Orson Scott Card @ MindSay

Frank Hartman, onderzoeker bij USAMRIID heeft net een anti-virus ontwikkeld -- maar nog niet op mensen getest -- voor een heel agressief virus dat onlangs is opgedoken, als hij wordt uitgeleend aan de BioHazard Agency. Daar hebben ze ontdekt dat het virus wordt verspreid door een groep weldoeners, de Healers; het virus is heel specifiek genetisch gemodificeerd om als vector te dienen om in een bepaald persoon een bepaalde genetische afwijking te repareren. Helaas is het virus voor alle andere mensen binnen minuten dodelijk. De leider van de Healers is een geneticus die ooit wereldfaam voor het grijpen had wegens zijn werk aan het Human Genome, maar wiens carriere ernstig in het slop is geraakt. Als Frank onvrijwillig wordt ingelijfd bij de activiteiten van de Healers komt hij erachter dat het doel van de leider niet zo onzelfzuchtig is als hij iedereen graag laat geloven.

Niet het beste van Scott Card... Dit is een boek dat is gebaseerd op een filmscript dat is gebaseerd op een van zijn eerste korte verhalen. En het vervelende met boeken naar films (of boeken die zijn geschreven met de verkoop van filmrechten in het achterhoofd) is dat ze vol zitten met actie die op het scherm heel spectaculair is, maar op de pagina een beetje belachelijk en overdreven aandoet.

A shot rang out, and a bullet ripped a hole through the metal a foot to Frank's right. He pulled himself up to the rung above him and kicked his feet until they found purchase.
Just as he was reaching for the third rung, the car banked hard to the left. Frank felt himself swinging away from the ladder and slamming back against the car, holding on with one hand and kicking desperately to right himself again.
Another shot and another hole, this one dead center on the ladder, precisely where he had clung to the ladder only a second before.

OSC is one of my favorite writers.  He has become more so since I started reading his articles on politics in America... Although I don't agree with him on everything, I find that he has a sober mind that tends to think things through. 

 

Anyway I thought I'd share the link to his newest article with you.

 

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2006-04-16-1.html

I wonder what people think of us, three kids in Ace, sitting with the same leg crossed, deeply engrossed in our Orson Scott Card novels. Already, half of us must fit the definition of geek or nerd. But how we love our sci fi's!

In the past forty-eight hours, I have accumulated perhaps six and a half hours of sleep, broken up into increments as small as fifteen minutes and as long as two and a half hours.  Amazing.

Typing is difficult, and you should have heard me try to speak on the phone when Spousal Unit called me (woke me up again) this morning at ten 'til eight. Hey, I'd barely climbed back into bed. My jaw wasn't moving.

Everything is making me cry today. Movies (Raising Helen, Nell), short stories by Orson Scott Card (The Worthing Saga for those who are into his work), and wrestling with Cartoon Ranger and getting hit in the head with a maraca. Stupid stuff. I am NOT going to read or watch Little Women today!

Tonight, I have a date with Tylenol PM. Two tablets, darn it. I intend to sleep like a sunken boulder. 

Of course, in the morning, my jaw still won't move and I'll sound like I have a hangover. Never had one of those before, but Spousal Unit has... ;)

Thank God for Orson Scott Card.  He's the only author I know who's not afraid to consistently write stories of tragedy.  It puts things in perspective when you see someone lose everything dear to them, not just a loved one.  one of his stories, Sonata, is about a man who makes beautiful music, but the laws require that he remain untainted and never hear the music of another.  Someone slips him a copy of Bach, and it changes his life forever.  First he loses his music.  Then later, he is caught playing the piano and loses his fingers.  Still later he is caught singing, and loses his voice.  Then he becomes one of the Watchers, and enforces the very laws that cost him all he held dear.  But in the end, he hears someone singing a song he wrote.  A song of pain, tragedy, love lost.  This doesn't necessarily make everything okay, but it does make it more bearable.

I miss her madly, badly, insanely, seemingly without end.  I know she's not coming back, though I wish with all my heart that she would.  This would be easier if there was someone to blame, someone to be angry at.  But she told me repeatedly that I did everything right, and I love her too much to be angry at her.  I'm at the point where I just want to scream "How could you do this to me!" but that wouldn't help either of us, and just isn't my way.

So it leaves me in this cold, lonely emptiness with no release valve for my emotions.  Crying doesn't help.  Violence has never worked for me.  All I can do is try to live my life as if nothing has changed, and find solace in the stories of people like Orson Scott Card.