Philosophy Blog

Review: Robert B. Parker's Fallout

2026-04-05T23:32:03.611-05:00

Robert B. Parker's Fallout by Mike Lupica
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is in so many ways great to be able to read the continuations of the characters Robert Parker created. The continuations are, nonetheless, mixed. Lupica's Stone is enjoyable, the stories move quickly and Lupica colors within the lines of the original stories. He doesn't really push things or the characters (that can be good and bad). It's a pastiche that reminds you of the things you loved about the original. His novels are a bit like an episode of a long running, loved tv show. You enjoy the show and characters, even if the episode is not that original or in itself that compelling.

As I've listened to the Lupica Stone novels, I've mentioned the things I don't like. Lupica's Stone is too Sunny obsessed; he's more passive in the driving of the plot; the language, humor is at times not quite right; too many he says, Molly said; and Lupica relies too much on the stock characters from the Spenser-verse. (On that latter point, the narrator, who is overall very good didn't get the voices right for Tony Marcus and Spike).

This story was a bit too convoluted and bit all over the place -- at least for the first half. The second half is much better and the ways turn out was much more compelling than I was expecting. Some of it was foreseeable, but Lupica threw just enough surprises in there to keep it interesting.

This is the last Stone novel by Lupica since he moved on to the Spenser novels. I am interested in seeing (or rather hearing) where Farnsworth takes Jesse Stone. I have, as you might guess, my concerns about Lupica writing Spenser. I'll try to keep an open mind.

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Review: Project Hail Mary

2026-04-04T14:35:14.280-05:00

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was surprisingly really good! My contrarian instincts kicked in with the movie coming out and all the hype I was hearing, so I didn't expect too much. But I was quickly sucked in and really enjoyed it. I laughed out loud at several points, it is genuinely funny at points. The character development and story telling is well done; there are a few surprises and I really didn't know how the book would end. The sciences part were really interesting and thought-provoking. Interesting philosophical, moral, and scientific questions are raised. I've heard speculation about a sequel; and while I'd love me some more Rocky and to know more about how things turned out on Earth; I'm not sure a sequel would work. But Weir seems like a talented writer, so maybe.

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Review: Robert B. Parker's Stone's Throw

2026-03-29T23:35:00.625-05:00

Robert B. Parker's Stone's Throw by Mike Lupica
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Lupica does a serviceable job of emulating Parker's style and carrying forward the series. But after seeing what Reed Farrel Coleman was able to with Jesse, Lupica's stories fall short. It's hard to pinpoint why, there isn't anything Lupica is doing that is really off, it's just not as good. Coleman pushed the characters, the story more. With Lupica, things feel a little flatter, a little rote. I do have a few issues though. One is something I've complained about with Lupica before: the 'he said'; "molly said", "she said" etc. It's too much. The context makes it perfectly clear who is talking: we don't need a XXX said after nearly every line of dialogue. This is especially bothersome on the audio. Second, there was way to much Stone pinning for Sunny here (especially with the way the book ends, which I'm not thrilled with). Bringing back Crow was interesting; and I always like Vinny (though Lupica's version wasn't a bit off for me). Tony Marcus might have been a bit of stretch though and not all that necessary for the story.

Nevertheless, for long-time fans of Parker/Stone this is an overall enjoyable entry.

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Review: The Tainted Cup

2026-03-29T22:10:23.528-05:00

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This series has received such praise; and it absolutely lives up to the hype. Bennett has crafted an inventive and novel world; unique characters; and a complex mystery with some added political intrigue and the world-might-end-tomorrow tension. Operating in the fantasy and mystery genres, Bennett uses many of the standard tropes, but does so in creative and fun ways. The Holmes-Watson relationship is great, but it's not just that (not just Holmes-Watson in a fantasy world). The fantasy mainly is rooted in the setting and the 'technology' they use to run the world- and that part was fantastic, not at all your typical fantasy magical works. I can't wait to read the rest of the series!

