The Comedy Never Stops
A big thanks to Roy for pointing me to this page, which contains several lengthy excerpts from Orson Scott Card’s Empire. The book, for those of you who didn’t read yesterday’s post, is about a civil war that breaks out between red and blue states when “a radical leftist army calling itself the Progressive Restoration takes over New York City and declares itself the rightful government of the United States.” The main plot revolves around “Card’s heroic red-state protagonists, Maj. Reuben ‘Rube’ Malek and Capt. Bartholomew ‘Cole’ Coleman” who “draw on their Special Ops training to take down the extremist leftists and restore peace to the nation.”
The book’s first five chapters are an all-out laughfest, jam-packed with the tired cliches and hammy polemics that we read on a daily basis from such leading conservative lights as Dan Riehl and Gary Ruppert. The prose reminds me of the stuff I wrote when I was 11 years old, just before I discovered the wonders of self-abuse. For a prime example, check out this sparkler:
They had killed no one in front of these villagers, and in fact they had killed no one, ever, anywhere. Yet there was something about them, their alertness, the way they moved, that gave warning, the way a tiger gives warning simply by the fluidity of its movement and the alertness of its eyes.
Yes, there was something about the way they moved that had to do with their movement… that was LIKE A TIGER, BABY, GRRRRRRRRRR!!!
Anywho, there’s a lot more where that come from, and I will dissect it tonight when I get home from work.
Tigers are pretty tuff.
Tigers r tuff… n SASSSSSSY!!!!
Good God, please. Go back to the self abuse. Do anything, just don’t make me read from that book!
Go back to the self abuse. Do anything, just don’t make me read from that book!
Too late on both counts. What do you think I was doing while reading it, eh?
Dang. Ah well.
Be sure to let us know how it stacks up against some of the other masterpieces of wingnut lit, such as The Turner Diaries and Glorious Appearing (the Left Behind series’ grand finale, in which Jesus appears on clouds of glory to wrap up the long-delayed Final Solution).
Lasercopters! So, after the takeoover, the Leftists continued to funnel billions into the military-industrial complex?
I thought leftists were appeasenik latte-sipping wimps, incapable of fighting, who just wanted to usher in the eurofagocracy. And righties won’t enlist to save civilization itself from the Islamofascist Menace, the crucial war to save all that’s good and holy, at the direct urging of Dear Leader, so why would they rise up to fight in Civil War II? It would be WAY too much work and distract from their blogs. They’d just gladly let New York secede.
Is it just me, or does that cover look like a rejected piece John Heartfield would have fired an assistant for? Someone needs to get that designer in here pronto for the photoshop wars.
Well, I just read the hilarious Chapter Two, in which the military hero attends grad school in Princeton’s history department and is mocked ruthlessly by the faculty for his military service. Which is really pretty funny, when you realize who teaches in that department.
Yet there was something about them, their alertness, the way they moved, that gave warning, the way a tiger gives warning simply by the fluidity of its movement and the alertness of its eyes.
Geez. It reads like Robert James Waller decided to write a warporn book.
Picking up on A different Gary’s comment…
To have a real kewl civil war you have to have lots of ordinary people ready to risk getting their asses shot off for something bigger than themselves.
How many present-day Americans fit that category?
[crickets chirp]
Does this remind you of anyone?
…in fact they had killed no one, ever, anywhere…
That’s the pundits, neo-cons and Bush people who think war is a fun thing to do.
I thought OSC was supposed to be a good scifi writer – now I can bypass his stuff if I’m looking for something to read. What a twat.
The excerpt reads like it waswritten by a committee “created by Congress and appointed by Bush”
Another thing; leftists are imperialists now? How does that work? Honestly, I’m just working off the title. I’m assuming the Empire is the nasty, evil thing created by the leftists.
Well, I wonder how the faculty were mocking the military hero’s brave service. (I am rather scared to read the excerpts to find out). I certainly hope they weren’t wearing purple band-aids, claiming that his wounds were self inflicted and insisting that he faked the incidents where he won his military decorations.
It’s amazing how horrible those evil leftist professors can be.
I hope those lefty liberal faculamofascists didn’t accuse an amputee war vet of dropping a grenade on himself.
