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Obscure #NonSpoilerReviews “The Name of the Wind”

“The Name of the Wind″ by Patrick Rothfuss (Part One)

Time for some fantasy, Obscurists. This week I’m talking about “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss, a sweeping heroic fantasy novel, and the first of “The King Killer Chronicle.”

What I love about this book:

If you’re a fan of fantasy worldbuilding, Rothfuss is your guy. “The Name of the Wind” has richly detailed settings, people, cultures, and a rigorous magic system that is all intricately planned out by the author. It also works one of my favorite angles in fantasy: magic as science or technology—there are rules and limitations that are to be discovered, and it isn’t just handwaved.

Rothfuss is also really good at character voice, and his characters, like the world they inhabit, are well designed—on the protagonist side of things and also with the more neutral characters. I can’t say there was ever a character in this story that I thought was poorly conceived. The antagonists are certainly scary but scary the way lightning is when you’re out in a storm and not under any cover.

There are big exciting action sequences at the beginning of the book and the end that were a lot of fun. They act as tent poles on either side of the story. There are conflicts in between but smaller in magnitude.

The musical angle in this book is something I have always admired in books when they’re pulled off well. I think it’s because I can read music and hold a tune, but I’m still a pretty dreadful musician. I was a clarinetist of middling natural skill in school, coupled with an appalling lack of motivation—but that never stopped me from admiring people of great talent and dedication to music. I just wish I was better in that regard. Anyway, through his main character, Rothfuss injects so much passion for music that it’s arresting in a wondrous way and creates a whole new dimension to this guy.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss--Fiction Review

Book Review of the #EpicFantasy novel "The Name of the Wind" written by Patrick Rothfuss reviewed by Kevin E Carlson

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Obscure #NonfictionReviews “The Plantagenets”

“The Plantagenets″ by @dgjones (Part Three)

Parting thoughts:

To me, it feels like some of us have vacillated back to the idea of admiration for “the strong man” of government. Without getting too far in the “well, both sides do it” navel-gazing, because I find when someone wants to tell me about how the left is just as bad as the right, they’re about to reveal that they don’t actually have any real ideas of their own on how to fix things. Yes, both sides of what is widely accepted as the political spectrum have engaged in propping up a “strong man” as head of the government and supreme authority in various places all over the Earth.

Now, that aside, a King is really the ultimate conservative ideal. A man—appointed by God himself—is bestowed magically through birth inheritance with all the skills and wisdom he will ever need to rule his lessers via divine providence. He may be a flawed instrument, but no matter what, no matter how many lies he speaks or how provably wrong he is shown to be, he has to be correct—because God sent him.

There are many, many reasons why I don’t like that prospect. Mainly though, it’s because it’s the same fucking story countless tyrants have told us about why they are in charge and why we, the peasantry, should be just THRILLED to send our sons and daughters to die in some distant land.

I agree with the founding fathers of the United States on this topic. No one should be King. In that name or any other. No one is special from birth. Though that last bit has been a point of lively debate over the years, so much so that we fought a bloody civil war over it.

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Obscure #NonfictionReviews “The Plantagenets”

“The Plantagenets″ by @dgjones (Part Two)

What I don’t love about this book:

Maybe this is because I’m an American and Jones is British, but I found him a little too enamored with his subjects—at times. The only Kings I like are in fantasy books, and in reality, I feel the only good King is a deposed King. For me, Kings and Queens, Emperors and Empresses, are just dictators who typically have God complexes. I’m vehemently against anything that sounds like a right to rule is a birthright and that some people are just super extra awesome because they had the right incestuous parents.

Narratively this book subtly shows its hand revealing a preference for one King over another and genuine like for some. The first part I can understand—I guess—the second not at all. 

