More Dark Horses (Vols. 2 and 3)

June 19, 2023

Yeah, yeah, they’re from last year. But still interesting magazines and still worth reading.

It's Not Easy Being The Yoruba Nightmare God

June 18, 2023 in SFF, Reading Notes, Fantasy

More divinity, more problems…

Underdeveloped Organizational Development

June 18, 2023 in Reading Notes, Non-fiction

I may not have what it takes to be a fully compliant ARC reviewer.

Nine Dark Horses

June 17, 2023

The editor doesn’t think you’ve read any of these authors. Click through to see if you should.

Vietnam With A Portuguese Accent

June 16, 2023

A veteran war correspondent takes us on a tour of three bitter and ruthless struggles from the end of Africa’s colonial era.

April Magazines

June 16, 2023 in Grimdark, Magazine, Reading Notes

Better late than never, and featuring a fourth title this month.

**The original meaning of “another day in the trenches.”**

In Stahlgewittern

June 09, 2023 in Non-fiction, War

A classic and controversial take on the First World War from a German perspective.

Strong and Free

May 18, 2023 in Collection, Indie/Self-Published

…And no, this is not some sort of paen to ‘Merica! It’s a pleasantly solid SF collection from 2018.

March 'Zines

May 05, 2023

Do they still call them “‘zines”? Am I just showing my age? Who cares — these were good.

**African war dead from the First World War in a French cemetery.**

Darkness and Blood

May 04, 2023

David Diop explores the seething hell of battle through the eyes of a Senegalese rifleman in the First World War.

A Warning From History

April 18, 2023

The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment In Literary Investigation, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1973 (701pgs)

This is doom-scrolling in literary form. If you wonder how much worse things can get, Solzhenitsyn’s justifiably-famous expose offers a master class in possibility. Springing from what was sold as an effort to build a utopia, the system Solzhenitsyn describes is instead one of terror, suffering and murder on a massive scale. His writing should be a required reading for anyone with blithe dreams of overthrowing the status quo and replacing it with something revolutionary. This is why norms and institutions matter. And why and how the slow and creeping replacement of principle with the pursuit of power, unbounded by humility or effective limits, can and will end in tragedy on a massive scale.

Nonfiction. Total: 8/10