Toyboat: No, don’t shy away from all his work — plenty of good writers are a few nuts short of a Crunch bar. Definitely not Ender’s Game and suchlike classics.
It’s strange. OSC may have gone off the deep end politically-and-Mormonologically-speaking, but he used to be able to write well. Really. Read ‘Treason’ or ‘Songmaster’. It’s like he suffered a head injury and can only write at the Sgt. Rock comic book level now. Or, as I said on my blog, ‘Empire’ reads like the screenplay of Red Dawn II: The Calls Are Coming From Inside the House!).
No, this is a much better money excerpt, from Chapter One:
“There came a day that one of the villagers, a young man who had been away for a week, came home, and within a few minutes had told his news to the elder who, for lack of anyone better, was regarded by the villagers as the wisest counselor. He, in turn, brought the young man to the Americans.”
Forget the absolutely choppy sentence structure- how’s about that nice little jab that this village contains nobody with wisdom? And of course the enemies are “terrorists”- and they even hold a child hostage! The curs!
And you can tell this is science fiction because our hero (with the decidely unheroic name of Malich) has adequate body armor.
What would expect from a Smithite?
–WKW
Minivet, I can’t believe after reading just these two sentences that this dude is capable of writing a readable book. The excerpt is good for laughs, but I think reading a whole page would just get nauseatingly tedious.
Those five chapters are pretty dreadful so I wouldn’t bother. All the action’s conveyed through horribly unrealistic dialog between Rube and his sidekick with the occasional obliging stooge chipping in with any other necessary information. For example:
“What’s that over there?” gasped someone.
“A P-76 single-flanged thrustfister missile with a Neptunian warhead,” ejaculated Rube. “If I can just reverse the polarities of the elastic–”
“Gasp,” gasped Sgt Pantload, showering them all with Cheet-o crumbs. “They’ve blown up the White House!”
“Oh the French will love this,” cursed Rube.
(Actually I made that up. But you get the picture.)
OK sadly, I am reading chapter two. Is it just me, or is Orson Scott Card having a lot of issues with projection. He has the evil insane leftist professor arguing that, um, there needs to be a new American Caesar if America is to matter once it falls and that’s what is pissing off the military hero.
So is the evil leftist professor going to argue the government needs to engage in warrantless domestic surveillance? Or argue in favour of the Unitary Executive Theory?
Oh I know, next the evil insane leftist professor is going to argue that the president he has the power to detain anyone by executive fiat.
It’s all a ripoff of this famous opus.
I thought Simmons deleted that moronic story? Hm.
Anyway, those OSC excerpts are bad. Really bad. I’d expound, but I’m saving that takedown for my site.
[…] The latest form Orson Scott Card is getting quite a bit of well deserved mockery from the liberal blogosphere and quite a bit of understandable praise form the right. The book, a story about a leftist Army taking over New York City and precipitating a civil war, is badly written right wing wish fulfillment. In appears to contain every lazy stereotype and fantasy the more deranged on the right harbor about their neighbors on the left. The fact that Instapundit loves it is telling. Brad and Roy have the best takes, as usual, but I have seen more than a few references to the rumor that Card didn’t write his best novel, Ender’s Game. I don’t buy it: Card has always had streak of militarism and “kill em all and let God sort em out” in his writing, even in Ender’s Game. […]
This depresses me to no end. OSC used to be one of my favorite writers. Enders Game (and the subsequent books of the original trilogy) were, justifiably, classics. Sure, he jumped the shark with the later “Ender-series-dead-horse-beating” he engaged in, but still. He’s written some good, no, some GREAT stuff.
But this is like, wow. Did he have a stroke or something? I don’t think it’s right to blame this on his Mormonism, since I don’t think that Mormonism is inherently wingnutty (See Reid, Harry). It’s not any goofier than Catholicism or Snake-handling, at any rate. So the steep fall-off in writing ability HAS to be a result of brain damage.
Can we retroactively strip him of his Nebula and Hugo awards?
… and then they pull out to reveal that the heroic red-state soldiers and the treasonous blue-state revolutionaries are all part of an X-Box 360 game played live by 8-year olds!
