Tag: Ben

October 12, 2024

Dune Post Mortem: Zen and the Art of Thinking Machines

As of this month, Words About Books has officially covered all of the Dune books written by Frank Herbert. It’s a strange feeling. Words About Books can often be a sarcasm-filled mess of rants, interruptions, and audio memes. In addition to its being a difficult environment for emotional honesty, it can be difficult to say exactly what you mean, in...

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May 12, 2024

Ben Explains Mona Lisa Overdrive

There are surprisingly few good summaries of what happened in Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson, so I’m writing my own. This is what I believe happened. This contains spoilers for the entire Sprawl trilogy. Background Mona Lisa Overdrive is the third book in The Sprawl trilogy by William Gibson. “Trilogy” is used loosely when referring to these books. They...

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April 11, 2024

Some Thoughts on Sex and Gender in Dune

Frank Herbert’s Dune Chronicle is a series of science fiction books that deal with multiple themes, but central to every book is the longevity of humanity as a species. The series begins in a future so distant that Earth exists only as a memory of a mythological past. In spite of this, human society has regressed to aristocracy. Technology and...

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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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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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April 24, 2023

Ben Reviews: One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

One of Us Is Lying is a predictable, trope-laden, YA, American high school crime drama. I absolutely loved it. To be fair, though, I’m a bit of a connoisseur of such things. Karen McManus relies on so many tropes and cliches that it is not an exaggeration to say that once I had read each character’s perspective for the first...

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August 7, 2021

Ben’s Goodreads Review of The Wrack by John Bierce

The Wrack by John Bierce My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is one of my favorite books that I’ve read this year. I also completely understand why this book seems not to have worked for many of my fellow reviewers. It’s not a traditional narrative with characters who have arcs. The main focus of the book is The Wrack,...

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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 24, 2020

The Fold: Active vs Passive Reading

It’s no secret that I didn’t enjoy The Fold. I think Nate and I make a fairly good argument that the text has numerous logical errors, inconsistent character motivations, and some truly bizarre plot choices. According to goodreads I’m in the minority, though. The overwhelming majority of readers “liked” the book. With that in mind, I want to explore the...

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