There was a Doctor Who author once upon a time, who wrote some of the most genius DW novels, which for me stand as some of the greatest DW stories ever. A few years ago, his opinions became more widely known, and unfortunately although he had many interesting things to say that encourage new ways of thinking, he couldn't say these things in a nice way. In point of fact, he seemed to become more and more blatantly discourteous and vile as time went on. Doesn't stop me from liking his fiction, but it's regrettable seeing someone sabotage themselves like that.
Lawrence Miles?
I may not always agree with Miles' viewpoint -- his animus toward Steven Moffat is just
bizarre, because it's all to do with a power-pat -- but when he's "on," he really makes me think. I respect his willingness to put his search for truth in
Doctor Who ahead of his personal and professional concerns.
And yes, as much as I would
love to see Miles write a
Torchwood novel (because he could do something
brilliant with it; hell,
Interference is like a proto-
Torchwood, but then there are a lot of things about RTD-era
Who that are prefigured in Miles' work), I know it's not going to happen, because he's made himself unhirable by BBC Books.
Let me put it this way: Card's rants have pretty much ensured that I will never read any of his fictional works. With some artists (be they writers, actors, etc.), I can separate their works from their personality, but Orson Scott Card really rubs me the wrong way, so I don't think I could do that with him.
I vowed a long time ago that I would not buy
anything by Card. Even if I couldn't discern his politics in his fiction, I still found it difficult to set aside his own (and loudly proclaimed) homophobia, xenophobia, and fascistic political beliefs.
When Marvel started publishing
Ender's Game comics, I had to write an article about them for work. I genuinely didn't know that I
could. I wrestled with it, I didn't know how to approach it. I went through a
lot of drafts on this dinky 400-word sales article, because I
knew that my distaste for Card could seep through. When all was said and done, I mentioned Card
once.
I broke my vow to never buy Card's work, as I'm buying the
Ender's Game comics. They're okay.
I don't own anything by Orson Scott Card, but the combination of his political opinions with his passionate advocacy for Firefly have occasionally made me troubled to be a Browncoat.
I discovered early last week that Stephenie Meyer loves Elbow. I'm not sure how I feel about this, knowing that the writer of
Twilight loves a band that I love. I am... troubled...
The plan to publish original Serenity tie-in novels fell through, of course, but if one of them had ultimately been by Card, I would've debated whether to buy it or not because of this--even though an actor like Adam Baldwin can also be a staunch conservative without turning me off enough to avoid his work. I suppose it's a matter of degree.
Kelsey Grammer is probably one of the hardest of hard-core Republicans in Hollywood, yet that doesn't bother me one bit. Of course, the difference may be that Card is very public about his bigotry and sounds genuinely hateful, while Grammer's politics are something he keeps off to the side.
...Because you met him in real life and found out he was a dick?