Personally, I thought it was a ripoff of this famous opus.
Well, I just read the hilarious Chapter Two, in which the military hero attends grad school in Princeton’s history department and is mocked ruthlessly by the faculty for his military service.
As a graduate of said department, I can tell you that a steady stream of military folks get their PhDs from Princeton in history, and they’re treated exactly like every other graduate student, both by the faculty and by their fellow grad students.
And when I was in grad school, at least two members of the department, Dick Challener and Lawrence Stone (both now deceased), had distinguished military records of their own.
omg that is teh suck!
Is it just me, or is Orson Scott Card having a lot of issues with projection
It’s not just you.
OSC cleary forgot that the only thuggish, armed, terroristic groups in America these days are all of the right-wing “patriot/militia” persuasion.
And I love how these people seem to cringe in fear of nothing so much as being laughed at by smarter folks. It’s a vast insecurity/inferiority thing; an analog of the doughy, middle-aged, small-dicked, divorced, middle management man who buys a sports car. It’s the frustration of Cartman when his “authoritah” goes unrespected. They are power-fellating dog-kickers, so delusional that they’re not even wrong. They divide by zero and get an answer.
“Ender’s Game” IIRC was pretty good, a neato concept with some interesting ideas. But also IIRC … *SPOILER ALERT* (scroll down)
… it becomes something of a statement about the alleged necessity of genocide and annihilation? Things allegedly SO necessary that they felt they needed to deceive the boy–pretend it was a game–so that he couldn’t/wouldn’t lose nerve? And aren’t the evil alien enemies the wingnut definition of Islamofascists–committers of endless senseless brutal attacks for no reason other than evil/hate?
Or did I not recall correctly? 😛
I wrote my own excerpt over at Tbogg’s comments… my prose is at least as poor as OSC’s.
Where’s Gary to tell us the fact is the Left has already seceeded from the Union?
Tiger’s are great, they can’t be beat / If I were a tiger, that would be neat
Where’s Gary to tell us the fact is the Left has already seceeded from the Union?
In the near future, the blue states secede from the union. They then surrender to the terrorists and Osama Bin Laden becomes President of the Caliphate of American Traitors.
Gary then single handedly defeats them by voting Republican in Missouri. Once Osama sees that he cannot shake the will of the Red Staters, and the defeat of his stem cell research bill, he is arrested thanks to domestic wire tapping legislation that the Democrats themselves, even after surrendering and then fleeing for safety to the Patriotic Red Staters, still insanely oppose.
And a new American hero is born.
“The Comedy Never Stops” Nice title, that.
At Sadly, No! the comedy not only never stops, it never even starts!
Gary then single handedly defeats them… And a new American hero is born.
Cheetos and Mountain Dew: The Breakfast of Patriots!
“The Comedy Never Stops� Nice title, that.
At Sadly, No! the comedy not only never stops, it never even starts!
That statement is technically true, if we limit the sample to spacemonkey’s post.
Thanks Steve…I hadn’t read Simmon’s essay.
I think that there is a disconnect with these folks.
We go from here to Islamofascist rule but the point
in between is akin to “and then the miracle occurs”.
“The Comedy Never Stops� Nice title, that.
At Sadly, No! the comedy not only never stops, it never even starts!
My computer speakers emitted a pained, groaning sound after I read that. How’d you do that?
My computer speakers emitted a pained, groaning sound after I read that. How’d you do that?
I didn’t do it, your computer was responding in accordance to an established fact.
Namely, that the truth hurts.
Fine, here’s some conservative humor for Space Monkey.
Q: Knock knock?
A: Who’s there?
Q: Michael Moore is fat.
Q: Why did Michael Moore cross the road?
A: Because he’s fat.
A priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into a bar. The priest says, “Michael Moore is fat.” The minister and the rabbi agree, because he is, in fact, fat.
Hope that tides you over until the “Saved by the Bell” reruns arrive this afternoon.
