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essentialsaltesGone Fishin' by Walter Mosely is the creation story of Easy Rawlins, covering some Louisiana incidents largely instigated by his friend Mouse. There's some blood, guts, chicanery and sex, but the story as a whole doesn't amount to anything. Just fleshing out the biography.
I confess I only got through about half of Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi. The diffuse story-telling just isn't grabbing me. A lot of science fiction futures are really about our present, and that's certainly true of Goliath. Rather than white flight emptying out inner cities leaving hollowed-out unmanageable cores, now the rich have gone offworld leaving behind an earth in bad shape. And now there's a whiff of gentrification as some of the offworlders come back. I love a good allegory, but this one doesn't seem to have any point. Granted I didn't stick with it all the way to its destination.
Christianity Made Me Talk Like and Idiot, by Seth Andrews
I got this for free for paying my dues in American Atheists. (Signed, no less). But the title and the book is a bit of a cheat. Andrews was once an avid Christian, and even a Christian radio broadcaster. But a dozen years ago, when he was around 40, he gave up religion.
So the book could have been extremely valuable, hearing his own story from the inside of what it was like before. And how now he realizes that Christianity made him say stupid things. But the book is nearly all about how Christianity makes other people say stupid things. As such, most of it is not very interesting. Any internet atheist could write that book (waves). There are some parts where he talks more directly about his former life, and when he gets on that topic, he tends to express more compassion for other victims of extreme Christianity. But these touches are largely wiped away by how mean-spirited most of the rest of the book is (waves).
I confess I only got through about half of Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi. The diffuse story-telling just isn't grabbing me. A lot of science fiction futures are really about our present, and that's certainly true of Goliath. Rather than white flight emptying out inner cities leaving hollowed-out unmanageable cores, now the rich have gone offworld leaving behind an earth in bad shape. And now there's a whiff of gentrification as some of the offworlders come back. I love a good allegory, but this one doesn't seem to have any point. Granted I didn't stick with it all the way to its destination.
Christianity Made Me Talk Like and Idiot, by Seth Andrews
I got this for free for paying my dues in American Atheists. (Signed, no less). But the title and the book is a bit of a cheat. Andrews was once an avid Christian, and even a Christian radio broadcaster. But a dozen years ago, when he was around 40, he gave up religion.
So the book could have been extremely valuable, hearing his own story from the inside of what it was like before. And how now he realizes that Christianity made him say stupid things. But the book is nearly all about how Christianity makes other people say stupid things. As such, most of it is not very interesting. Any internet atheist could write that book (waves). There are some parts where he talks more directly about his former life, and when he gets on that topic, he tends to express more compassion for other victims of extreme Christianity. But these touches are largely wiped away by how mean-spirited most of the rest of the book is (waves).
