Apparently Beck sometimes reads novels, often thrillers, to relax and also Beck has interviewed a number of thriller writers on his shows.

My own taste runs to autobiographical fiction and, although I haven't read it, Beck's only published fiction to date, THE CHRISTMAS SWEATER, is of this genre. Also, Beck is a live comedian (via broadcast and stage shows) and I find it of interest to wonder about the writing style of those who have honed their story telling craft through live performances. (For example, I read a number of pages of one of another of Howard Stern's books and marveled at its transcript-like, em, sorta stacatto.)

* * *

With regard to political opinions and being a writer, I think there are two poles on a continuum--with one side being for us (writers) to be THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR-ish or the website MEDIA-ITE -ish and try to remain as stringently neutral as possible (in appearance, if not reality), and the other side being for us to be like British journalists in general or like American editorial page writers and to put our own beliefs and opinions out there. There are strengths and drawbacks to each pole. Sometimes a person can lose having hi/r ideas considered if s/he blurts out some position on a controversial issue, so tact is useful for that reason. The other advantage of striving for as much even-handedness as possible is that it helps a person to try to THINK in as open-minded manner as possible. Then, one of the great advantages of putting a person's opinions on whatever issue out there is that it enables minority viewpoints to become more acceptable (lol, if such minority viewpoints are of value, I guess); and also, by disclosing a person's views, s/he at least allows hi/r readers to understand what biases s/he might be bringing to bear.

I both try to be as even-handed as possible and also try to disclose my opinions, as much as reasonably possible. That is my personal take on these "poles."

So, with that in mind: I happen to be to the left of Obama. There, I said it.

(However, there are always drawbacks to putting such beliefs out there. Unless a person is a polical commentator, such as Orson Scott Card, perhaps it is wise to be careful about putting hi/rself out there politically, in order to avoid occasionally suffering professional fallout for some of hi/r stands.

Personally, I'm surprised a book like what Beck's writing (has wrote?) hasn't already come into public view. I even thought about taking a whack at it. Though I don't think there will ever be another full fledged revolt in the U.S., we have never had a president this far to the left. It doesn't take much imagination from a conservative writer's point of view to take the next step.

I'm not fond of Glenn Beck either, believe it or not. There are times when I find it hard to follow some of his discussions on talk radio, but when I can understand him, he makes a ton of sense. Woops! Sorry about that. I'm getting too close to political controversy.

* * *

To Crystal: OK, I'm not much of a debater but I'm game.

I know you're not big on Beck, Crystal, but still I'll go ahead use as my springboard a link to Beck's latest setpiece to be mentioned at the even-handed media commentary site Mediaite.--> http://www.mediaite.com/online/glenn-beck-goes-silent-for-two-minutes-on-live-tv/

[...Ah, rich liberals! lol. Reminds me of Willaim Randolf Hearst. This is where he lived in California,--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearst_Castle in Hearst Castle. Called himself a populist. He (and Theodore Roosevelt) had supported jingoism (see "yellow journalism"). One of the few media guys bucking against cultural anti-Semiticism enough to call a spade a spade in the face of the Nazis' mega-progrom against the Jews in 1938. All in all, a pretty cool dude--in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party & critical of many of the excesses of capitalism. (Until 1935, when he became more conservative)....]

* * *

[Edited: Redacted to remove statement of my left wing views.]

Coincidentally--or maybe not--the following is a recent snip from Beck himself. He's quoting from and commenting on Martin Luther King's pledge of nonviolence.

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"'Observe with both friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy.' Boy, how we would all change if we did that. Work on that one, too."
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-wallis/glenn-beck-on-martin-luth_b_512949.html

I have to say that it is due more to the maturity and willingness to get along on the part of the participants than it is due to me.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3GSSYM3CZ9NDF/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R3GSSYM3CZ9NDF

* * *

Actually, THIS quote doesn't bother me:

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Like so much else that baffles people about Beck, his approach to public tears has been shaped in the crucible of his adopted faith. It was the lachrymose Latter-Day Saints who turned an amateur crybaby pro.
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© 2010 by Alexander Zaitchik
http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dogma/brother-beck-presents/

--although I had to look up LACHRYMOSE. ("Weepy.") According to Dr. Joanna Brooks's belief (herself practicing LDS),

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Beck’s oft-ridiculed penchant for punctuating his tirades with tears is the hallmark of a distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity. As sociologist David Knowlton has written, “Mormonism praises the man who is able to shed tears as a manifestation of spirituality.” Crying and choking up are understood by Mormons as manifestations of the Holy Spirit. For men at every rank of Mormon culture and visibility, appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power.
###
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/1885/how_mormonism_bui lt_glenn_beck?page=2

I, the local, liberal, Communist Pinko, do not want to see threads on political personalities, no matter how much they may have entered into the fiction world. My reasoning is that we may be going down the potato chip path: once you have one, you gotta have another.

