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First off, this is by far my favorite chronicle/saga thingy. I'd like to ask, is there are any alternative readings on Jason Worthing and his world? I was most upset because i really enjoyed this book/chronicle/saga thingy, and realized that it had(and still has) great potential for sequels, and im unsure how many are with me on this, but id really love to see...something...anything...regarding even the worlds it was set in, or about Abner Doon(been a while i hope thats how you spell it). Is there any relief anywhere for me?
[ May 02, 2006, 12:11 PM: Message edited by: Deceased House ]
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Welcome to Hatrack, House. I haven't finished reading the Worthing Saga, so I can't offer you much there. I think it probably has additional impact for those of LDS background.
(If you'd like, you can edit your posts by clicking on the pencil/paper icon at the top of each post. It isn't necessary, of course, but if you were worried about "writing properly," you should know there is a way to go back and correct things.)
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I believe that there are several different short stories, but I may have hallucinated that. It may also be that the short stories were all incorporated into the Saga. I'm just not sure.
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I'd be fascinated to learn what special meaning Worthing would have for Mormons. I'm certainly not aware of any.
There are a handful of stories that were conceived as part of the Worthing Saga but aren't actually in that book (they were in Capitol). Plus the original version of the novel, Hot Sleep, does still exist in www.oscigms.com, the magazine we publish. (cheap, cheap).
I don't know about sequels though. There are some stories I once conceived of in the Forest of Waters, but I don't know if they're really any good, or were just part of my development as a writer, and the development of that world.
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quote:I'd be fascinated to learn what special meaning Worthing would have for Mormons. I'm certainly not aware of any.
Well, there's the whole need for opposition in all things, the need for actions to have consequences in order for there to be free will, the idea that lives with no trials would also have no meaning... these ideas seem to be important in LDS thought. Of course, when I first read Worthing Saga I wasn't LDS yet, so I didn't have any clue where the ideas came from. I just thought that they were really cool ideas. I didn't see the connection until I became an investigator, taking the discussions and all that, and then I realized, "hey, this neat stuff I'm learning is really familiar." The connections seemed obvious to me, but then, I was approaching it all from the outside. Somebody who was born and raised LDS might not notice, like fish don't notice that water is wet or something.
[ May 03, 2006, 11:28 AM: Message edited by: Yozhik ]
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quote:Originally posted by Orson Scott Card: I'd be fascinated to learn what special meaning Worthing would have for Mormons. I'm certainly not aware of any.
Yozhik was quite eloquent above, and I haven't much to add to that other than the following:
The concept of an aware deity interacting with his descendants is something I took away from this work, too, although it has been so many years ago that I'm sure my grip on the story is tenuous at best. However, in some of the discussions about LDS-related beliefs I've had with others on this site -- particularly with respect to the point of having trials in this life, and sometimes with specific reference to their own take on their shared faith -- was something I was able to use to reinterpret that story and find new meaning in it.
Of course, that may have nothing whatsoever to do with your intent, OSC. So much of what we find in a book is what we bring to it. It's just that some ideas I found in discussions about the LDS faith made me view the work in a different light, and when Deceased House originally posted this: "I'd like to ask, is there are any alternative readings on Jason Worthing and his world," that did come to mind.
I do hope this wasn't offensive or untoward. As I recall, discussions specific to details of LDS matters of faith are discouraged here, and it occurs to me that I could have stepped on a few toes. If so, I am sorry. (And even if I did not offend, I'm still not in a position to discuss such matters with any degree of authority to Deceased House, so I'll just delicately fade back into the shadows now. )
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I loved the Worthing Saga. Okay, I wasn't completely enthralled with some of the framing story about Lared. But the philosophy of that book really spoke to me.
I remember that when the movie Pleasantville came out, I actually thought it would have a similar theme: 50's tv show characters doing what they were written to do, everything is goodie-goodie but it doesn't mean anything because they aren't free to choose anything else. And they turn to colour as they begin to make moral choices for themselves, and some choose to do wrong, but others choose to do right, because they now have the will to do it.
I was really looking forward to it. But the previews were misleading, or else I saw what I wanted to see, and instead it was one of the most offensive movies I've seen. Years later I found OSC's essay on it and it was spot on.
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The Worthing Saga is also one of my favorites.
At first I wasn't used to the writing style which is a bit different than other books I have read by Card. There are a large number of short stories in the book - and I get too antsy to move on to "meet" the next character in the book.
However, once the stories started comming together, I couldn't stop reading. I appreciated each short story a lot more.
It really is one of those books that you can read over and over and catch things that you may have missed the first time.
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I entirelly agree, When i first picked the book up, i was rather annoyed, i had been used to a particular way of writing by card after reading the Ender, Shadow, and Homecoming series, but i soon came to love it, and was rather annoed that it ended lol. Personally i like long histories about a particular character, but the way it was presented...just worked. Idk what to say without sounding repetitive...soo.....
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Like what was that game thing? I liked the idea of an entirelly political game w/ so many factors in it, but did it have any political significance on the politics of the real time? (if that makes sense) oooh and y was it called capitol?,i forget, was that origionally earth?
