Category: More Words

An add on to what we discussed in our podcast episodes. Anytime we have something that didn’t quite fit, or maybe would have been a little too boring for an audio program, it might find a home here.

November 26, 2023

Ben Reviews – Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome by Garth Marenghi

Garth Marenghi’s Terror Tome is a book spin-off of a character created by Matthew Holness. As near as I can tell, the character was created for the sitcom Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place, which ran for only 6 episodes but garnered a cult following. The show was co-written and directed by Richard Ayoade. It was a parody of 80s paranormal soap...

More Words/Reviews Comments: 0

November 26, 2023

Ben Reviews – Halo Cryptum by Greg Bear

I’m not much of a Halo fan. This is not something I would have read by choice and I won’t bore you with the details of how I was made to read it. The point is, I don’t care about Halo and I read this book, so my perspective is going to be a bit weird. To me, Master Chief...

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October 4, 2023

Ben’s Thoughts on Brave New World and School Literature

Recently we covered Brave New World on the podcast. This book was voted on by our patrons. The theme of the poll was “school books”. By that we mean: books that we were assigned to read during high school. Around the time we did this episode, I happened to read this article in The Atlantic entitled Why Kids Aren’t Falling...

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September 3, 2023

Ben Reviews: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

The Fifth Season is a book that his been on my radar for quite a while. But whenever it came time to choose a new book, I always found something that I thought I would like more. The Fifth Season sounded a little boring and a little depressing. Most “back of the book” synopses you’ll find are very light on...

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August 19, 2023

Ben Reviews: Ogres by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I’ve never read a book by Adrian Tchaikovsky before. I didn’t know anything about him or Ogres before sitting down to read this book. I will admit that the cover did not give me much hope. The version I read had a cover that looked like a giant, poorly-cropped, orc character model from World of Warcraft wearing a top hat...

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August 8, 2023

Ben Reviews: God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert

I’m going to do something a little different with this post. I’m going to share my original Goodreads review of God Emperor of Dune from my first reading of the book. This review predates Words About Books. Then I’ll give a short update to that review based on my second reading and I’ll do the rubric evaluation. I’m planning to...

More Words/Reviews Comment: 1

July 31, 2023

Some Final Thoughts Regarding Hunt for the Skinwalker…

We needed a filler episode on the podcast, and I thought it would be fun to cover Hunt for the Skinwalker. It was fun, but little did I know how perfectly timed the episode would be (or did I? How deep does this go?). One short week after the episode came out the “news” was filled with headlines like the...

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July 31, 2023

Ben Reviews: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

To put this reviews in context, I think you need to know that I went into this book with high hopes and low expectations. I was interested in A Court of Thorns and Roses based on everything I read about it, but its rapid rise in popularity on social media was a bit of a turn off for me. It...

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July 12, 2023

Ben Reviews: Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding

As an American man who got married at the age of 29, I’m not the intended audience for this book. So take the rest of this with a grain of salt, I guess. I understand that it began as a series of semi-autobiographical articles that became so popular that a novel was requested. I think I can understand the appeal...

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July 3, 2023

Ben Reviews: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

Battle Royale is a gorey horror novel about a junior high school class in an alternate reality fascist Japan. These students are taken to an island and forced to kill each other in a game that would go on to inspire PUBG, Fortnite, Call of Duty Warzone, etc, etc. The book’s political message is paper thin. The real draw of...

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Ben's books

The President Is Missing

by Bill Clinton

Where to start with this book? Should I talk about how I don't believe that either James Patterson or Bill Clinton actually did much of the writing? Should I talk about how Bill Clinton is spending his retirement creating Bill Clinton fa...

A Court of Mist and Fury

by Sarah J. Maas

I thought this was pretty ok. I'm team Night Court. I really enjoy that Feyre is getting to have a hipster phase with the cool kids in a fancy Bohemian city. I dont even mind that she has all the super powers, I thought that would bug me...

The Infernal City

by Greg Keyes

I don't often do this, but I'm going to engage in a controversial DNF review. I'm fairly confident that being forced to read every word of the rest of it would only lower my score. I made it about half way through Part 1 of the audio boo...

Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery (Hackett Classics) by Dick Ringler (1-Oct-2007) Paperback

Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery (Hackett Classics) by Dick Ringler (1-Oct-2007) Paperback

by Unknown Author

I've read a few translations of Beowulf, and the only thing that's really missing from this one is the original language text. Ringler does a pretty good job of the translation itself. He includes very solid explanation and context as well.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

by Rebecca Wells

I'm neither a mother nor a daughter so take this with a grain of salt, I guess. Siddalee is a famous stage director who stages a hit play. She's interviewed for a New York Times article. When asked about her childhood she accidentally pr...

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