I’m so confused. I sent away for the membership forms to join Teh Radical Left, which just arrived. But I can’t figure out what to do with this section of the questionnaire:
I am most interested in (check one):
___ establishing a eurofagocracy and imposing homonups on everyone
___ establishing an islamotheocracy and criminalizing Christmas
___ nuking red states and running through stragglers with a bayonet
___ providing free tofu, granola and hemp for whales
I mean, why must I choose?
That statement is technically true, if we limit the sample to spacemonkey’s post.
That was a lot of words to say, “Nuh uh. Spacemonkey, YOU’RE not funny.”
Even though it was expressed in the third person. Not the first.
I shall refrain from responding with any rubber/glue metaphorical comebacks though. No matter how warranted they are.
Wowzers, another eliminationist fantasy from the right. Woo.
You’d think they’d get a new playbook, at least because the old one’s pages are sticking together.
Otto Man, you could also have used the same jokes with the punchline “Ted Kennedy is a drunk.” Kills every time.
“Gasp,� gasped Sgt Pantload,
You don’t gasp by saying “gasp”. Yeah… bad writing. I guess OSC goes off my “to read” list… not that he was ever all that high up on it to begin with.
Otto Man that was a lot better than Arbiter of Teh Funny or steve_e’s responses.
Not funnier but more direct. I appreciate that.
Knock Knock,
Who’s there?
Bush looks like a chimp.
Knock Knock,
Who’s there?
Bush is dumb.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To steal Iraq’s oil based on a lie. For OIL!And LIES!
The head’s of a priest, a rabbi and a minister are all sitting on a bar. One says to the other two “I sure am glad Islam is a religion of peace!” The second one says ‘Oy vey, yes, And now Ve are in pieces too! Vonderful!’ Then the third one says “I’m through here, let’s roll.” And then Kos (who appears from somewhere) says “Screw ’em.” And then he does.
That should tide you over till Air America is solvent again.
AotF: Hey, guys, look, I brought home a stray spacemonkey troll!!!1!! Can we keep him? Please??/??/ I’ll do anything.
S,N!: We already have pet trolls, AotFie dear. Run along now.
AotF: Awwwwwwwwww!!!1! But Gary’s boring and Annie poops too much!1!!
S,N!: Sigh. Only if it’s all right with your mother.
Damn, I forgot about this a few topics back when the rightie comics were being discussed: the best right-wing comic evar.
If only it had lasted until the Iraq war started – imagine teh funny!
I appreciate the effort, Space Monkey, but there’s a slight difference in our posts.
My “Michael Moore is fat” motif was inspired directly by a knee-slapping IMAO post. As much as the right likes to pretend we liberals do nothing but scream about Bush being Chimpy McHitlerburton1!1!!!!, I’ve never seen any of the aforementioned chimp or idiot or “war for oil!” humor on this site.
Hard to believe that a conservative would intentionally misrepresent the other side’s argument, I know. But apparently dishonesty and a lack of a sense of humor go hand in hand. Sure, that explains Dick Cheney, but no one really wants to probe that guy.
Incidentally, Space Monkey, this is how you should’ve responded to this thread:
Otto Man, you could also have used the same jokes with the punchline “Ted Kennedy is a drunk.� Kills every time.
Yeah, just like Chappaquiddick!!!! Hahahahaha. Ted Kennedy is a drunk.
Here endeth the lesson.
Wait, Arbiter of Teh Funny, are you trying to be funny now too? Instead of just telling me I’m not?
Oh boy! I wonder if you’ll succeed. Try again and we’ll see!
Damn, I forgot about this a few topics back when the rightie comics were being discussed: the best right-wing comic evar.
Wow. I didn’t think conservative comics could get any less-funny or worse-drawn than “Day by Day” or “Mallard Fillmore,” but there you go. Wow.
If you want to dig deeper into Card’s nonfiction, er, writings, he bangs out two columns for his hometown weekly at greensboro.rhinotimes.com.
His columns are “Uncle Orson Reviews Everything” (and by “everything,” we mean absolutely everything he buys, touches, sees or thinks about) and “Civilization Watch” (as in “We’re all going to hell because of libruls and the Democrat party.”)
It’s rich stuff.
AotF said: That statement is technically true, if we limit the sample to spacemonkey’s post.
