![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mitt Romulan?
May. 8th, 2007 09:52 pmMitt Romney says his favorite novel is Battlefield Earth. Really. Battlefield Earth? I could theoretically understand choosing a book by the founder of Scientology, although that does make it a politically tin-eared response. I can't understand picking such a horrible klunker of a book. I read it when I was 12 or 13 (yep. I was really, really bored at the time) and even at that age I was struck by its banality. Who unironically names a protagonist Johnny Goodboy? Not to mention the bizarre part toward the end where apparently discovering a new universe gives you the right to sell it to pay off your debts.
In a seemingly unrelated matter, Romney said:
"In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."
Someone pointed out that the seven-year marriage idea comes not from France but from Memory of Earth by Orson Scott Card, which is a good science fiction novel*). I thought it sounded familiar. Putting aside how scary it is that a presidential candidate apparently has trouble distinguishing science fiction from reality...how dissed must Orson Scott Card feel? Here's a serious presidential candidate, a fellow conservative Mormon, who has apparently read his material, and he pretty much says in public that he considers all Orson's work inferior to Battlefield Earth. They do say you have to have thick skin to make it as a writer.
(* ...though the rest of the series quickly gets stupid and/or incomprehensible. Maybe it's because I'm not Mormon, but you should write your books to be comprehensible to non-Mormons, dammit, even if it is a science fiction retelling of the Book of Mormon. And I remember the last book as one long preachy "Racism Is Bad" rant that would have been timely in 1960, not so much in 1995.)
So...what other comments might we expect from Romney in this vein?
- "I'm told that Saudi Arabia is cultivating a spice that enables you to see into the future. Our countries must work together to stop drug abuse."
- "I think I heard that in Japan, people are sexless except when they turn male or female at rare times, and people who are permanently male or female are considered perverts. How sad, and quite a change from the Japan of the past."
- "I hear West Point has become lax in its physical requirements. A man who is 4'9" with brittle bones shouldn't be allowed in."
- "As my first act as president, to halt the decline of American power abroad, I will exile all Wikipedians to start a new society on a remote island."
In a seemingly unrelated matter, Romney said:
"In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."
Someone pointed out that the seven-year marriage idea comes not from France but from Memory of Earth by Orson Scott Card, which is a good science fiction novel*). I thought it sounded familiar. Putting aside how scary it is that a presidential candidate apparently has trouble distinguishing science fiction from reality...how dissed must Orson Scott Card feel? Here's a serious presidential candidate, a fellow conservative Mormon, who has apparently read his material, and he pretty much says in public that he considers all Orson's work inferior to Battlefield Earth. They do say you have to have thick skin to make it as a writer.
(* ...though the rest of the series quickly gets stupid and/or incomprehensible. Maybe it's because I'm not Mormon, but you should write your books to be comprehensible to non-Mormons, dammit, even if it is a science fiction retelling of the Book of Mormon. And I remember the last book as one long preachy "Racism Is Bad" rant that would have been timely in 1960, not so much in 1995.)
So...what other comments might we expect from Romney in this vein?
- "I'm told that Saudi Arabia is cultivating a spice that enables you to see into the future. Our countries must work together to stop drug abuse."
- "I think I heard that in Japan, people are sexless except when they turn male or female at rare times, and people who are permanently male or female are considered perverts. How sad, and quite a change from the Japan of the past."
- "I hear West Point has become lax in its physical requirements. A man who is 4'9" with brittle bones shouldn't be allowed in."
- "As my first act as president, to halt the decline of American power abroad, I will exile all Wikipedians to start a new society on a remote island."