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I love the Worthing Saga/Chronicles/Hot Sleep/Capitol, etc. I even took my screen name from the Worthing Saga. And yes, to me, it is one of the most LDS of OSC's books because it seems that the whole book is detailing the need for sacrifice, opposition in all things, justice and mercy. I reread it recently (for the upteenth time, just like most of the other OSC books on my two bookshelves) and found myself once again moved to tears and contemplative of my own existence and place among humanity.
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Not to sound overly persistant or anything, but nobody has awnsered my question. Mr. Card?, what impact did the game have on the actual politics of Capitol?
Posts: 59 | Registered: May 2006
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Which question did you want answered? You asked four, and I still wasn't sure what you meant.
House, what do you mean by "politics of Capitol"? From what I understand, very few of the people who played the games (and there were loads of different game scenarios) had any part in Capitol's administration. Capitol did not even seem to have many political conflicts either--before Doon, it was under the Mother and her goons.
Therefore, in answer to your last question, I would assume that the game had no impact on Capitol's politics, except insofar as Doon used the 19-something D game as a practice trial for corrupting the planet.
One of the purposes of the game, IMO, was to attempt to satisfy those who felt the need to conquer...potential rivals to Mother's organization. Set up this highly competitive game, make it costly to play, high respect to those who do well, any scenario in history, make it as real as possible with relatively few consequences...and Voila! Tyrant wanna-be babysitter! (I don't know if you could call it effective as Doon actually did accomplish his goal; however, you could measure its success by how long it was before Capitol was broken.)
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Ahhh, but these wealthy people that played the game, since,like you said, they gained alot of respect, couldnt that have had an effect actual politics? couldnt "mother" have been pissed enough because of a game event that she works somebody out of office?, i just want to know how huge it was to the people...like football huge? or like cold war huge?
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Mother was only awake for one day out of, what, a thousand? I don't remember exactly, but not nearly enough to care about the game at all. At least thats what I gathered from the short story concerning her.
But the game was defenitely huge to the people. I'd say roll american football, european football, basketball, baseball, rugby, cricket, wrestling, gymnastics, figure skating and hockey into one. It would probably be that big.
When people woke up from the somec there was the news board and the game board for them to get all of the info that they missed while asleep. The game must have been pretty darn big if it was one of the two things that people cared about upon waking. (There may have been an entertainment board or something too, but I don't remember. If there was, the point still stands: the game was huge."
But I don't think it had anything to do with politics. Except maybe as CRash said: to keep people from thinking about actual politics. The political climate of the empire was pretty cut and dry when you got to the top (except for Abner of course).
Capitol is not earth. I forget the name of the planet, but one of the short stories is all about the transformation from the original planet to the giant city/nation/planet that is Capitol. Unless of course Earth changed names and then became Capitol. It was called Capitol because it was the capitol of the empire.
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And Crove was named for that guy that died like a hundred times. Memories taped and all, of course. I love how things work out.
This series [slash] set was one of my favorite. Mainly because you don't have to read all of them. You could rea Saga (or Chronicles) and then Capitol and Hot Sleep were just add-ons. Yea!!
And the whole psycic-healing-memory-thing, really neat. And to think that Abner (my facvorite, in this series) can be both good and bad. Ok, now enough of the rambling about how wonderful OSC is, i'm sure he hears enough. Posts: 283 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Yozhik: Well, there's the whole need for opposition in all things, the need for actions to have consequences in order for there to be free will, the idea that lives with no trials would also have no meaning... these ideas seem to be important in LDS thought. Of course, when I first read Worthing Saga I wasn't LDS yet, so I didn't have any clue where the ideas came from.
Uhhhh..... Not to diss LDS, but there is no way this is a uniquely Mormon belief. I know you didn't say that, but you did imply that that is where the ideas "came from."
Personally I doubt it. If only because these beliefs are so widely applicable and important in western thought, you have to ask which came first, the chicken or the Mormon. I know OSC is Mormon, but he's also human, and that is a broader group.
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I found the Justice and Mercy thing really confusing. I went back and re-read it, but now I can't remember it again. Why do I remember the transparent toilet and not that? Or did I make up the transparent toilet thing?
I didn't realize before that Abner Doon's destruction of the Somec society was a motif of Jason's undoing of the "guardian angel" system. That's why these discussions are good.
And since Mormonism purports to be a restoration of the truth, of course very little in it is going to be new. What it seeks to provide is the living truth, principles applied in wisdom to their correct applications.
quote:For it must needs be, that there is an aopposition• in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.
12 Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no apurpose• in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the bjustice of God.
http://scriptures.lds.org/2_ne/2
I'm not entirely sure what's being said in parts of that.
Oh yeah, I was pleased to find the story of Jason Crove in Maps in a Mirror. People had always focused on what the story was about rather than who was in it.
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I haven't finished reading the Worthing Saga, so I can't offer you much there. I think it probably has additional impact for those of LDS background.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
