Avoided getting a bad book thanks to Wapedia
I was in the bookshop today and I saw a book that looked interesting. It was called Hidden Empire by Orson Scott Card. It was a bout a battle for the future of America between the forces of the liberal left and neo-con right. It struck me as a hugely good idea to set a sci-fi story around this subject, but one thing worried me. It wasn't obvious from the blurb on the book's back cover with which side the authors sympathies lay.
I decided that I'd better find out if this author was a right wing sympathizer before parting with money. I opened the book at random to see if any obvious bias toward the right (a real turn off for me) jumped out at me. I read a scene about volunteers being interviewed, who wanted to go fight a virus in Africa. The passage I read said that Fox News conducted the only thoughtful interview with one of the volunteer virus fighters.
An author saying that Fox News was capable of conducting a thoughtful interview was either cutting-edge sci-fi, which would be good, or a worrying indication that Orson is some kind of right wing nut. Right wing nuts being normally the only demographic with anything positive to say about Fox News. I powered up the browser on my phone to do more research - right there in the store.
I went to Wapedia - the mobile-browsable version of Wikipedia - and found a lot of detail about how the book had been received. It said that...
"Right-wing rhetoric trumps the logic of story and character in this (...) implausibly plotted departure from Card’s bestselling science fiction,"
I dropped the book and kept looking for something interesting. I found a book written by a dude who had been recruited by the NSA, before going private and being tasked with loading target governments with debt and bending them to the will of various US administrations. Before developing a conscience and writing the book. A perfect antidote to rubbish like Hidden Empire. I'm only at the start of chapter 1, but I'm already lovin' it. I'll report more on Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (this is what they really called themselves) as I read more.
I decided that I'd better find out if this author was a right wing sympathizer before parting with money. I opened the book at random to see if any obvious bias toward the right (a real turn off for me) jumped out at me. I read a scene about volunteers being interviewed, who wanted to go fight a virus in Africa. The passage I read said that Fox News conducted the only thoughtful interview with one of the volunteer virus fighters.
An author saying that Fox News was capable of conducting a thoughtful interview was either cutting-edge sci-fi, which would be good, or a worrying indication that Orson is some kind of right wing nut. Right wing nuts being normally the only demographic with anything positive to say about Fox News. I powered up the browser on my phone to do more research - right there in the store.
I went to Wapedia - the mobile-browsable version of Wikipedia - and found a lot of detail about how the book had been received. It said that...
"Right-wing rhetoric trumps the logic of story and character in this (...) implausibly plotted departure from Card’s bestselling science fiction,"
I dropped the book and kept looking for something interesting. I found a book written by a dude who had been recruited by the NSA, before going private and being tasked with loading target governments with debt and bending them to the will of various US administrations. Before developing a conscience and writing the book. A perfect antidote to rubbish like Hidden Empire. I'm only at the start of chapter 1, but I'm already lovin' it. I'll report more on Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (this is what they really called themselves) as I read more.
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