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Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

2026-03-23T21:16:14.998-05:00

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Goblet of Fire has long been one of my favorite of the Harry Potter series; and listening to the full-cast performance reminded me why. We get a bigger picture of Wizarding life. The relationships between Harry and his friends gets explored and enriched. The scenes of the return of Voldemort are done very well in the full-cast performance. The voice-actor for Voldemort is perfect. Really, all the voice actors are great; I've become accustomed to the Snape voice and though it is still not quite right, the actor overall does a good job.

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Review: Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American Jewish Life

2026-03-20T17:11:16.557-05:00

Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American Jewish Life by Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mordecai Kaplan was incredibly prolific over his long life but is likely best known for his tome: Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life. And rightly so. This is a transformative work that was incredibly influential. While Reconstructionist Judaism as a Jewish denomination didn’t catch on in large numbers, so much of what Kaplan argues for here gets adopted or absorbed, to some degree or another, by other denominations, but in particularly Reform, that Kaplan’s vision might be even more successful than what we might think if we just count organized congregations.

The book was first published in 1934, with several reprintings. One of the striking things about the book is that it doesn’t usually feel that dated or that old. In the first part of the book, Kaplan examines and diagnoses many problems within the Jewish world. So much of this could have been about problems we still face today (problems arising from intermarriage, Jews feeling disengaged by the Jewish establishment, feeling torn between the needs of a modern world and the pull of one’s Jewish heritage). And so many of Kaplan’s answers are still relevant.

There is so much that Kaplan covers in this 500+ work, so I want to focus on some of the core themes.

The core theme is Judaism in the modern world: how can being Jewish be meaningful in the modern world where many of the traditional explanations, justifications, and approaches to Jewish practice and thought ring hollow. Kaplan sees two main organized responses: what he calls neo-Orthodoxy and Reform.

Neo-Orthodoxy retreats to, or more charitably, continues to find the traditional justifications normative. Kaplan regards this as untenable post-enlightenment. Kaplan’s view of God and theology is, or has been called, a kind of religious naturalism. He is not atheistic in the way that a Sam Harris or Rabbi Sherwin Wine (the founder of Humanistic Judaism) would be described. His view is more Spinoza-like: God is the way we understand the full-total of the powers and forces of the universe: “God is the life of the universe, immanent insofar as each part acts upon every other, and transcendent insofar as the whole acts upon each part” (316). Holiness, sacredness are the ways we experience the worthiness of life, the significance of the world.

But he has far more scathing things to say about the Reform movement (at least the Reform movement in the early part of the 20th century). The Reform movement is also an attempt to deal with Judaism in the modern world. But Kaplan sees this movement as based on fatal mistaken premise: Judaism is just a religion. It is merely another confessional, monotheistic faith. In the most radical forms: Judaism comes to be, in my words, just a really weird form of Protestantism. Kaplan sees this premise as leading to (at his time) the Reform movement’s rejection of the important role of Jewish law, history, Talmudic study, connection to Israel as the ancestral Jewish homeland, etc. All that is left is some vague notion of monotheism and tikkun olam (social justice), none of it particularly rooted. (The contemporary Reform movement seems to have moved away from these rejections – I think in large part to Kaplan’s (and those influenced by him) criticisms.)

Instead, Kaplan proposes a different path. We need to reinterpret, reconstruct, Judaism and Jewish life by understanding the spiritual and real-world needs that the earlier forms of Judaism (Temple period, exile period, Rabbinical periods) were meant to meet; and reconstructing modern forms of Judaism to meet these needs. Kaplan sees human nature, and our needs as humans, as relatively stable: we share the same spiritual needs as our forebears. But our world, our environment is different and so the ways to meet and satisfy these needs has to be different. Kaplan argues that by doing this, we maintain continuity with our past and our traditions but are able to live vital, flourishing modern Jewish lives.

