 So, if you follow me on Goodreads, which you should, you know that I read a lot of stuff that I don't review on here. You know, I don't make videos about it, I don't talk about it that much, it's just I read it and then I read it on there and then I just kind of move on. And most of the time it's because I just don't have that much to say about it. You know, I just, it doesn't stick with me that much, which a lot of the stuff I read doesn't. You know, like, I might enjoy it just fine and I might think it's stupid or anything like that, but it's just, it doesn't stick with me that much and I don't feel the urge to make a 15 minute YouTube video talking about all my thoughts because I don't have 15 minutes worth of thoughts. And sometimes it's just because my thoughts wouldn't really fit in this format, like some things are just difficult to review, particularly nonfiction. You know, like, I can say, yeah, this is good, but you can't really analyze it with story and characters and everything. You can't pick it all apart and say what worked and what didn't the same way you can with fiction. So that's part of why I don't talk about a lot of the nonfiction I read on here. And sometimes it also just doesn't fit into the schedule. My God, every time, I cannot film a single video without this thing falling over. So this is just going to be some of the stuff I've read over the past like year and a half, I guess, that I haven't talked about much in my videos and sometimes haven't talked about at all and definitely stuff I haven't reviewed. And this it's not really going to be a compilation of reviews. I don't think it's just going to be like very, very brief thoughts on everything. And I don't know, just I feel like sharing some of this with the world. So let's do it. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. So first up, we have Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Now, this one I had been recommended a lot, actually. And I had been looking into reading more sci-fi, specifically sci-fi that isn't young adult. And so I read the first book in the series and it was good. Yeah, I liked it. It was a lot of fun, but I don't really feel like reading beyond it. And I just don't have that much to say about it. Like the premise is basically that it's sometime far in the future where humanity has built up a little galactic empire. We have colonies and shit going out there. And most people on Earth don't know much about it, though, because Earth is basically quarantine to make sure like alien viruses and shit don't get in there. But once you turn 70 years old, you can enlist in the colonial defense forces and you can go off and they will somehow they don't explain exactly how, but somehow using crazy technology, they will give you a young body again and you can become a soldier. And once you're done with your tour of service, you get to just live out in the colonies. And the story follows an old man who does that. And it's interesting enough. Like I did enjoy seeing the world it takes place in, especially some of the aliens. You know, some of them are very strange and seeing their unique cultures and unique biologies and everything is kind of cool. But at first, it seemed like it was going to be like more of an ideas and themes and themes focused science fiction story. You know, it didn't seem like it was going to be specifically about these people trying to accomplish any goal and their journey on doing that. It seems more like it would just be about the broad ideas of like, OK, here's the sort of technology they have. Here's how that affects people and affects society. Here's what it would really be like being out in space and how that would affect things. And, you know, just exploring things like that is what sci-fi has always been good at. And at first, the story is that like the first chunk of it is really just describing their journey into space, like main character and a couple others, their journey into space and describing a bunch of the technology in excruciating detail. And like it's it's not bad, but like that's what it is. So I was getting pumped for that kind of story or maybe pumped isn't the right word. I was getting prepared for that kind of a story. And then by the time you reach the last chunk and we go to the climax, it's just kind of a standard action military sci-fi story. And it's not bad. I think it's done pretty well. And it does end in such a way where I didn't really feel like I needed to read the sequels in order to get the full story. But still, it like it kept touching on these ideas, which seems neat, but then it doesn't explore them in any way. Like I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and for the colonial government to be shown to be super evil or something. And that never happened. You know, they seemed like they were maybe hinting at it at one point, like where there's a bunch of workers that are going on strike and then the government just sends in the military to murder them. But at the same time, the striking workers are shown to be psychopaths who murder and torture a bunch of soldiers that they take prisoners. So I'm not sure exactly what they are going for with that. And honestly, that segment of the book is just so short that it barely leaves an impact. And then there's also segments where it seems like the main character is just being psychologically destroyed by all the war he's witnessing and all the death and violence. But he, again, they don't focus on that much after that moment. So I'm not sure if I can really recommend this because while I did enjoy it, people who are looking for like more complex themes and ideas would probably be disappointed by the end, but people who just want action and military sci-fi would be bored by the first like three quarters of the book. So I don't know. I enjoyed it, but I don't feel like continuing. Then there's the dictator's handbook. And this is fascinating. This is an amazing piece of nonfiction. It's basically just an analysis of how governments and other hierarchical organizations work and just how people use power and why they use it and why they use it the ways they do. And it's a fascinating look. It basically just says that all people who are in charge, whether it's