A thing I just generally don’t like about history and isn’t specific with this book is how long we as a species played along with this game of; that some people, by virtue of their station in society, are just special. We, as the un-special, are not only required to regard them as such but to also love them. And we’re supposed to regard it as an absolute tragedy when their rich kid gets drunk with all his friends, crashes their expensive—yet poorly designed—white ship into some rocks, and drowns because they all wear stupidly heavy fancy clothes that just soak up the water. I know it’s vicious, and I’m not proud of the schadenfreude, but maybe that bit should have been in the “what I love about this book” section.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"The Plantagenets" by Dan Jones--Nonfiction Review

Book Review of the #History of English Kings "The Plantagenets" written by Dan Jones and reviewed by Kevin E. Carlson

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Obscure #NonfictionReviews “The Plantagenets”

“The Plantagenets″ by @dgjones (Part One)

For this review, we’re taking a deep dive into English history with “The Plantagenets,” written by Dan Jones. It’s a book about early English Kings and the royal family that surrounded them.

What I love about this book:

This is the third book by Dan Jones I’ve read, and I absolutely adore how he tells history. He captured my attention because he’d taken the time to flesh out each historical figure with who they were, what their strengths and weaknesses were, what their ambitions were, and what their family was like around them.

He also takes the time to highlight how certain Kings were tied to popular myth, like Richard the Lionheart and his younger brother John, King of England. Both Kings were prominent side characters in most versions of the legend of Robin Hood—in some, Robin even goes crusading with Richard. John was presented as more of a vicious idiot in the myth. In the actual history presented by Jones, John was undoubtedly vicious but wasn’t exactly an idiot. He was more short-sighted.

A lot of this book reads like a generational family drama novel. Presenting the book that way, Jones helped cement for me who, when, where, and under what circumstances these people lived. I found it fascinating how the descendants of Kings had their lives shaped and directed by circumstances informed by their ancestors long before they ever took over and ruled for themselves. Then watching over the years covered in this book as they either rose to the occasion and ruled well or… not so well.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"The Plantagenets" by Dan Jones--Nonfiction Review

Book Review of the #History of English Kings "The Plantagenets" written by Dan Jones and reviewed by Kevin E. Carlson

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Obscure #NonSpoilerReviews “The Last Kingdom”

“The Last Kingdom″ by Bernard Cornwell (Part Two)

What I don’t love about this book:

So at first, I was a little hesitant to pick up “The Last Kingdom” because even though I had a great time with Cornwell’s standalone novel “Agincourt,” this book is the first of a very long series. It’s not that I don’t like a series of books. It’s just that it takes me a long, long time to finish any series by the nature of how I read books, all scattershot and whatnot. So any series I decide to pick up will be with me for probably years as I plod my way through it.

I am generally not one to get in a twist about prologues—which seem fashionable to hate nowadays—but that being said, it goes on for over an hour in the audiobook. Not only do I find that a bit long for a prologue it’s also about thirty minutes longer than my ideal chapter length. So really, the prologue is just a chapter one dressed up in a prologue’s undergarments. Parading around in those underpants for way—way too long, its corpulence threatening to split the stitching. Also, it starts out on the rather unexciting dithering on alternative spellings of the protagonist’s name—historically a real problem, but interesting to few.

Also, all the chapters are quite long, and per usual, I’m not such a big fan of that fact.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"The Last Kingdom" by Bernard Cornwell--Fiction Review

Book Review of the #HistoricalFiction novel "The Last Kingdom" written by Bernard Cornwell reviewed by Kevin E Carlson

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Obscure #NonSpoilerReviews “The Last Kingdom”

“The Last Kingdom″ by Bernard Cornwell (Part One)

We’re going back in time this week, Obscurists, to resist and fight the Vikings—he said with no sense of irony—so grab your blades! Ok, don’t do that; just pick up this book, “The Last Kingdom” by Bernard Cornwell.

What I love about this book:

I loved a character in Cornwell’s “Agincourt” novel, which I described as a human grizzly bear with a heart of gold in my review of that book. Sadly though, that character wasn’t actually the protagonist of that story. In “The Last Kingdom,” though, Uhtred is very much like that character but younger, and we follow him as he grows up. So I loved that. He’s compelling to me because he’s practical, often irreverent, and sarcastically funny with a touch of cynicism.