Another core idea in Kaplan is the idea of Judaism as a Civilization. Here Kaplan is grappling with one of the thorniest issues in understanding Judaism. It can’t just be a revealed religion or just a form of ethical monotheism. This strips Judaism of its uniqueness; its history, its language, literature, its folkways, etc. It fails to explain the connection Jews feel for each other and their historic connection to Eretz Israel. Nor it is an ethnicity or ‘race’: this fails to account for the vast diversity of Jews or the reality of conversion. Kaplan’s answer is to understand it as a civilization: a way of life for a connected people: “the social framework of national unity centering in a particular land, a continuing history, a living language and literature, religious folkways, mores, laws and art” (513). It’s more common in contemporary parlance to talk about this as ‘peoplehood.’ Jews are, as Dara Horn puts, “a joinable tribal group with a shared history, homeland, and culture.”

Much of the book is fleshing out these ideas. The first part diagnoses the problems facing the American Jewish world in the early 20th century and the various ways contemporaneous Jewish movements addressed these (or in Kaplan’s view fail to address these). The second half of the book is Kaplan’s articulation of how a reconstructed Judaism could work: how it would deal with the problems raised by modernity, but remain rooted in Israel, God, and Torah.

I found the book endless thought-provoking and intriguing. I certainly don’t agree with all of it; but there is a lot I do agree with: I can't accept orthodoxy or the traditional justifications, but I find Reform empty and bland. I wish more of his advice had been taken in a more widespread way by the American Jewish community: I think it would be more vital, more engaged, and more Jewish. I even looked up to see if there was Reconstructionist synagogue near me (there isn’t). (though I am not sure how much the contemporary movement is still aligned with Kaplan’s ideas in this book – some of what I’ve read about it makes me quite skeptical.)

Obviously, this is not a book for everyone; no casual read is this. It’s long, though not difficult. It gets into the weeds of things, some of which is no longer relevant. While there are some dated ideas and language, it doesn’t feel overall dated. The most dated elements are probably some of the more sociological frameworks that Kaplan relies on. But if you are keenly interested in the history of American Judaism and how one might understand Judaism in the modern world, I’d recommend diving into this.

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Review: The Radicalism of the American Revolution

2026-03-09T19:05:46.620-05:00

The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This wasn’t quite what I was expecting – and all the better for that. I figured this would be more or less a blow-by-blow of the history of the revolution. But this far more than that: Wood is far more interested here in tracing the social, cultural, philosophical, and religious changes from the colonial era through the revolution into the early 19th century.

The overarching changes are from a monarchial, hierarchical society to the classical republican vision of the founders’ era that retained aristocratic elements but grounded these in liberty and virtue and ending with the broader democratic and egalitarian vision of the post-revolutionary period. The revolution, as Woods shows us, was not merely political; not merely a break between England ad the colonies over taxes; it ran far deeper into a rejection of the monarchial, hierarchical society of England (and Europe) – and this cultural break is what leads to need for the political break in 1776.

Woods also details the economic and commercial changes that paralleled but also both a result of and a driver of these social and cultural changes. The flattening of society was part of what allowed people to seek out entrepreneurial opportunities and the wealth created by these success of these opportunities lead to more flattening.

There is less (than I would I like) on the philosophical shifts from the enlightenment philosophy that influenced the founders to the post-enlightenment/romantic ideals that help shape the post-revolutionary period of the early 19th century. The strain of anti-intellectualism that took root continues to this day.

The disillusionment of the founding generation in the success of the revolution is surprising: both in terms of the disillusion itself, but also that much of the disillusionment comes from the success, not the failure of the revolution. That is, that the liberty, pursuit of happiness, and equality they fought for succeeded so well, that it even came for their classical republican aristocratic notions that the founders thought was needed to ground that liberty. They saw this, as Woods tells it, as portending the downfall of the republic. Fortunately, they seem to have been wrong (or a few centuries too early).

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Review: The Burning Room

2026-02-24T19:52:54.700-06:00

The Burning Room by Michael Connelly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Harry has a new partner. Like Harry, she is driven by a tragedy from her youth. Together they are able to work and solve two different cases -- though not entirely with satisfaction. Maddie shows up here and there, and continues to work towards being a cop herself. Like all Bosch novels, Bosch has to push against misguided bureaucracies and striving politicians.

