What is wrong with this picture? "Peter's Chair" by John Simpson

From the blurb of a new ebook by John Simpson, "Fate intervenes during a Vatican conclave to elect a new Pope when a young American Cardinal is elected to fill the shoes of the Fisherman. Is the world ready for an American Pope? Is the church ready for a gay Pope with a lover? When Pope John XXIV begins to make badly needed changes in church dogma, odious forces begin to align against the new Pope in an attempt to destroy the change that is being brought to the Vatican. Within the first weeks of the new Papacy, Pope John must deal with a strange note discovered in a desk once used by Pope Paul VI; a repeal of birth control restrictions, and the lifting of the ban on gay people throughout the life of the Church. Will the new Pope survive these changes and discoveries, or will he follow in the path of previously murdered Popes"

How do I count the ways of what is wrong with this...? A gay Pope with a lover? Er...doesn't the fact that he has a gay lover mean he's living in mortal sin? How would they elect someone living in sin? Catholics help me out here - it doesn't matter how pro-gay you are, the Catholic church ain't. The whole idea of this book's bizarre.

Or maybe it's just me.

ETA: In case you fancy a read, the book's here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Not to mention that a pope with a female lover wouldn't fly either, at least not an official one.

...what.

Seriously?

Forget about being elected Pope...this guy wouldn't even be a parish priest, assuming he manages to avoid being excommunicated from the Church entirely.

*Reads excerpt*

I have to admit, Papacy-themed gay porn is a new one.

EDIT: A bit moar serious: There have been dissolute Popes before (the Medicis come to mind) who basically ran the upper echelons of the Roman Catholic Church as their personal clubhouse. This let them arrange their election as Pope, keep mistresses, arrange the election as Pope of a son sired on said mistress. . . so yeah. It's not like there's no precedent here.

OTOH, they Medicis could do this because they were the fuck-mothering Medicis, which is to say rich, powerful, connected, and ruthless. They had the resources to cause corruption on that scale, and reasons for doing so.

As the author of the contested novel, let me say this. First, it is not gay porn. You haven't read the book, so how can you define it?

Second. If you read the book, you would learn a few things. The ONLY sex scene in the entire book is the one posted by sales points. There are no sex scenes involving the Pope and his lover.

Third: If you think there have never been gay popes, than you are very sadly mistaken.

Thanks and enjoy the book!

John Simpson
Author of Peter's Chair

John Simpson wrote:

Third: If you think there have never been gay popes, than you are very sadly mistaken.

Yeah, but you have to go back nearly 800 years to find them.

In this era, with this particular strand of Catholicism? Um, no. For one thing, the Latin American branch of the Catholic Church wouldn't stand for it at all, and they have some hefty clout amongst the Cardinals.

I'm afraid that you will find a Gay Pope in the 20th century.

I've got no doubt that a closeted gay pope could be elected, but an open one would probably be excommunicated. Then again, I haven't actually read the book yet.

Also, the gay porn comment above was, I believe, a joke. Don't take it personally, John.

John Simpson wrote:

I'm afraid that you will find a Gay Pope in the 20th century.

Openly so? As in, living with a lover gay? How did he get around the whole 'mortal sin' thing?

ETA: I'll take a pass on reading the book. I read both "Condor One", and "Murder Most Gay". That was quite enough.

Okay, I'm not going to get involved in a deep theological discussion about gay people. I do NOT believe that gay people are living in mortal sin. I AM gay, and have excellent relations with my church. If you are a fundamentalist, you may very well believe what you want.

No, the 20th century Pope did not have a lover and did not come out. A close friend of mine who is also an author, spent many hours with this man when he was a Cardinal, and then a few hours with him when he became Pope.

I will say nothing more of that.

Finally people, this is a work of FICTION. There is only one part of the book that is based on fact and it has nothing to do with sexuality.

Pax Christi

P.S. sorry you didn't like Condor one. It has been my best selling novel of all time. The sequel, "Talons of the Condor," is out now. Please be sure to get it!

John Simpson wrote:

Finally people, this is a work of FICTION. There is only one part of the book that is based on fact and it has nothing to do with sexuality.

We are aware that this is a work of fiction.

However, one the basic rules of fiction writing is not to write something that violates the rules of the universe you're using. Otherwise, Willing Suspension of Disbelief is broken.

It may be a work of fiction, but we're the people who sit around eating at the edges of plot holes until they consume the rest of the piece. Your fiction has to be believable on some level. Also, I don't really know what you mean by

Quote :

There is only one part of the book that is based on fact and it has nothing to do with sexuality.

but I sincerely doubt you can write an entire book with only one fact in the whole thing. (There is a Pope counts as a fact)

... actually that would be a fun challenge.

John Simpson wrote:

Okay, I'm not going to get involved in a deep theological discussion about gay people.

There's no necessity. I can't engage you on that level - I'm an atheist. I just thought - think - that if you're going to write about a gay Pope, the subject is complex enough that it deserves better than to be thrown away as part of a mystery.

Similar to my feelings about another of your books, "Condor One", where the idea of a gay President was skated over in favour of a superficial description of the duties of a president. I learned a great deal about the day to day life of a president, which was marginally interesting, but almost nothing about the characters of the protagonists. You did the same, IMO, with "Murder Most Gay".

Ok, final post here as I don't intend to become a target of your world.

One of the plot lines in the book, is based on fact.

I know the world of the Roman Catholic Church VERY well, and at its highest levels. The book is written with a great deal of accuracy. You all will never know unless you actually read the thing.

