Author: Ben

June 12, 2021

Ben’s Book Review Philosophy

Goodreads and 5-star Ratings First, let’s talk about the “Goodreads problem.” Goodreads is a troubled site that most of its active user base hates. The technology and design of the site are outdated. There are numerous bots and hacked accounts that go around liking posts in an effort to get you to click on their shady, shortened urls. In a...

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May 23, 2021

Shocking Scenes: How Far Is too Far?

Editing your own podcast can be an introspective experience. We record Words About Books episodes much faster than we can edit them. Often, enough time passes between recording and editing that I will have forgotten which points we brought up. I definitely do not remember what exactly I said. It may interest listeners to know that Nate does not share...

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February 18, 2021

I Think Ready Player One Is Bad

This is the first time that I have ever started writing a blog post about a book before we’ve recorded the episodes for said book. Such is my hatred for Ready Player One. In my Goodreads review for Ready Player One I called it “the worst and most intellectually lazy book that I have ever read,” and I mean that...

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February 14, 2021

Cynical English Class With Professor Ben

First things first: I’m not a professor. I’m not an educator of any kind. I have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, and I’m not even particularly good at that. Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I understand that there are sensitive issues wrapped up in what I plan to talk about, and I very much want...

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November 18, 2020

American Election Extravaganza, Media Literacy, and Political Burnout

This is the third time I’ve sat down to try to write something about our election episode. After the first two attempts I abandoned the idea of writing anything. I just didn’t have a fresh take on any of it. There’s practically nothing that one can say about the Donald Trump or his administration that has not already been said,...

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November 9, 2020

Short Story Review: Monkeys on the Beach by Ralph Robert Moore

Monkeys on the Beach by Ralph Robert Moore is a story about a vacation from hell. An American family goes on vacation to some Carribean island. The trip is supposed to serve as an opportunity for Don’s children to bond with his new wife. Right off the bat the family begins experiencing a series of unfortunate events.  The father isn’t...

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November 3, 2020

Short Story Reviews: Haunted House Tour: 1 per by Paul Tremblay

Careful listeners may recognize Paul Tremblay as the author of one of the first books we ever covered on this podcast: Headful of Ghosts. The last story I covered came from The Best Horror of the Year Volume 11 (which I’m still working my way through), but when I was flipping through this years edition of The Best Horror of...

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November 1, 2020

Short Story Review: I Remember Nothing by Anne Billson

I have more anthologies and collections of short fiction than is probably normal or healthy. To my great shame, many of them were purchased, placed on a shelf, and then never touched again. With this series of blog posts I’m going to try to correct that. Usually when I finish a book I post a review over on Goodreads, but...

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October 21, 2020

Why So Hard on Lovecraft?

I’ve been a fan of the aesthetic of cosmic horror for much longer than I’ve been a fan of the work of H.P. Lovecraft. For the uninitiated, cosmic horror is a subgenre of horror that deals primarily with existential themes. It typically features alien beings whose intellect and powers are so far beyond our own that we may barely even...

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October 20, 2020

At The Mountains Of Madness – Additional Show Notes

“It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth’s dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.” ― H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness We recently covered H.P. Lovecraft’s At...

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