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Review: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

2026-02-05T22:11:07.318-06:00

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy a few years ago and was blown away by it. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is her debut novel and the first book in her series, The Inheritance Trilogy. That it is a debut novel shows a bit, especially already having read her later, more developed and more perfected work. It was actually interesting to see similar themes and ideas from the later series get played with in Kingdoms. It would be inaccurate and short-selling this book to say it was just a first pass with these themes, but Jemisin is definitely exploring similar ideas but without as much skill and depth as she is able to bring to Broken Earth.

Like in the Broken Earth trilogy, the theme of power and who controls that power are central. The Fifth Season (Book 1 of Broken Earth) begins with the end of world, but eschatological themes run throughout The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms as well.

Nevertheless, I loved this book. I really love the way the story is told. At first, it can be confusing, even disorientating because the narrative perspective is not entirely clear. But there is a good reason for that and it soon makes sense.

It is a such a creative and novel world. While there are echoes of different mythologies from the real world, these are remixed and reimagined in new and inventive ways. The cosmology, if you will, are intriguing. And Jemisin doesn’t go overboard. As with The Fifth Season , the world building is subtle and piece meal. You got what you need for the story while knowing there is so much more.

The ending had a few great twists and was satisfying. Tied things up nicely, maybe a bit too neat, but overall it worked. I’m excited to see where the next books go.

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Review: Along Came a Spider

2026-02-01T21:54:59.942-06:00

Along Came a Spider by James Patterson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the book launched that James Patterson and his best-selling Alex Cross series. As the mystery-detective is one of my favorite genres, I figured it was about time I read a Patterson novel. While I enjoyed the book overall, it is a bit of a mess. There are a lot of plot holes and confusing aspects of the characters. The dialog felt stilted at times and there were odd jumps in the story. The mystery itself was interesting – though not completely unpredictable, there were enough red herrings and twists to keep you on your toes. The sex scenes were a bit much and superfluous.

Frankly, as popular as Patterson is, I was a bit surprised the writing was not better (Connelly, for example, is far better). But this is a debut novel, so I suspect (hope) that some of this gets cleaned up as Patterson develops his style.

Cross seems like an interesting character, especially for the mystery genre. His psychologist background gives his perspective a different twist than your standard cop or private eye protagonist. I am curious to see how Patterson develops him more. That said, I’m not jumping into the next book anytime soon, but it is a series I will return to.

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Review: The Hallmarked Man

2026-01-16T15:53:31.426-06:00

The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am torn about what I think of this book. I love the characters. Strike and Robin are both great characters: complex emotionally and intellectually, not stereotypical, have good moral centers without being overly idealized caricatures. I enjoy ever moment these two are investigating. The writing is always great: the building of tension, the dialogue, the care of character development for minor characters, the avoidance of tropes. (And the audio narration is some of the best there is. Kudos to Robert Glenister)

But I had two main issues. First the core mystery was too convoluted. The cases are always complex and intricate – that’s what sustains the length of these novels. But there were too man moving pieces here and I sometimes got a bit lost about which case was which or the relevance of a particular witness.

Second, Strike and Robin. I love them as characters, I love them as detecting partners. As star-crossed lovers, they are annoying! There is a lot of internal monologue by each character making unwarranted assumptions about the motivations or thoughts of the other character that then predictably creates drama and misunderstanding between them. There were many times I wanted to reach through the book and slap the pair of them. This has always been a part of these novels, but the volume was turned way up here. Which in some ways that I can’t reveal without spoilers, makes some sense. But it had a tendency to overwhelm things.

This is the weakest, I think, of the Strike series. If I could it would be 3.5/5 not 4/5, but I still enjoyed the book even with these flaws. So 4/5 it is.

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Review: All I Did Was Shoot My Man

2026-01-05T20:07:26.530-06:00

All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a heaviness throughout this book. It is the weight of the past and the present and how the past is constantly there in the present. McGill is trying to fix his past, out run it, make amends for it, and yet it hangs there on him, pushing him down, tripping up his present. Many of the other characters are also weighed down by their past and how it is shaping their present. This heaviness of the past underlies a lot of the plot and character motives. Some of the characters are able, seemingly, to move into the future despite (or because) of their past, while this weight crushes others.

