I had never read Orson Scott Card, despite reading a lot of science fiction and fantasy in my life, until I stumbled on a review copy of Hamlet's Father, released several years ago, buried among my things.

For some reason, I had kept the book -- my interest in Shakespeare probably sparked my interest -- but hadn't read it until now. I wish I hadn't.

Much of this short book is simply a retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet in modern prose. It focuses more on Hamlet's life before his father's death, and his years away at university, so that we get to know the protagonist better before the tumult of his father's death -- and his father's ghost -- changes him so markedly and sets him on a mission of vengeance. It was, honestly, kind of a promising start.

But in Card's version of the story, the old king was a pedophile, and Hamlet's companions -- Laertes, Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, among others -- his victims. Hamlet escaped his father's attentions only because his mother forbade him to interact with the boy alone.

With that dramatic change to the storyline, Card discards a great deal of Shakespeare's plot -- along with pivotal character interactions, narrative development and Hamlet's trademark introspection -- and marches quickly to his big reveal, where Hamlet causes several deaths before finding out the truth about his father -- and who the real killer was.

The book ends on a sour note that's completely pointless from every angle.

And now, having read the book and started this review, I turned to the Internet to find that, unbeknownst to me, this book is infamous. I knew of Card's descent into controversy -- his outspoken hatred of homosexuals -- but this book, specifically had escaped my attention.

I wish I'd never found it. It's bad. It's pointless. It takes a rich story and characters and turns them into a twisted platform for the author's prejudices. Card even reduces Hamlet's pretense at madness -- portrayed by Shakespeare as an artful deceit to con everyone around him -- into a ham-fisted juggernaut of bad behavior simply to distract them from his plan.

It's bad writing, with bad intent. I'm throwing this one away.