Spacemonkey said: That was a lot of words to say, “Nuh uh. Spacemonkey, YOU’RE not funny.�
Even though it was expressed in the third person. Not the first.
That’s really funny, spacemonkey! Pretending not to know grammar. That always kills.
So Orson Scott Card is still an asshat. Alas, no surprise there.
Or the second person like mine was.
(Did I cover that up quick enough?)
Woops, Smiling Mortician caught it.
Drat.
Maybe this explains OSC’ s more recent work:
http://www.ctnow.com/custom/nmm/newhavenadvocate/hce-nha-1123-nh48bushbash48.artnov23,0,1695911.story
If the Theory of Sadly, No Not Funny is true, why are there still spacemonkeys?
Be thankful. Here in San Francisco, there’s this vanity free newspaper called The San Francisco Herald, which features a predictably slow-witted comic, reprinted NewsMax articles, and input from a burnout whose last real gig was in a punk rock ‘zine in the middle ’80s.
Comparatively, droolers like Spacemonkey seem almost…funny.
Heh, droolers. You forgot mouth breathers.
I think that there is a disconnect with these folks. We go from here to Islamofascist rule but the point in between is akin to “and then the miracle occurs�.
It works something like this. First, we agree not to print cartoons that offend them. Then, something something something. Next thing you know, we’ve offered them the Sudetenland. The only way to avoid this fate is to draw the line at the cartoons.
Hope that tides you over until the “Saved by the Bell� reruns arrive this afternoon.
silly Otto Man – with Tivo Spacemonkey can watch the Bell anytime he wants.
They had arrived with rudimentary skills in the pertinent languages, but now they were reasonably fluent in the language of the village.
Huh? How they do that?
The village girls were beginning to find occasions to walk near whatever project the American soldiers were working on.
Oh! Okay, now it make sense. Fits in with the advice given by another military man with experience in that part of the world:
I give the advice for what it is worth: if you want to learn a language properly, learn it in bed with a native girl – I’d have got more of the classics from an hour’s wrestling with a Greek wench than I did in four years with Arnold.
– Flashman, pg.77
OMG!! Spacemonkey! You are SOOOO Right! This Sadly, No place is T3H SUCK! You should quit hanging around here, and instead spend your time at the most uber-est kewlest blog in the world!!!111!
http://tinyurl.com/y7xdjx is SOOOOO much better and funnier and cooler than this crappy place!
And it has hearts floating down from the top of the page!!!!
It’s been a long time since I read Ender’s Game, but from what I read just now on Wikipedia, I don’t think it’s a very good book. I’m surprised Ender turns out decent after all the abuse he’s put through. Come to think of it, maybe the point is that he doesn’t come out all right. Still, I’m not sure that OSC’s premises make for good science fiction.
I much prefer the little Admiral, myself.
[a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Vorkosigan]The little Admiral[/a]?
Maybe this?
silly Otto Man – with Tivo Spacemonkey can watch the Bell anytime he wants.
True, if I had TiVo, but could also buy the Saved by the Bell Season DVD’s if I so desired.
Speaking of Wikipedia, the Sadly , No article is up for t3h deletion.
The fact is, if Wikipedia deletes Sadly, No!, then Sadly No! will have no recourse but to delete Wikipedia. Simple as that.
who doens’t prefer the Little Admiral?
Nobody doesn’t prefer the Little Admiral. I’m surprised he doesn’t comment here.
Sadly, spacemonkey, Wiki folks are probably smarter than to act on a coordinated campaign like that. That all the delete flags came within two days is what we call a ‘dead giveaway’.
And by all means check out the user page of “timecop”, the one who started the deletion ball rolling…
mikey
Sadly, spacemonkey, Wiki folks are probably smarter than to act on a coordinated campaign like that. That all the delete flags came within two days is what we call a ‘dead giveaway’.
MCH, That’s the absolute funniest thing I’ve read on here. You are what, insinuating IMAO had something to do with this? Sheesh, I was just letting you know about it.
Some of those wikipedia types hate blogs. Conservative/Libera,l whichever. The guy who nominated this blog’s entry for deletion is waging a self described ‘War On Blogs”
It may seem like a ‘dead giveway’ to you but believe me or not, it’s not our doing.
