Friday, September 9, 2011

Follow Friday - Thirty-Two is a Leyland Number Where X = Two and Y = Four


It's Friday again, which means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and two Follow Friday Features Bloggers each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:
  1. Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
  2. Follow the two Featured Bloggers of the week - Pedantic Phooka and Drying Ink.
  3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
  4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
  5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
  6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
  7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
  8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!
And now for the Follow Friday Question: Have you ever wanted a villain to win at the end of a story?  If so, which one?

I'd say that I want the villains to win in pretty much any Orson Scott Card novel, but that's only mostly true. While his protagonists (especially recently) have a tendency to be insufferable jerks, some of his earlier novels have modestly sympathetic main characters. One that I will single out for some opprobium is Folk of the Fringe (read review), in which the main characters are odiously sanctimonious Mormons living in a post-apocalyptic world. If Card had not exposed himself as an intolerant gay-bashing statist, I'd think that Folk of the Fringe was a parody intended to show how awful rule by Mormons would actually be. Sadly, it seems that he was actually serious. But to get back to answering the question at hand, I just can't think of any "heroic" Mormon character in the book that I don't want to shoot in the head and leave for the vultures.

Go to previous Follow Friday: Thirty-One Is a Happy Prime
Go to subsequent Follow Friday: Thirty-Three Was Larry Bird's Number

Follow Friday     Home

6 comments:

  1. I'm quite sad that books like this make "Mormons" look bad. I'm a Mormon and in no way do I think gay bashing is appropriate. I may not agree with the lifestyle, but people don't agree with mine either. We can still be civil and even friendly to each other. I have a few friends and even a niece that is gay and I treat them just like I do my other friends. Anyway, I hope the book didn't leave a bad taste of "Mormons" because he's just one person and there are many of us out there that don't feel the same way as he does.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Jenni Elyse: I have had several Mormon friends, almost all of whom have been very nice people to know. But Card seems to have run off the rails in the last decade or two with his anti-gay screeds and his praise of government control over people's lives.

    For a recent example, see Card's revision of Hamlet in which he ascribes all of the problems the characters face to the supposed evils of homosexuality. Apparently the trouble is Card's version of the play is that Hamlet's father was gay, and by having homosexual relations with most of the other characters somehow "turned" them all gay. Or something. None of it makes sense.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I haven't read any of these books but I completely see your point.

    Great post, new follower:D

    My Post

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Fran: Thanks. Glad to meet you.

    I'll also use this post to make a correction to my last post: The sentence that begins "Apparently the trouble is Card's version of the play is that Hamlet's father was gay,..." should actually read "Apparently the trouble in Card's version of the play is that Hamlet's father was gay,..."

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi,
    New follower here!
    Love your blog(;

    Happy Follow Friday!

    Katie from
    http://curseofthebibliophile.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Kyowolf: Nice to meet you, I hope you like it. Hopping over to follow you back.

    ReplyDelete