Andrew

Deeply Insightful

Revisado: 05-23-24

This book pulls together disparate threads to show how toxic masculinity is at the center of modern Evangelicalism. The things that appear contradictory within the movement are shown to all align toward that one value.

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A Unique Perspective and a Compelling Story

Revisado: 01-20-24

The author offers an angle into the conservative movement few others can offer, coming up as an insider in their academic sphere and then drifting away into mainstream journalism before Trump's entry onto the political landscape.
Tina's perspective becomes especially informative in the final chapters, where she draws connections between the academic conservatives she grew up with and more visible MAGA leaders. She clarifies events from the past decade and does it with style.

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An Insider's Look with No Answers

Revisado: 12-27-23

The premise was very promising - what critique does a pastor's son who still participated in the Evangelical church bring to the table?

The result was underwhelming. Alberta knows the players better than outside journalists would, and he can leverage that into accessing interviews that might be otherwise unavailable, but his conclusions don't bring any unique insights. His Church is in trouble and if anything, his place as an insider blinds him to the ways it's losing engagement and credibility with the rest of America. The author's hand-wringing only adds to the sense

The epilogue rescued the book - before that, I was planning to title this review "Hopelessly Naive". It's at this point that the author takes a sober reflection of Christianity's place in modern America and how it can react to the trends of recent decades. It was a more realistic look after the forced optimism that came through in the book's final few chapters.

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Making Sense of the Incomprehensible

Revisado: 02-26-23

In this book, Will Sommer was able to take the bizarre and fractured history of the Qanon movement and somehow turn it into a digestible narrative. While it works as an introductory point for readers who don't know about the topic, it also provides new details for people who are already well-versed. The most valuable sections may have been the examination into how the conspiracy theories from Q have gained more traction in the time since Trump left office, and how Q's silence since 2020 has allowed the movement to fracture and gain footholds in other spaces across the world.

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An Essential Side Story

Revisado: 12-04-21

Unsettling slice of life with brilliant foreshadowing. Chapter for chapter, this might be the strongest writing in the series.

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Dispassionate Analysis

Revisado: 11-21-20

538 consistently reviews the data with an eye to predicting what will be the correct outcome, instead of what will please the audience. Look at the models compared to the outcome: it's superb.
As for the podcast itself, Galen is a capable host while Nate and Clare play off each other to give a robust picture of the current political situation.

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Worthy Thesis Marred by Overwrought Style

Revisado: 05-08-20

There are good ideas here on a topic that we can't afford to ignore, but the presentation is torturous and pedantic.

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Tedious, Frustrating, Predictable

Revisado: 01-17-20

The premise of the book is far-fetched, but that would have been fine if it enabled an engaging story. Instead we get a story that's three times as long as it ought to be, padding things out with the asinine squabbling of one-dimensional characters. Seriously, they are either clueless yet well-meaning, or clueless and actively malicious.

I feel sorry that the narrator had to act out so many repetitive arguments. They should have been edited out in the second draft. If they were supposed to be funny, they completely missed the mark.

It's unbelievable that this book won the Hugo and Nebula. The characters are mediocre, the pacing is some of the worst I've encountered, the world building of the future is both flimsy and unimaginative. It doesn't matter how much research went into the 14th century setting when it takes 5 hours of listening for anything to happen.

There's the potential for a decent story in there, but as it stands it's bloated and boring.

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The Authoritative Hitler Biography

Revisado: 02-10-18

Kershaw is thorough and unbiased in his account, and a cold telling of the facts has greater impact than so many of the other books on the era that make their biases plain. He strips away Hitler's superhuman veneer and explains step by step how events came together just right to make Nazi Germany possible.

The narrator was clear and grave, an excellent match for the source material.

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Authorial Hubris at Its Worst

Revisado: 08-18-17

What disappointed you about Snow Crash?

After an engaging start, Snow Crash threw away all its momentum and squandered its premise. The characters are flat and most of the action is tedious (though Y.T. is a great exception to both of these).

The book feels like a vehicle for the author's ideas, which might be ok if they were presented in an interesting way (instead of dull infodumps that go on and on and on) and if they had any grounding in reality. The heart of the book is pseudoscientific gibberish that broke my immersion time and time again. The premise is almost offensively wrong to anyone who has studied biology or linguistics at even the most casual level.

Jonathan Davis's narration of Book of the New Sun is perhaps the best I have heard. This book is going to taint that experience every time I try to listen again.

What could Neal Stephenson have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Actually done some research on his core idea. Made the characters more than hollow actors.

What character would you cut from Snow Crash?

Hiro Protagonist

Any additional comments?

Overrated and should have been forgotten. Stephenson has improved immeasurably since writing this.

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