Cornwell weaves in his plot and his characters alongside historical persons, places, and events beautifully. Maybe I’d see the seams a little better if I knew my English history better, but it’s hard to imagine that I, as an American jack-of-all-trades when it comes to books, will ever achieve the same depth of understanding of the subject as Cornwell. So I probably won’t ever be able to detect a historical inaccuracy in his work that snaps my suspension of disbelief.

The action scenes in this book are all rigorously detailed from the characters’ perspectives. It’s hard to tell how any one battle is really going or what is happening until a character directly tells us, but I think that’s a stylistic choice. It simulates the fog of war, and there isn’t ever an omnipotent godlike narrator describing the battle—just Uhtred.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"The Last Kingdom" by Bernard Cornwell--Fiction Review

Book Review of the #HistoricalFiction novel "The Last Kingdom" written by Bernard Cornwell reviewed by Kevin E Carlson

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Obscure #NonSpoilerReviews “Stowaway”

“Stowaway″ by @ZDDeanBooks (Part Two)

What I don’t love about this book:

So at heart, I am an agnostic—bare with me, I’ll get on point soon—to the question of whether or not there is a prime cause, the cause of all the subsequent causes that resulted in our universe. In short, my answer to is there a God is: I don’t know. I don’t think I am capable of ever knowing. What I don’t believe in is religion, anybody’s religion—across the board. At the same time, I respect your right to have it, and in return, please don’t bother me about having your flavor of religion. 

Now that my stances are clear, early in this novel, there is a statement that by no means is direct but seems to suggest that Islam is somehow more incompatible with good world order than literally all the other ones. I can understand why someone who fought in the middle east might think that, and I’ll even grant that there is a robust series of examples to support that idea in the short-term of history. In the long view of history, though, there are countless examples of precisely the same sort of fanatical behaviors borne from a genuine belief in all the other major world religions in history. There are significant differences, sure. Those fanatics didn’t have access to planes or high explosives, both being relatively new inventions in human history. Also, unlike today how everything is carefully recorded and cataloged, events in the past didn’t get recorded for historical reasons unless a learned person was handy to literally write it down, and even then, that writing could be burned, and that was an effective form of censorship. But we do know, through robust documentation, that groups such as the Templars absolutely murdered men, women, and children—wholesale—with absolutely no sense of irony in Jesus’s name.

That one throwaway comment is actually my most significant complaint about this book. I believe people of all walks of life are equally capable of being shitty or saintly, and no group is more inherently capable of either than any other group—in the long term—clearly, in the short term, groups like Nazis were as a group really, really bad. Still, Germans overall aren’t any more vicious or virtuous than any other segment of the human family. 

I’ve read reviews saying there are many plot holes to this novel, and I didn’t find that to be true. I mean, I didn’t buy for a second the reason Zade is stranded because of what essentially is a data loss situation, but other than that, I found the internal logic of the story to be okay.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"Stowaway" by Z.D. Dean--Fiction Review

Book Review of the #MilitarySciFi novel "Stowaway" written by Z.D. Dean reviewed by Kevin E Carlson

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Obscure #NonSpoilerReviews “Stowaway”

“Stowaway″ by @ZDDeanBooks (Part One)

Today Obscurists, we’re going on a space adventure with Z.D. Dean’s military Sci-Fi novel “Stowaway.” So you know, pack your good comfortable shoes because it’s a one-way trip.

What I love about this book:

I love military science fiction—just in general—but it’s especially at its best in my opinion when someone familiar with the contemporary armed forces, like someone who served, writes it. Z.D. Dean is such a person, having served in the Army, which I respect and thank him for his service. The depth of his experience comes across in this book, and I feel it enhances the narrative.

Part of the reason I like this subgenre and this book is that it lends itself well to focusing a story to a fine point. Characters with military backgrounds in fiction tend to be to the point, confident, and self-possessed enough to have a plan of action, even if events around them look hopeless. To me, there is something refreshing about characters with those qualities, and they have a momentum to them that is always engaging—even when they’re wrong, they’re at least doing something. Most people outside of the military—I include myself—tend to dither because rarely is discipline demanded of us at such high stakes that death isn’t just possible but likely. So it’s fascinating for me to watch a character in a crisis who might not know exactly what to do but have the training to not let ambiguity paralyze them.

