BookAnon.com

It Has Been A While Since I've Seen Someone Actively Praise Luddites. Until Now. Seriously, the title of this review pretty well sums up most of what you need to know about this book... that you could likely have figured out the gist of just from the title, subtitle, and description - at least as they exist roughly a month or so before publication, as I write this review.

Even from a - wildly - "left of center" (at least in US politics) approach, this book actually does a rather remarkable job of being a polemic without feeling like one. It is absolutely a polemic in that the entire purpose of this *really* extended essay is to specifically attack what Bullard calls "conveniences" but are more accurately "technology companies making decisions and becoming too popular to easily find another alternative". But it is also a polemic that openly questions even itself at times.

...

Solid Introduction To Cultural Studies Marred By Dearth Of Bibliography. If you think that something "has" to be some way because of "biology"... Martens here is most lik...

Academic (ie, Extremist Leftist) Slant Mars Needed Revelations. This is one of those books that with a more balanced approach could have been a clarion call about an issue that few (particularly those "in power" or among the more general, non-incarcerated, population) will ever really consider in depth or even really at all. Documentation is among the best I've seen in a while, clocking in at 38% of the overall text, while at least some is clearly cherry picked. Still, at least a version of data and evidence is there, and given the rather explosive claims at times within this text, the Sagan Standard is absolutely applicable and at least in volume clearly covered.

...

Fun Spin On Time Loop Concept. Time loops have been done by a lot of storytellers in a lot of ways, but here Harbison presents a version of one I'd never seen before - a women's fiction tale set on the weekend of a funeral. I am intrigued.

...

Misses The Mark. This is a book that should have been completely objective. It should have been completely neutral on all things politics. It would have been an easy five stars and utterly useful for everyone had it been.

Instead, Hazrat chooses to infuse her personal politics into the story in several areas from the historical (including discussions of Shakespeare, the Bronte Sisters, Whitman, and the "correct" (according to her view) interpretation of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which gets a rather large amount of vitriol dedicated specifically to what she views as recent Supreme Court errors here) to the modern (praising a pregnant "man" emoji while proclaiming that precision matters... except when it comes to biological sex, apparently, while also going on an anti-AI diatribe a bit later). Now, these are certainly areas where if you agree with Hazrat's politics, you're going to appreciate these sections a lot more than someone who doesn't. But here's the problem: By including them *at all*, Hazrat calls into question every bit of the rest of her discussion here and even her professionalism and scholarship generally. Whether you agree or not is irrelevant. Causing such damage to what should be an instructive and informative book for everyone, no matter their views, is the massive flaw of this book - where it "misses the mark" and the source of the star deduction.

...

July 2026 opened with elation and ended with devastation for me. Along the way, I did in fact manage to read 14 books... and cross the 100 books on the year mark.

Starting out the month at Walt Disney World for the America 250 celebrations was a trip. Both Magic Kingdom and Epcot really showed out, and I had a great viewing spot for each. Epcot in particular had easily the loudest sustained firework blast I've ever heard for its finale, and getting back to Pop Century after via the Skyliner took almost the same amount of time as it took me to actually drive all the way home to Jax from the park the next day.

Shortly thereafter, I announced I was (largely) pulling out of social media, and now that some of the bigger reasons I was hanging around are over, I'll be pulling back even more.

And then the end of the month. On the last weekend of the month, my cat got very sick... and never really recovered. By Wenesday, July 29, it was becoming obvious that we needed a vet's opinion, and we scheduled the appointment for Friday, July 31. Even getting into the exam room, I knew it was time when this cat, who absolutely HATED everything to do with the vet and would routinely bolt at the first available opportunity every prior time we had ever taken him... didn't. He wasn't pleased, and he let that be known via hissing and growling (as usual), but when he didn't even attempt to leave his carrier... I knew. The doc confirmed it a few ...

Gatekeepers are a useful tool in fiction. They provide conflict and often offer the protagonist alternative ways to figure out how to reach their goals. I think about Ghostbusters when I think about Gatekeepers unless I’m thinking about that cool roller coaster at the Cedar Point gates.

In real life, though, gatekeepers are often self-proclaimed people who have decided that the rest of the world must follow their own moral code that they’ve developed from their own personal life experiences and interpretation of social and political events around them.

Oh, how I tire of the horror writer community and the gatekeeping that goes on. Perhaps things were better before we all got online, when we didn’t really know each other and our personal beliefs or our lives or our habits. We knew nothing of each other, and maybe that was a good way to be.

As someone who grew up typing novels on a manual typewriter, I’ve seen a lot of changes in the world. I was super resistant to personal computers; I thought we’d all get radiation poisoning and die, so I didn’t have a computer until 1987 when my husband bought me one to help me with my writing. I was very late getting a cell phone; I didn’t get one until 2008, because I don’t answer the phone anyway; why would I carry it around with me?

...

From a guy who grew up in the Southern Baptist Convention and now swears like a drunken sailor, yet also actively reads books across a wider breadth of both genres and topics than nearly anyone

TL;DR: Labels are important, should be accurate, and should NOT detailed immediately before the story begins in eReader editions of books. “Clean” is not problematic, nor is “spicy”. “Christian” should in fact be “Christ-like”.

First up, let’s dispense with one thing: Like I said in the subtitle, I swear like a fucking drunk sailor - but as a “software engineering professional” by day, I come by it honestly. I’m not going to use it in every sentence, but I’m also not going to censor my thoughts here. I understand if you choose to leave, but I think I have a perspective you may likely miss entirely if you do. Your call, and I respect it. :) Also, this article was inspired by a discussion I saw between Bowen Greenwood and Andrew Gillsmith on Twitter/ X that also reached into Substack.

I grew up, again as I noted in the subtitle, in the Southern Baptist Church. My parents had actually gotten married at an Independent Baptist Church (that I would later be a member of myself in my early 20s), and my earliest memories of “church” were at a local Church of God before we moved to the SBC church I grew up in from roughly Kindergarten through when I left it for the Independent Baptist church I mentioned a moment ago.

The SBC church for a while had a church library, and that was actually one of the main libraries I used in that era. I was reading Josh McDowell’s Under Siege and Truth Slayers at the same time that I was reading Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan books, and that would largely be the story of my reading for about 15 ish yrs. Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness/ Piercing the Darkness nearly alongside Joseph Masucci’s Code: Alpha (featuring one of the most brutal killings I ever read in fiction for *years*). Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse alongside Shanti Feldhan’s The Veritas Conflict. Bill Myers’ Eli alongside Dale Brown’s Battle Born. Tim Lehay and Jerry Jenkins’ Left Behind series (the first three I read within 48 hrs of getting them one Christmas) alongside Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs’ Aloysious Pendergast series.

...

A few days ago, Bowen Greenwood had an interesting discussion on genres - and specifically on the "Christian Fiction" genre - on Substack, itself influenced by a post from Gaius Konstantine on Twitter/X and a discussion thereon with both myself and Blake Carpenter. It was interesting, but it needed a response... except I couldn't find my angle. I knew roughly where I was going, but the overall structure was simply lacking. Very formless, even though I knew essentially where I was going.

Then, in another discussion...

For this blog tour, we're looking at an excellent and exciting conclusion to a series readers thought for nearly a decade had already concluded. For this blog tour, we're looking at Everything We Found by Kerry Lonsdale.

First, the review I posted to the book sites (BookBub.com BookHype.com / ...