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To Green Angel Tower | Book Review

I just finished reading the gargantuan novel, To Green Angel Tower, by Tad Williams. I thought about reading this book in parts, given its length. It's apparently up there with War and Peace in its length, and it is neatly divided into four sections—but I was engaged enough that I wanted to just finish the book. The fact that I heavily used the audiobook in conjunction with the ebook helped with that. This book is not only long, but it is the culmination of a trilogy. It finished The Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. I have already reviewed the first two entries beforehand, and I will link them below. To briefly recap, I thought The Dragonbone Chair had potential, and it had an amazing climax. Stone of Farewell was not good, save for scatterings of scenes. It was basically the instantiation of middle book syndrome. But because my critique was simply that it didn't need to exist, I was still committed to moving on to the last entry eventually. Right from the outset, I have to s...
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Islamist Handmaid's Tale? | Submission by Michel Houellebecq

I just finished reading Submission, by Michel Houellebecq. This book is French, though I read the translated version, for obvious reasons. The book is rather infamous for its content, which is naturally why I chose to read it. And perhaps, how you describe it says a bit about your attitude regarding it. I wanted to make a joke about how this was basically The Handmaid's Tale in France, except you replace the Far Right with radical Islam (assuming there is a difference?); as such, many on the left don't like it. But while it does depict a near future, where a Muslim Brotherhood group takes over France, in coalition with the socialists, all because they could not bear to let the Far Right party win, the focus of the story is actually elsewhere. What is this book about? Well, as it is often stated in right wing circles, empires are not defeated, they commit suicide. This book is about France's suicide. It is about the West's suicide. The reader is placed within the head of...
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(Well . . .)Do Androids (Actually) Dream of Electric Sheep?: Book Review and Discussion

I just finished reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by—I want to censor myself for the audience's sake—Phillip K. Penis. This is a science fiction novel written in the 1960s about 2021, a world where the Soviet Union still exists, where video calls have replaced phone calls, where cell phones don't exist, where hover cars are commonplace, and the world has largely been left in desolation due to some undisclosed nuclear conflict. At this point, mankind is now moving on, colonizing the wider solar system, namely Mars. Part of the incentive structure are androids, which are given out to people who leave earth. That is the carrot. The stick is the state of earth, itself. That said, many people remain, and Earth is where the novel is set. This is the book that inspired the movie Blade Runner. I have not seen it. I have seen the occasional out-of-context clip. And I've heard much about it. The biggest thing is that the movie is nothing like the book. I will probably watc...
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(Lord of) The Company: Book Review

I just finished reading The Company, by K.J. Parker. This is not exactly a fantasy novel, but it certainly has that aesthetic. It takes you back to medieval times, and it captures the aesthetic of what you could call a grimdark fantasy novel; the catch is that there is no magic in the novel. It is a very dark, heavily character driven novel. People often criticize it by saying that nothing happens (until the very end), but that's because they go in expecting large and momentous events to unfold—kind of like a fantasy novel. The plot of this novel is very subtle, and it's more about the character dynamics than anything else. But another thing, which I think a lot of people miss in relation to this point, is that there is a certain way in which the story is told, which affects how people perceive its pace. We will get into the specifics below. The basic premise of this book is that Kunessin, a former military general, has returned home. He is making contact with all of his old wa...
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Unwind: Book Review and Discussion

I just finished reading Unwind by Neal Shusterman. This is a . . . Young Adult Dystopian novel that I threw on my shelf after someone mentioned in a review that the concept of "unwinding" was incredibly disturbing. I knew that because this was a YA novel, that my enjoyment would be curbed, but I also knew that there was potential for creativity when it came to terror, given that they can't really rely on the typical avenues of horror, like excessive gore, SA, and other adult trauma. This can be really hit or miss. For this novel, the basic backstory is that the pro-life and pro-choice factions in America boiled over into a second Civil War. This culminated in a bloody stalemate, where both sides agreed to a compromise called "unwinding." Abortion is made illegal, but from the ages thirteen to seventeen, parents can choose to have their child "unwound." This means that they are disassembled and all of their pieces are used as organ donations. As long as...
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And Then There Were None: Quickie

I just finished reading Ten Little Ni—Ten Little India—And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. This will be a quickie. I normally prefer the deep, immersive novels—especially the character studies. What I want is something to make me think, as well. Novels like these are not usually up my alley, not because they don't make you think, but because they make you think in different ways. Christie is actually a master of making you ask questions and rethink things. Even if you think you've spoiled yourself, you might end up convincing yourself otherwise later in the story. While books like these are thin in the character department, and I especially felt that way in the beginning, they are a masterclass in taking advantage of what you could call underdetermined theories. There are multiple theories that fit the available evidence, and notably, these theories are incommensurate: they cannot all be true at the same time. You need to keep reading to find more evidence to learn whi...
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Gone Girl: Book Review

I just finished reading Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. Finally, finally, after countless years, I have come around to reading this book. This is the first time, and I have never seen the movie, even. I was spoiled on the major twist of the story, so I kept putting both of them off. Now, that said, I think the twist would have been quite obvious on a meta-level if only because I've read Flynn's two other novels—admittedly, she is a bit of a one trick pony. The good thing is that my assumptions about the context of the major twist were actually wrong, so there were a lot of unexpected things in this novel. It was a wild ride, to be sure. This book apparently kickstarted the domestic thriller craze that is now commonplace today. At the very least, it came at the very beginning of the trend. It begins with Nick Dunne, a very normal husband, waking on his fifth anniversary to speak with his wife, Amy. Later in the day, he returns home to learn that his wife is nowhere to be found. He ...
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