I love debating politics and personalities, but this board's scope is pretty well-defined so...as I stated above.

If I'm the only one that feels this way, then I'll go sulk by myself. I mean, if everyone else is okay with it, then so be it. I just won't participate, and I'll keep all my genius political opinions to myself.

So I would say that as long as the discussion limits itself to the subject of a book's text and to the author's writings and stays away with whether or not anyone agrees or disagrees with the author's message, this topic can continue.

If you want to talk about how successfully or unsuccessfully an author argues/presents his or her case in the writing, that's okay. But no evaluations of the case presented, okay?

The thread is an inquiry in to the recent, skyrocketing success of one of the most influential media personalities in the United States for the past couple of years running.

I am apathetic to the ability of our human nature to cater to society unselfishly, and I think anyone who places blind faith in a media figure, politician, or leader in the community is asking to get burned.

There are plenty of guys on the left who are interesting. Frederik Pohl has an interesting blog, www.thewaythefutureblogs.com , that delves (sometimes) into politics---we'll never see eye to eye on most political matters but that doesn't stop it from all being interesting. Check it out, for the SF-related content if nothing else...right now he's running interesting stuff on Heinlein...

quote:

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No one is asking for your political opinions in this thread.

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Then why did you give yours?

It's going to be hard to separate the "man" from the "work". I mean, I don't post Obama's books in here because he's a political figure so one cannot give a critique of the book without getting into a political discussion.

Don't think this just points one way for me. The abovementioned Gingrich / Forstchen collaboration...I see a collaborator's name with a well-known political figure on a work of fiction, and I automatically wonder just who wrote what of it, and how much. (This extends into other areas, too, like, say, William Shatner's TekWar and Star Trek books...)

</wink, wink/end spoofery>

###
"I’ve got to tell you, I’m not a big fan of Glenn Beck but when I got hold of 'The Overton Window,' Glenn’s first adult novel, I couldn’t put it down. This is a must-read, folks, a keeper, a wild ride."
###
_____
Lol. Note that, in reality, its protagonist is Noah Gardner: "Smart, single, handsome and insulated from the world’s problems by the wealth and power of his father"--who meets Molly Ross: "A woman who is consumed by the knowledge that the America we know is about to be lost forever."--> http://www.mediaite.com/print/revealed-plot-of-glenn-becks-new-book/

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"To his [B's] credit, he’s very up-front about this. Orson Welles, one of Beck’s heroes, used to deny his ghost writers credits, but Beck doesn’t. I think "Arguing with Idiots" had something like nine authors listed.[...]Clearly, he hired some of his friends in the patriotic thriller business—and he surely had favors coming, after what Beck has done for them—to ghost his new novel, The Overton Window."
###

Pre-'The Overton Window's' publication, Beck has posted reviews by four of, ahem, B's FELLOW thriller writers: Nelson DeMille, Vince Flynn, James Rollins, & Brad Meltzer. However, the book DOESN'T list any co-authors. Per Zaitchik's speculation/investigation, are any of these authors ghosting its Ayn Randian plot?

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Btw, on this page is a link to a sample from its, I think, 1st Ch.--narr. by Jas. Daniels.--> http://www.glennbeck.com/content/books/

According to USA TODAY:

quote:

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On the title page, Beck shares credit with three contributors. He calls the conspiracy novel "my story," but he says Jack Henderson, one of his contributors, "went in and he put the words down."

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--and ''Overton's'' title page, it's said, credits assists also from Kevin Balfe, who's Beck's VP for publishing, along with Emily Bestler, who's an editor at Pocket Books.
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It's been panned by the WaPo.--> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm/2010/06/beck_responds_to_post _review.html

Here's a review from TIME magazine.--> http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1996882,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
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"Real Time with Bill Maher" writer Chris Kelly...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/glenn-becks-new-novel-abo_b_613861.html

...asserts in the HuffPo similarities between Beck/Henderson/et al's THE O.W....

http://www.amazon.com/Circumference-Darkness-Jack- Henderson/dp/B003A02VVI/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276706819&sr=8-13

...and computer programmer Henderson's maiden novel, CIRCUMFERENCE OF DARKNESS, independently published in 2005 and later picked up by Bantam Dell in 2007 and published as ''Maximum Impact,'' in the UK in 2008.

http://www.jackhenderson.com/?page_id=33 http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/Title/9780751539455