the president of a democratic society or congressman in a democratic society or a dictator in a totalitarian state or anything like that, it just goes into detail about how and why they are in power and basically their primary objective is to keep themselves in power and why they act the way they do. And so when you get into this and you see like, OK, that's why they act that way. It starts to make sense why politicians break campaign promises. It starts to make sense why dictators do stuff that is not good for the country as a whole, like it's not good for the country as a whole, but it might be good for them and their inner circle and things like that. Like it also just shows you exactly how and why so many dictatorships are completely dysfunctional and it completely rips apart the myth that they are somehow more efficient or more effective than democracies. Like, really, if you at all believe in that myth, I want you to read the entirety of the dictator's handbook and then come back to me and try and argue that. I really do because it's a it's a fascinating book and it has given me a unique perspective on things. Then there is Escape to Eden. So this is a terrible, terrible young adult dystopia or OK, I shouldn't say terrible, terrible because it wasn't that awful. But it's not good. But yeah, it's just one of those. I only read the first book in the series. And if you saw my match review a couple of weeks ago, you would know that I just read a lot of these as audiobooks or rather listen to these as audiobooks when I'm in the car a lot. So I get through them relatively quick and it's. Man, where do we even go? Like, you know, it's just it's another one of those, but it's a bit different than you might expect. This one starts off with the main character whose name is Sage. She wakes up in a hospital room with amnesia. She has no idea who she is, where she came from, what's going on. But on her hands, the words run now are written. And so she just runs off, she gets chased and from there, the story unfolds at a pretty fast pace, at least at first. And it's a great opening, you know, like we find out obviously that and we're immediately wondering what's going on. But then we also find out a little bit about the world as a whole. And we find out like most people have been genetically modified to the point where humanity is barely able to survive. Like most people don't live over the age of 30 anymore. And the only way they can survive is by injecting DNA from originals who are people who have not been genetically modified. And so it is at least a little bit of a different world. And it does the book again, starts off pretty strong. Like it's not just, OK, evil government, let's overthrow it. Like, yes, there is an evil government, but the story is a bit more complicated and multifaceted than that. So I'll give it that. Like, again, people will die without original DNA. So it kind of makes sense why they'd be going after people that have it. Similar to match, though, this book just doesn't feel like it's about anything. You know, it just feels too unfocused and even the bits that it does focus on a bit more are just nothing about them stuck with me. You know, I remember like three scenes from this book and none of them particularly strongly. You know, I remember the beginning because that was that was pretty good. And then I remember a few bits spread throughout. And then I remember it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, but I didn't care enough to keep going. So it was. Yeah, it's it just doesn't have much of an identity. And that's why I didn't continue with the series. And it's why I didn't talk about it much. Like I will give it some credit that it the world that takes place in is at least a little bit more original than you might expect, you know, because, yes, people do get modified DNA, but they don't just do it to like make themselves stronger or taller or anything like that. They also have people who like grow wings and fly and people who are turned into like mutated little gremlin things and live in the sewers and the characters have to fight them. Like, you know, it's kind of silly, but at least it's going all the way with something, which is more than I can say for a lot of other things in this genre. No encore for the donkey. That's a weird title. So this one is a memoir. It's actually the second memoir written by Doug Stanhope, who is a comedian. And I have seen a whole bunch of his stand up over the years. I think he's really funny guy. So I was just interested in this and seeing like what his life was like. And this is basically just a year in his life, specifically what he was up to during 2016 and what went down there. And it's it's just an interesting look more into his head than anything, you know, because he's clearly an intelligent dude, but he also is very depressed. Like he seems a hedonic a lot of the time and he has difficulty maintaining most human relationships. And it's just it's a really great look at what it's like to have depression and how this one particular guy deals with it and just how the world looks when you're in that state. It's it's very interesting. Like, again, I don't have a whole lot else to say and it is a pretty short book. So, you know, if you're hoping to get through it, you can probably do so quick. But I don't know. I just I enjoyed it. Then there is The Bane or Eden. Like I've seen it both ways. I've seen it with both titles. Like the copy I had was called Eden, which is a very similar title to Escape to Eden. I'm sorry about that. But then sometimes it's also called The Bane. Like it's written by a woman called Kiri Taylor. So if that helps you, then yeah, yeah. But it is more terrible, the stopian young adults stuff. This one, I also only read the first book of the trilogy because they were all fucking trilogies at that time period. And this one is, again, it's a little unique, which is what caught my eye and is the reason I actually read it. And didn't just skip skim on past it. Basically, it's the zombie apocalypse, except this time the virus is not just a virus that makes people eat other people. It's a virus that turns humans into machines, like robots, basically, and makes them want to spread it to other