*DISCLAIMER*
I know Scott personally.

>Card is quite good... but after a dozen of his books, it became like reading Agatha Christie - I started guessing what's coming next. In the end you see the main (or only) reason he's having a plot is to put his characters into position where they'll have to make tough moral choices.

It's difficult for any writer of any kind to maintain fresh material book after book after book. But there is a reason that he was the first person to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards...and he won them both two years in a row.

>Not that he's actively trying to sell his Mormon beliefs, but it feels sneaky after a while.

Have you read anything in the Alvin Journeyman series? It directly parallels the Book of Mormon. But, knowing Scott, he used it to sell a good story. He definately does not try to sell Mormon beliefs in his books, unless they specifically target LDS readers, as some are (Saints, for example). Read some of his columns from Rhinocerous Times, and you'll see. They're available on his web site www.hatrack.com.