The relationship between fathers and sons is a theme in all the McGill books, and it is touched on here as well. McGill is seeing his sons in new ways here. I expect that with Twill now working with McGill, as well as another revelation (no spoilers); this theme will continue to be explored more deeply in the series.

Like the previous books in the series, the plot is not always clear; I often lost the flow of the underlying whodunit part of the story. That’s a weakness to the series, but the characters and dialogue are so captivating, and Mosely’s style and language is so beautiful, it doesn’t really bother me too much.

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Review: Tyrant's Throne

2025-12-22T19:18:18.866-06:00

Tyrant's Throne by Sebastien de Castell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book finishes the Greatcoats quartet. I really enjoyed this series. It hits many of the things that I love: snappy dialogue, swashbuckling heroics, characters with solid moral cores, creative world building, and exciting storytelling.

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Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

2025-12-21T14:14:20.287-06:00

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wonderful to be back at Hogwarts! The performances are great -- though Snape's voice is not quite right. Somehow just not slimy enough.

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Review: Split Second

2025-12-11T18:33:55.467-06:00

Split Second by David Baldacci
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The plot was a bit convoluted and far fetched, but I like the characters of King and Maxwell. I think they work well together and make for good partners. Baldacci always does a good job of building suspense and keeping the reader engaged and wanting to know what is going to happen.

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Review: Robert B. Parker's Fool's Paradise

2025-12-06T13:41:11.053-06:00

Robert B. Parker's Fool's Paradise by Mike Lupica
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really liked want Coleman brought to the Stone series: he pushed Stone in new directions. Lupica picks this up, but just isn't quite as capable as Coleman. Lupica is good; and the story is enjoyable. He's not though really able to push Stone. He's taken what Parker and Coleman have done and can continue it, but not as likely to do much more. It's hard to pinpoint, but Coleman, like Parker, was able to balance the action, plot, and introspection. Lupica doesn't seem to hit this balance right. I noticed the same thing in his Sunny novels (which doesn't bode well for Spenser that he's recently taken over).

One thing that bugs me about Lupica's style is that there are far too many "he said" "she said" "Stone said, Molly said." Need some of that, but not after almost line of dialogue. On the audio, it's very distracting.

I liked having more Molly; there is a lot to develop with her the way Coleman expanded Suits.

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Review: Robert B. Parker's The Bitterest Pill

2025-12-04T22:27:43.430-06:00

Robert B. Parker's The Bitterest Pill by Reed Farrel Coleman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Coleman brings his noir-style Stone to its fullest expression in this one. There were some dark moments, some good twists, and red herrings. I really like Coleman's Stone. I wish he was continuing with the series, I would have like to see where he took it. He didn't try to imitate Parker's style but staying true to the core.

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Review: Robert B. Parker's Colorblind

2025-11-29T18:19:17.347-06:00

Robert B. Parker's Colorblind by Reed Farrel Coleman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a really interesting Stone novel: several interesting, though not entirely surprising, twists here. Coleman continues to push the series in new directions and I like it.

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Review: Summer of Our Discontent: The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse

2025-11-26T14:15:03.939-06:00

Summer of Our Discontent: The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse by Thomas Chatterton Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a pretty wide ranging book, especially for its length, that covers a period of recent history and the convulsions of that time. It is an important book to mark and document much of the craziness of that period: roughly from the election of Obama to the Hamas genocidal attack of Oct 7. Williams examines the election and responses to Obama's election, the rise of Trump, COVID, George Floyd and BLM, the loss of objectivity and standards in journalism, cancel culture, Jan 6, and Oct 7.

Williams does a good job of laying things out. He is deeply knowledgeable, careful, and nuanced in his presentations. He is a wonderful writer; and reads his text perfectly for the audio. But the main failing of the book is that Williams doesn't do enough to draw the underlying threads of these trends into any thing approaching a unified set of explanations or diagnosis; and so he fails also to offer much of prescription for what ails. It is a good time capsule of book (which is important) but doesn't offer that much beyond that.

