Lee Hunts

I just finished reading My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell. This book is about a fifteen year old girl who goes to a boarding school and is groomed into a relationship with a teacher. The story follows two timelines, one in the past, where you see her as a kid being drawn in slowly by the actions of her teacher, and then the present day, where you see her as a thirty-two year-old woman being forced to come to grips with her past. Was the relationship as she had made it out to be, or was there something else buried underneath that she needs to grapple with? This is a highly psychological novel, and it explores the mentality of victims of SA, especially ones who were groomed from a young age. I think I can provide a different perspective from some of the reviews that I have seen, because I have not read the book that this one is consistently compared to: Lolita by Vladimir Nabikov. I will eventually, after having read this, but as of writing this review, I have no knowledge of 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 ...