A lot of you are mentioning Orson Scott Card. I've never read his more sci-fi series, but long ago I fell in love with his Alvin Maker series. And then I read
Hart's Hope, which I think is one of his best. One of the main points behind
Harts Hope is how very thin the line is between justice and revenge, and how powerful forgiveness is. I have always been the type of person who likes things to be fair, just... and this book really made me take a closer look at whether or not it was justice I sought out or revenge. I would like to say I never get revenge now (and I'm not talking about pranks and jokes between friends), but I wouldn't want to lie to you... I'm not that perfect
Now, Orson Scott Card... he seems to be a really nice man. Back when I was in high school, I was in a poetry reading hosted by the editors of the Maryland Poetry Review and one of them gave me Card's address, so I wrote to him, and he wrote back. We continued to write to each other until I went to college and got to busy to write to anyone. In one of the last letters I received from Card, he sent me a tape of a lecture he had given on writing. I must have listened to that tape a hundred times in one week! When my college advisor found out I was corresponding with Orson Scott Card, he told his 13 year old daughter, who then had to meet me because she loved Card. She was a very sweet kid, so I eventually gave her all of my letters from Card along with the tape, and made her promise that when she was no longer interested in writing to him, she would pass along his address to someone who loved his writing as much as we did.
Heidi