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Review: Hunting Badger

2025-11-24T16:13:40.953-06:00

Hunting Badger by Tony Hillerman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed how Hillerman brought Leaphorn and Chee together here: each working their side of the mystery and then coming together towards the end. There was something missing here though; it is not one of Hillerman's best. Just seemed to be lacking much substance; the plot and mystery are rather basic. This feels more like a set up for Leaphorn and Chee working together more; as well as set up for their future relationships with the professor and officer Bernie (respectively). Still an enjoyable read.

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Review: Robert B. Parker's The Hangman's Sonnet

2025-11-21T13:48:53.055-06:00

Robert B. Parker's The Hangman's Sonnet by Reed Farrel Coleman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I like Coleman's interpretation of the Stone series, and I enjoyed this novel. However, something felt a bit off for me. Maybe it was how heavy Stone's drinking became; Parker always made it a point that Stone's drinking was there, an issue, but never went too far. Maybe that wasn't realistic, and Coleman's extension makes sense. And it makes sense within the context of the plot too. Nevertheless...

There is a small cameo from the Parker-verse that I felt was a bit forced and not necessary. I like the idea, but it needs to fit better.

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Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Full-Cast Edition)

2025-11-16T22:24:59.644-06:00

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Full-Cast Edition) by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What great fun to listen to the full-cast edition! I really enjoyed being back at Hogwarts. The full-cast performance was excellent: it was immersive, like an old-time radio show. My only criticism is that the voice for Snape was not quite right, but otherwise it was great.

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Review: One Fearful Yellow Eye

2025-11-12T23:02:32.557-06:00

One Fearful Yellow Eye by John D. MacDonald
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

McGee does his thing but in Chicago instead of Florida. It's got all the McGee story elements that readers enjoy. His two page tangent to rip into Chicago as a city is hilarious.

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Review: Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global

2025-11-12T22:59:23.561-06:00

Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a really interesting book that explores the theories about how Proto-Indo-European got its start and spread out. The author looks at archaeological, genetic, linguistic, and other sources to help tell the story and explain the theories. It doesn't go into any great detail; so it is a great general audience overview. If you are looking for more detail about the historical linguistics or other data, David Anthony's The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World seems to get more into that.

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Review: Star Wars: Trials of the Jedi (The High Republic): Star Wars: The High Republic, Book 6

2025-11-01T18:13:18.276-05:00

Star Wars: Trials of the Jedi (The High Republic): Star Wars: The High Republic, Book 6 by Charles Soule
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This closes the chapter on the High Republic. The book is stronger than many in the series; though probably longer than it needed to be. It closes out the story lines well, and I did find the last third of the book to be far more engaging than the rest.

The High Republic books were, at best, uneven. Never bad, but also not ones I was ever enthralled with. This was an intricate multi generational story with many different points of view told a new, and in some ways refreshing Star Wars story. This wasn't a rehashing or retelling of the Skywalker Saga. The dynamics of the Jedi, the Republic, and the Nihil were very different. It provides some interesting perspectives and questions about the Jedi order and Republic as we get closer to the Skywalker Saga era. Besides uneven writing, my main issues were: (1) they should have gone back farther in time; (2) the Nihil were either too much of a stereotypical brainless pirate or where criminal geniuses of epic proportions; and (3) the new Jedi characters were general too bland or generic.

I think they should have gone back farther to give much more breathing space for the story. I never mind having Yoda around, but I think it would have been far more interesting if Yoda was young. The technology is for the most part familiar and the same.

The Nihil were just never that believable as a great enemy. As brainless, nihilistic pirates just out for mayhem they can be scary, but not much of a match for the Jedi. On the other hand, Ro as a villain is too powerful. His foresight and power is just too much for a non-force-wielder. However, his motivations for the level of nihilism and evil are better explained here.

While there were a few Jedi I connected with, Burryaga and Bell stood out for me and Porter Engle and Elzar Mann were interesting, most of the rest were too generic as saintly warrior monks. I just never found myself that engaged with their stories.

I think there was tremendous potential with the High Republic; but it never quite got there. I enjoyed it but it could have been much better.

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