Lee Hunts

Let's talk about immigration. The fun topic. We can brush up on shit-hole countries, invasions, people in need, and whether we should be more empathetic on this topic. In other words, we can talk about the recent novel, A Better Life, by Lionel Shriver. I have already reviewed one book by this author, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and to this day I consider it among my favorite novels ever written. It has probably some of the best character work that I have ever read, and it compares to Better Call Saul, actually. Just know that she did it first. If you are familiar with Better Call Saul, then you know that Jimmy's development into Saul over time—his corruption—may or may not have been caused by his brother; it is all ambiguous, and this is on purpose. We Need to Talk About Kevin has the same complexity with the central question that it asks: did the mother drive her own son to commit a mass shooting? The reader is left to think over the questions, and put the evidence together....

I just finished reading The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. This is the first book in his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series. As described by Mike's Books Reviews, this series is about what happens after happily ever after. King John Prester is a great King that is loved by all. Legends are being sung about his exploits, when he rose to power. But now, he is old and dying, and he has two sons that do not love one another. One is destined to take the throne, while the other is suspected of wanting it for himself. But matters are even more terrifying to behold than that, as an ancient evil seems to be awakening in the north, and humanity is woefully unprepared for what is to come. Amidst all of these machinations is Simon, a lowborn scullion, who is a bare fourteen years of age. He is always lost in his head, fantasizing about romantic adventures, and finding excuses to escape this or that task at hand. But, as you can imagine, he is eventually swept up in an adventure of his own tha...

In the A Song of Ice and Fire series, Tyrion is given a thought experiment by Varys, one of the more mysterious characters in the story. Here is the quote: “In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?" After Varys leaves, it is immediately suspected that the rich man would be obeyed by Shae, which says something. But Tyrion comes away with a somewhat more nuanced view, saying that it cannot really be answered directly, at least not yet, because there is not enough information, which implies an answer of its own. “All depends on the man with the sword.” But Varys has his own response to that: “[Y]et...

I just finished reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein. This author is one of the OGs of science fiction, having shaped the genre from the mid-twentieth century on, so I was very eager to read this, as it was my first book of his. This book is about a libertarian revolution on the moon. A colony that is economically linked with earth, and is politically repressed by the so-called "Authority," seeks to liberate itself from its oppressive grip. At the center of this revolution are three people and an AI computer that has chosen to take part in the revolution for its own reasons. So, what did I think of it? No Spoilers I'm not going to mince words. I did not like this novel. At all. In multiple senses, I outright disliked the story: I did not like the characters, except on a shallow level. I did not like the shallow exploration of the ideas; this felt like a whole host of lost opportunities. I did not like the stakes of the story. And I did not like how the...

It was inevitable that I would write something on the topic of politics and fiction. I hate the way it is talked about, because people are often so shallow in how they approach the topic. We are regularly treated to gems like, "Art shouldn't be political," and equally shiny gems like "All art is political." Invariably, I find the discussions to be particularly annoying and, at the heart of all of them, there is a rather obvious problem. They do not define what it means to be political. How else do you think people could be making such ridiculously contrasting statements? They have different understandings of what it means to be political. In this post, I want to unpack multiple senses of what it means for art to be political, and draw out the implications. What is Politics? I subscribe to a particular form of power politics, so my understanding of politics places power at the center. Politics is the set of activities individuals, groups, and institutions engage ...