The Sci-Fi technology in “Stowaway” might not be anything that I’ve not encountered before in one form or another in my travels through science fiction. Still, Dean has a genius for the description and innovative applications of that tech. It isn’t just Zade’s weapons that I found interesting in how they’re put together but also his tools. I especially liked that early on, even though Zade has an aptitude for customizing the kit he uses in the field, there are still design shortfalls. Dean shows how the character refines and improves with experience.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"Stowaway" by Z.D. Dean--Fiction Review

Book Review of the #MilitarySciFi novel "Stowaway" written by Z.D. Dean reviewed by Kevin E Carlson

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Obscure #NonfictionReviews “Capital Gaines”

“Capital Gaines″ by @chipgaines (Part Three)

Parting thoughts:

There is something compelling about watching someone incredibly good at something be incredibly good at that thing. While it’s true that I personally am not particularly handy at any activity that requires me to use my anemic skills in that regard, I can appreciate results. Some of the things Chip and Joanna have pulled off are beyond impressive. Aesthetically they can create some beautiful homes, and there is an artistry to that which demands respect.

Coincidentally, I spent a lot of my time listening to this book while installing a self-adhering vinyl floor in a basement—and I hated every single moment of the exercise. I kept thinking to myself, I bet Chip could have done this in an afternoon while snapping yet another piece by accident. But even I have to admit after finally finishing the main room with it, that it did indeed look good. So I can understand why some people like this kind of work with their hands sort of life. Even if it would drive me insane.

This leads me to my concluding thought, and really just another thing that I loved about this book—I know I already did that section, but the balance must be observed. There is a section of this book where Chip talks about digging a hypothetical ditch with a stranger who is very different from himself. It’s my favorite part of the book because he imagines not agreeing with everything this stranger has to say or even completely understanding their worldview. Yet, they share a meal together and depart as friends. There is power in that because of the empathy it shows. I’ve said before in earlier posts that intelligence, while I value it greatly, isn’t the primary thing utilized to build the modern world. We are cohered into massive societies with numbers of people beyond what we can numerically understand because of a leap forward in empathy.

Hatred is incapable of building anything. It only tears down.

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Obscure #NonfictionReviews “Capital Gaines”

“Capital Gaines″ by @chipgaines (Part Two)

What I don’t love about this book:

This book isn’t so different from “The Magnolia Story” that it couldn’t have all been combined into one longer book. The focus I get is more on Chip’s journey through life, but a big part of that life is Joanna, so it isn’t like she isn’t featured—a lot—which is good. Don’t get me wrong, I like her just as much as Chip. What I’m getting at is that when I moved on to this book after reading that first one, I felt like I was reading the same book. Part of this is unavoidable—reading a memoir written by the same person, of course, both sound the same because they’re written by the same person.

Chip puts himself into many physically perilous situations for little to no reason other than to see if he can pull something off or for a bet. Maybe it’s my inherent cautious nature, but often I find myself thinking—buddy, what are you doing? This goes for the show and the book, by the way. I’ve seen him eat a cockroach for fifty bucks. Champ, you’re a millionaire—and cockroaches’ exoskeletons can be home to fun things like Staphylococcus aureus or Streptococcus, which could present as strep throat or necrotizing fasciitis, aka FLESH EATING BACTERIA. One would think that after surviving bashing his face into the ground from an ATV accident would lead to a more sober, cautious appraisal on mortality and the chances of bodily harm, but I guess not.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"Capital Gaines" by Chip Gaines--Nonfiction Review

Book Review of the #Memoir "Capital Gaines" written by Chip Gaines and reviewed by Kevin E. Carlson

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Obscure #NonfictionReviews “Capital Gaines”

“Capital Gaines″ by @chipgaines (Part One)

Today Obscurists, we’re fixing to read a book by one of the—Ok, I just realized how corny this sentence is now, and I’m going to abort. Today we’re talking about “Capital Gaines” by Chip Gaines.