OMG IF WIKIPEDIA DELETES ITS SADLY NO ENTRY WILL THIS BLOG EVEN EXIST ANYMORE? OMG OMG OM GOMGO MGOMG!!!
There is no such thing as Sadly,No! There has never been any such thing.
Was that shit self-published? I couldn’t get past the first pieces of dialogue.
“… it becomes something of a statement about the alleged necessity of genocide and annihilation? Things allegedly SO necessary that they felt they needed to deceive the boy–pretend it was a game–so that he couldn’t/wouldn’t lose nerve? And aren’t the evil alien enemies the wingnut definition of Islamofascists–committers of endless senseless brutal attacks for no reason other than evil/hate?”
The entire rest of the series is actually about how the Buggers weren’t bad guys at all, and how Ender personally atones for history’s greatest crime. I shit you not.
“You don’t gasp by saying “gaspâ€?. Yeah… bad writing. I guess OSC goes off my “to readâ€? list… not that he was ever all that high up on it to begin with.”
Um, that excerpt was made up. You might have noticed the fact that the post said so.
Ender’s Game is decent as a lead-in to the quite good Speaker for the Dead. However, Speaker for the Dead is only good because it feels like OSC is doing his Ursula K. Le Guin impression.
Ender’s Game is decent as a lead-in to the quite good Speaker for the Dead. However, Speaker for the Dead is only good because it feels like OSC is doing his Ursula K. Le Guin impression.
Oddly enough, even though I’m a huge Ursula K. Le Guin fan, I liked Ender’s Game and thought Speaker for the Dead was lame.
THE STUPID, IT BURRRRRNS.
I honestly think I lost twenty IQ points just reading a chapter and a half.
spacemonkey, you read the whole thing, didn’t you?
Hey, did you guys see this in the Wiki deletion debate?
And LGF is big enough to be annoying and kept on wikipedia, where as Sadly, no is not.
So there you have it. The problem is that Sadly, No! is not annoying enough for Wikipedia. Something must be done, and I think we’re just the ones to do it! Here’s a thank you to Gary, Annie and all the other trolls who have already done so much to help; now it’s up to the rest of us to step up and do whatever we can to make S,N! annoying enough to avoid wikilimination!
Though if the standard for sufficient annoyance is LGF, I fear the task may be impossible.
I honestly think I lost twenty IQ points just reading a chapter and a half.
Uh-Oh, so you actually went in the hole then, huh?
I love the Internet. It’s like reliving the second grade.
I love the Internet. It’s like reliving the second grade.
And the supply of rubber bands is endless.
“… it becomes something of a statement about the alleged necessity of genocide and annihilation? Things allegedly SO necessary that they felt they needed to deceive the boy–pretend it was a game–so that he couldn’t/wouldn’t lose nerve?”
As I recall, the “games” got progressively harder until Ender faced overwhelming opposition at the Bug’s homeworld. In despair, he sent everything he had in a suicide attack, not realizing his “game” units were actual combat units.
So, in the face of a vastly superior military force, he ordered suicide attacks. They were successful and won the day.
Hmmm… So does this mean OSC endorsed suicide bombing as the best means to defeat a superior foe? Interesting.
Dammit!
Better?
How can this site have such great photoshoppers but such a sloppy comments page? This shit never happens anywhere else that I visit.
[…] Because I know y’all can’t get enough of Empire, Orson Scott Card’s opus retardus, I thought I’d share my favorite excerpt. […]
This may or may not be an interview with the author…
Like a Tiger
How can this site have such great photoshoppers but such a sloppy comments page? This s**t never happens anywhere else that I visit.
Too much artsy fartsy and not enough smartsy smartsy.
Preview is not your friend here. He got banned for showing the wrong people their errors.
How can this site have such great photoshoppers but such a sloppy comments page? This s**t never happens anywhere else that I visit.
Too much artsy fartsy and not enough smartsy smartsy.
Preview is not your friend here. He got banned for showing the wrong people their errors.
this is crap
Anyone suppose card was trying for an entry in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (worst opening paragraph) and couldn’t stop?