they’re all from one guy!
Orson Scott Card, can’t say I’ve read any of his stuff but if he’s won 2 Hugos he must be pretty good.
It is funny, I thought I’d never read anything but sci-fi / fantasy. Yet these days Lee Child’s Jack Reacher top my charts and I cannot wait for every new book. At mostly two new books a year the man is agonizingly slow. Where is the prolific Good Doctor when you need him?
Speaking of which, I just finished the Foundation series for the umpteenth time, on my mobile. It remains awesome after all these years.
Discovering I can read ebooks on my mobile has been a life changing event. No traffic or queue anywhere can ever be a problem again, flying or riding the subway / bus (overseas) is a breeze and any toilet anywhere offers opportunities rather than “duties” 
technology is simply awesome
It is Orson Scott Card. yesterday whe i wrote that name down, it looked weird to me, but i couldnt think what the name was, so i left it. when i got home and checked the book, i was like d’oh!. idiot.
must be coz my ex (andrew) was talking about me.
i finished Speaker for the Dead now. which was quite good. cried at the end. I read Xenocide first, so it was a bit arse about face. so i’m keen to read the rest.
for a mormon, he pushes the whole catholic thing quite a bit. maybe he is in silent turmoil about his own faith.
My all-time favourite fantasy authors who are (were) outspoken atheists are Philip Pullman and Douglas Adams (so sad that he passed away).
Loved “His Dark Materials”. Pity about Adams, the good ones always go young it seems.
And of course Terry Pratchett goes without saying. He is one of my favourite authors. Here are my two favourite quotes from TP:
“'Look at it this way, then,’ she said, and took a deep mental breath. ‘Wherever people are obtuse and absurd … and wherever they have by even the most generous standards, the attention span of a small chicken in a hurricane and the investigative ability of a one-legged cockroach … and wherever people are inanely credulous, pathetically attached to the certainties of the nursery and, in general, have as much grasp of the realities of the physical universe as an oyster has of mountaineering … yes, Twyla: there is a Hogfather.”
and
“The smug mask of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as the face of wickedness revealed.”
unfotunately i find pratchett not as funny. propably coz we have the same sense of humour, so the puns go off as ‘meh’ with me. doesnt bash me between the eyes with hilarity. but that said though, i read it a while ago, maybe in my advanced years, i might find it more homorous.
He’s a favourite of mine too. That saying, his nightwatch books are a favourite, cuts close to the bone of reality especially in this country of ours.
Lord Vetinari: Crime was always with us, he reasoned, and therefore, if you were going to have crime, it at least should be organized crime - referring to the Thieves Guild