Again, books are liked by people, and unliked by others. Condor One has been a highly rated, and popular book. If you can do better, please do so. Lexin, my sincere suggestion to you is that you buy no further works of mine, because it is my style you do not like. It is my style, and it is what many, many readers love about me.

Go in peace, and good bye.

John Simpson wrote:

because it is my style you do not like.

Possibly so. I tend to think, though, that the reason I don't care for your work particularly is that you could be a good writer - you could be really good - if you let your research show a little less ("my research, let me show you it") and dug a little deeper into the ideas and people behind the bare bones of the story.

Sorry, couldn't resist. (What was I supposed to say? It read like porn.) Granted, perhaps whoever writes your blurbs just has an icepick lodged in his frontal lobe, but the summary looked terrible. While the idea of a gay pope in the 21st century RCC could be very interesting (not to mention bled for angst and drama like a stuck pig) "fate intervenes" and "shadowy forces" look like very lazy storytelling. The amount of "shadowy forces" it would take for this guy to keep his job after being outed, let alone elected Pope, rate in the kilokiras.

grmblfjx wrote:

Not to mention that a pope with a female lover wouldn't fly either, at least not an official one.

If the pope took a vow of celibacy, yes.

However, there is actually nothing in the Church's rules that says the pope has to be an ordained priest, or even a man. It could be a nun or a layman. In fact, they don't necessarily have to be Catholic.

However.

The idea is that the pope is the one with the best understanding of catholic scripture and tradition, which means that the most likely candidate for a good pope would be one that had spent his or her life studying its scripture and traditions. This is why the Pope is usually an elected cardinal.

And given that the Church believes sodomy to be a mortal sin, the chances of an openly gay pope are pretty much zero. (Since I'm only Catholic on paper these days I'm not even going to bother going into the Church's attitudes about tolerance vs. acceptance. I have no dog in that fight anymore.)

Lexin wrote:

How
do I count the ways of what is wrong with this...? A gay Pope with a
lover? Er...doesn't the fact that he has a gay lover mean he's living
in mortal sin? How would they elect someone living in sin? Catholics
help me out here - it doesn't matter how pro-gay you are, the Catholic
church ain't. The whole idea of this book's bizarre.

Pretty much, although I think the blurb is hinting that the church in the writer's world "needs" a dramatic change in doctrine to keep up with the times, or something. Maybe I'll give it a read. Probably not, though.

Dude. John. I'm gay, and I still don't delude myself into thinking I could become Pope while living openly with another man.

It's called "knowing your limits". Catholics would probably all spontaneously combust if there was an openly gay Pope.

Lexin wrote:

John Simpson wrote:

because it is my style you do not like.

Possibly so. I tend to think, though, that the reason I don't care for your work particularly is that you could be a good writer - you could be really good - if you let your research show a little less ("my research, let me show you it") and dug a little deeper into the ideas and people behind the bare bones of the story.

That reminds me of a series of fantasy books...which I can't remember. They were interesting, but man that guy had it in for research. The protagonist of the book became a carpenter, and learning how to do carpentry helped him with his magic. But the author of the book REALLY wanted us to know what was involved in carpentry, and spent pages upon pages expounding on it instead of you know, developing plot or characters.

That it's so forgettable to me is pretty sad. I thought he was a decent author otherwise, but the research shoved in my face made the books utterly boring.

TL;DR: Too much research for books can be bad.

^
No, no. There's no such thing as "too much research". The problem is when the author gets overly proud of doing their research or too caught up in the particulars of the research and all but writes a textbook on the subject instead of a novel. A ton of research is great. What you have to do is let it sit behind the scenes. Let it act as a scaffolding for the story rather than being the content of the story itself. The more stable the scaffolding, the safer you are as you build your building... not a perfect metaphor (shaky scaffolding can still produce great architecture) but you get my point.

This is true. Another offender of "LOOK AT MY RESEARCH YE MIGHTY AND DESPAIR" has been Tom Clancy on more than one occasion. I think his worst offense in this regard is detailing the nuke some terrorists build out of an old B61.

On one hand, it was kinda cool 'cause years later I understood the implications of the "soda straw" aluminum tubes that Saddam Hussein was reported to have.

On the other, I love technical shit like this and even I was bored to tears. Reading a novel. That's bad.

I try to help my friends avoid this when they write about guns. For example: Usually, nobody really cares how many shots per magazine a gun holds, and it's rather odd in the narrative when your protagonist picks up a gun out of the glove box of his friend's car, notes the make and model (Glock 17), caliber (9mm) and how many bullets are in the magazine. While that's nice to see that research has been done, it bears little relevance to the story. It's a series of awkward, unnecessary details.

That's the sort of research you leave implicit. That way, you know when to stop shooting the gun and what kind of damage it does. Experienced readers can recreate the model from that. It's more fun for both of you.

Penguin wrote:

notes the make and model (Glock 17), caliber (9mm) and how many bullets are in the magazine.

In another (gay mystery) book I read recently the author insisted on telling me, every time someone got in a car, the make and model of the car. Boy, was that dull. Especially to me, for whom a car is a box on wheels, preferably with an engine.

And in 'Cheating Chance' by J Buchanan (http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b68044/Cheating-Chance/J-Buchanan/?) I learned a hell of a lot more than I'm ever going to need to know about the workings of the Nevada Gaming Commission. What saved that book was that the characters were interesting (I'm always at home to Goths), the story was quite interesting and the sex scenes were generally hot.