What I love about this book:

This is the second book I’ve read written by Chip Gaines, the first being “The Magnolia Story,” which he wrote with his wife, Joanna. What surprises me—and continuously surprises me about these books and the Gaines family themselves is how much I genuinely enjoy them. Chip and Joanna’s main claim to fame is their show “Fixer Upper,” which typically isn’t the sort of show that should work for me. I loathe home repair or renovation—really anything that requires me to pick up a hammer or use a drill or saw. But I love their show which is all about exactly that.

What won me over about the show is that the two of them are incredibly charming people, and their dynamic together is sweet to watch. It’s really them as people that got me to love their show, and that’s what this book and the previous book are really about. While “The Magnolia Story” focused more on their early years as a family and business people who eventually got a show showcasing their talents flipping houses, “Capital Gaines” is more about Chip’s early story.

When he talks about his childhood and his baseball dreams, that story resonated with me because it wonderfully encapsulates that sometimes life just doesn’t go the way you thought. It doesn’t mean the pursuit was a waste of time—just an early, if painful, step that led to his next thing in life. It led him to become an entrepreneur where a lot of skills of perseverance and practice translated. There were some pitfalls—like his doomed trip to Mexico—but ultimately, he made it work with the woman who would become his wife, and they formed a family with an incredibly successful business. There’s no way you can argue that it all hasn’t turned out incredibly well.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"Capital Gaines" by Chip Gaines--Nonfiction Review

Book Review of the #Memoir "Capital Gaines" written by Chip Gaines and reviewed by Kevin E. Carlson

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Obscure #NonSpoilerReviews “Howl’s Moving Castle”

“Howl’s Moving Castle″ by Diana Wynne Jones (Part Two)

What I don’t love about this book:

The middle of this novel meanders to the point of sedateness. Part of this is because of the particular curse Sophie is under—she’s a young woman cursed into being an elderly lady, but there doesn’t feel like a lot of direction from the other characters, either. 

Since most of our time is spent hanging out in the moving castle with Sophie, cleaning, making the other character’s lives more interesting, there isn’t much world-building involving the different locations the moving castle is attached to. There is, in theory, people certainly talk about the other places. But it’s precious few times that Sophie actually gets out of the castle in a way that involves us seeing what’s going on in the wider world. This might just be my perception because when I think about this book, it’s about the long, intricate passages of Sophie cleaning the castle, like Cinderella if she were a crone. 

So it’d be weird if I didn’t bring up that there is a Miyazaki film based on this novel that I’d wager people are more familiar with than the book. I was certainly in that camp. In the movie, the Witch of the Waste is a far more complex character that transcends the descriptor of a mere antagonist. In the book, however, if she had a mustache, she’d be twirling it constantly. There’s no rhyme or reason why she’s a jerk that I can see. She just is a jerk.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"Howl’s Moving Castle" by Diana Wynne Jones--Fiction Review

Book Review of the #YANovel "Howl's Moving Castle" written by Diana Wynne Jones reviewed by Kevin E Carlson

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Obscure #NonSpoilerReviews “Howl’s Moving Castle”

“Howl’s Moving Castle″ by Diana Wynne Jones (Part One)

In today’s review, we’re getting a castle—that moves! Ok, that was terrible. In any case, Obscurists, we’re talking about “Howl’s Moving Castle” by Diana Wynne Jones.

What I love about this book:

I can’t remember if I first really got into science fiction or fantasy as a kid, but I suppose it doesn’t matter—both were formative to me. I bring this up because “Howl’s Moving Castle” struck me several times as being an excellent first fantasy book for a young reader. The stakes are real—from beginning to end—but it feels more whimsical than threatening. The challenges the characters face in this book never seem unsurmountable as long as they all work together.

Our main character, Sophie, is a wonderful protagonist because of her relatability, she’s a good person, but she has her flaws. Her biggest of which is that she’s nosey. If ever she’s told not to go somewhere or ask a certain question, she can’t help herself and does it anyway. This extends to really all of Jones’s characters. They’re all likable but have distinct character flaws—Howl’s vanity, Calcifer’s grumpiness, and Michael’s insecurity. What I like about these characters is that despite their flaws, they all still have the opportunity to grow and transcend their character flaws without radically altering their identities. It’s very tactful character work because, in my experience, many characters feel like different people at the ends of novels than who they were in the beginning.

It’s a slow-burn romance between Sophie and Wizard Howl, and the outcome is never certain throughout the book. We know what Sophie thinks about everything, but it’s difficult to pin down Howl because he hates giving a straight answer to anything.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"Howl’s Moving Castle" by Diana Wynne Jones--Fiction Review

Book Review of the #YANovel "Howl's Moving Castle" written by Diana Wynne Jones reviewed by Kevin E Carlson

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Obscure #NonSpoilerReviews “Fallen Angels”

“Fallen Angels″ by @anna_mocikat (Part Two)

What I don’t love about this book:

This pains me to say this because she was my girl all of “Behind Blue Eyes,” but Nephilim 2.0, the good company girl of the Angel Corps, I just don’t like her as much. I loved Neph the rebel, the idealist, the freedom fighter—even though given this novel’s universe, that’s super impractical. But alas, the darlings grow up, and sometimes they become middle management at the cyborg assassin factory, and I guess that’s OK too. I still love Neph for all her exciting action scenes in this book, and even though she’s towing the company line more these days, she still finds little ways to remain loyal to those she cares about—even if that includes Metatron now.

There is some repetitiveness in this book, beats that repeat from the first book, which I’ll discuss in more detail in my analysis, but mainly I found it to be in the dialog between the characters. There are many “you’re super hot” or “incredibly sexy” and variations of that, and the first time a character expresses that about another, sure, valid. The second time OK, we’re cementing that point. The third time and on—we know. They’re hot. Can we get onto the next order of business, please? Also, there is an inordinate number of “are you OK?” questions even when not in battle or fresh from one—and I consider myself a caring individual—but she’s a killer cyborg! I love her to pieces, but she can’t possibly be that emotionally frail, or she wouldn’t be the best damn killer cyborg in the corps.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"Fallen Angels" by Anna Mocikat--Fiction Review

Book Review of the #CyberPunk Novel "Fallen Angels" written by Anna Mocikat reviewed by Kevin E Carlson

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Obscure #NonSpoilerReviews “Fallen Angels”

“Fallen Angels″ by @anna_mocikat (Part One)

Today Obscurists, we’re returning to Anna Mocikat’s cyberpunk dystopian future in “Fallen Angels” book two of the “Behind Blue Eyes” series.

What I love about this book:

I’ve said this before, elsewhere out in the interwebs, but “Fallen Angels” is really more of everything I loved about the first book in the “Behind Blue Eyes” series—with a few caveats.

Mocikat explores all new territory in the book, not just with locations but with seeing characters in different circumstances than we’re accustomed to. This isn’t really too much of a spoiler—but I never thought I would see a vulnerable Metatron. My paranoia is such with that character that I kept thinking, “this isn’t happening, not for real-real. This is all some elaborate miss direction.” It was right about when I was starting to think about saying something about a false flag that I had to stop myself and think, “wait a minute, what have I become? Now I’m the crazy conspiracist? Oh—fuck you, Metatron, you magnificent bastard.” I guess what I’m saying here is that I love to hate this guy, and he gave me plenty of opportunities to do that.

So in my review of the first book in this series, I mentioned that Nephilim was by far my favorite character. And without going too much further, let me say I still have a soft squishy organic part of my heart for her—but Detective Siro Ferreira-Nunes is my new favorite. I was surprised by this because typically, with any book series, I make my imaginary friends early on and am standoffish toward any new characters introduced. My internal wiring is very much—I have my friends, I don’t want new friends, which is probably a deep-seated character flaw of mine.

In any case, Siro won me over quickly, sort of like Pedro Pascal did with his interpretation of Prince Oberyn Martell in “Game of Thrones.” Siro isn’t any less self-absorbed or constantly horny like any other Olympias citizen, but he is authentically who he is all the time. It’s not that Siro is above lying or deception—he isn’t. It’s that his motivations are clear, and he makes them clear to everyone around him. He loves his job, he moved to Olympias I for a better life, he likes coffee and getting laid. In a world full of duplicitous super assassins working all the angles, there’s blessed Siro, entirely out of his depth, doing the job of a homicide detective just because he loves doing it and being himself.

Want more? Get my full review here:

"Fallen Angels" by Anna Mocikat--Fiction Review

Book Review of the #CyberPunk Novel "Fallen Angels" written by Anna Mocikat reviewed by Kevin E Carlson

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Obscure #NonfictionReviews “American Prometheus”

“American Prometheus″ by @Kaibird123 and Martin J. Sherwin (Part Three)

Parting thoughts:

One of the most terrible things about American culture over great periods seems to be our proclivity to vacillate back and forth on our beliefs. It’s uncomfortable—to me at least—how many times we defeat a foe either ideologically, on the battlefield, or both only to then cede ground to them. Then some of our number spontaneously decide something like, “well, maybe those objectively terrible people had a point!”

Again calling back to the civil war period, we did it with the Confederacy, then the Ku Klux Klan, and now some people openly call themselves Nazis. All of those original groups engaged in slavery and genocide to varying degrees. It does a disservice to the men and women who sacrificed so much to put them down that we now allow them a seat at the table as though they had something legitimate to add to the conversation. Now I get this is starting to sound like an anti-free speech argument, and that isn’t my intention. I believe in free speech. I believe you should be allowed to say nearly anything you want without censorship from the government, as defined in the first amendment.

What I don’t believe in is immunity to consequences because of your words or a guaranteed platform provided by privately or publicly owned companies. The first amendment protects you from the government, but any other entity which isn’t the government is free to decide not to do business with you because you went on a racist tirade on Youtube. I cannot begin to tell you how much it makes me grind my teeth when people get this wrong still when they accuse Youtube or Facebook, their job, or whatever else that isn’t part of the government of violating their first amendment rights.

I digress—and I’m straying from my original point—I can’t help but be horribly conflicted with what happened in Afghanistan. On the one hand, I never agreed with the war. I didn’t think we should have invaded in the first place. To continue to pour blood and treasure into the cause decades on, intellectually, I understand, would be folly. But it smacks a lot of what I was saying earlier. It kind of smells like the age-old American tradition to cede ground because we’re tired of the fight—and maybe this fight wasn’t worth fighting in the first place. I thought so and still think so.

But watching people cling to the outside of American planes in takeoff—people who fought with us, people who believed in us, only to fall to their deaths—how did it come to this?

There had to be a better way.

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The official author's website for Kevin E Carlson, author of "Jade Fall" and the Writing In Obscurity blog, which updates Mon, Wed, and Fri.

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Obscure #NonfictionReviews “American Prometheus”

“American Prometheus″ by @Kaibird123 and Martin J. Sherwin (Part Two)

What I don’t love about this book:

So this book won a Pulitzer Prize in biography in 2006—and that’s great, don’t get me wrong—but my complaint is for such an esteemed book, and it’s a great book, how is it the audiobook version is produced so poorly? 

The narrator isn’t totally to blame. He’s fine. But somewhere along the line, the editing got sloppy, and the sound levels are all over the place. In one sentence, it’ll sound like Jeff Cummings is right next to you. The next, he’ll sound like he’s across the room, and then right back next to you a heartbeat later. I get it’s an older audiobook, but—holy hell—it’s not like 2007 when the audiobook was released was the dark ages. For a ninety-five percent exclusive audiobook reader, it was beyond distracting for me.

My chief complaint about the content of this book is that the authors will state a point, share a quote, and then make sure to repeat it again. This typically happens at the beginning of one of their usually very long chapters—my feelings about that topic are well documented—and then rehammer that point or quote later in the chapter. It isn’t clever. It just adds to a whole circular repetitive feel to the whole book. You might have noticed I just did something similar with nearly every sentence in this paragraph, and it was annoying then too!

Want more? Get my full review here:

"American Prometheus" by Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin--Nonfiction Review

Book Review of the #Biography about #Oppenheimer "American Prometheus" written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin and reviewed by Kevin E. Ca