humans. And then this is several years after the world has ended. And we have main character girl who showed up at this camp one day, like after the apocalypse happened again, with no memory of what happened before that, no idea who she was. And then the story unfolds from there. I think that the whole robot zombie thing is kind of cool. You know, it's at least a little bit of a new spin on the zombie apocalypse formula, which has been done a lot at this stage. And also we find out very early on that main character girl is also one of the robot zombie things. But she has maintained her sense of self and has maintained her intelligence and everything. Although the way it's done is kind of weird because, again, we find out really early on. So you would think that, like, OK, main character girl also knows about it, but she doesn't. So she's shocked along with the audience. And it doesn't really work because there's no time to build up to it. You know, it's just a character we barely know who has finds out this terrible thing about herself as opposed to she knows about it. She has known about it for years, but she's keeping it secret. Or like it comes later in the book when we've gotten to know her. So it's a surprise to us as well as her. And instead of just being like, oh, OK, that that happened. I don't know. Most everything I can say about this book is that it's a good setup on paper, at least. But it's just it's just too bland. You know, nothing interesting really goes down. None of the characters stuck with me in any way. None of the action scenes were really cool. The story was not particularly paced well, and it was not. It never seemed urgent or anything. It just, I don't know, it just it's just bland. And so again, it I just didn't feel like reading past this revolution end game. So this one's different than everything else in this video, not just because it's a comic instead of a regular book, but also because it's not an original or standalone story. It's actually the end of a television show because there was a television show called Revolution around 10 years ago. It was a pretty good show, but it got canceled after two seasons. And unfortunately, it did end on a cliffhanger. And for many years, I just figured, OK, we'll just never find out how it ended. But I found out last year that apparently someone wrote a comic series, which just tied up the story. You know, it's basically season three of the show. But that's part of the problem because you see it's a very short series. It's only four issues, which totals to a little over 80 pages, I think. But in that time, it tries to basically tell the entire story of what would have been season three. And it feels like it just squeezes it into like half of an episode. So while I did enjoy the actual events, like, I think it's a cool ending. It caught me off guard, at least. It's a lot darker and more depressing than I anticipated. But it doesn't go like full grimdark with it and go, yeah, life sucks. Kids get over or anything like that. It's just that the pacing is so rapid fire that nothing has any time to sink in. And also it's just it's just not the same without Giancarlo Esposito. I'm sorry, like that man can do no wrong. Like, I didn't watch Breaking Bad until years later. So revolution was my introduction to him. And I love that man. Him monologuing in every episode was just it was just amazing. And without him, like, I'm glad I got to see the ending. It's just not the same without him or the other actors or anything. You know, it genuinely feels like just reading a Wikipedia page summary of what happened, but at least I know what happened. Hooligans of Kandahar. This one is another nonfiction story. It's basically just the author's experiences in Afghanistan as an American soldier. And it gives you a pretty good look at like what Afghanistan is like, or at least what it was like about 10 years ago, I think was when the story takes place. And what it was like not just to be an American soldier, but you see glimpses into what the government of Afghanistan is like, what the society is like, what it's like for regular people trying to live there. And the author doesn't come across as a saint here. Like he does some questionable things. But you understand why he's doing it. And I can't really blame him for some of the unpleasant things. He doesn't do anything like super heinous. Like he doesn't murder anyone or rape anyone or anything like that. But still, it's a little questionable, some of the things he does because, you know, again, it's a dangerous situation and he doesn't want him or his friends to be murdered by the Taliban. But yeah, if I had read this a few years earlier, then the fact that the Afghan government collapsed like the instant the American military left would not have surprised me as much as it did because it really does show you how the whole situation was just fucked from the beginning. Under the Never Sky. Now, this one is the last terrible YA dystopia that I'm going to talk about in this video, I promise. And this one is the best of these three because I actually finished the whole series. And I mentioned it in my best and worst of 2022 video. It's like fine, you know, it exists. So it takes place sometime far in the future when the world has been destroyed by these massive ether storms, which ethers just like it's the magical plot McGuffin, you know, it floats around in the sky and it comes down and destroys stuff. It just it's there. And there are people that live outside who are a little more primitive with, you know, in terms of technology and their societies and everything. But our main character, Arya, lives under a dome. Called Reverie and, you know, domes are kind of a glimpse of the world before. They have advanced technology, medicine, all that sort of thing. And her mother goes missing. So she like leaves the dome and goes to look for her. And that's like a very simplified version of the setup because the beginning of the first book is really, really good, actually. Like it kicks things right into gear and you're wondering what's going on and you're kind of attached to Arya and you want her to be OK. And, you know, all that sort of stuff. And similar to Escape to Eden, it is more complicated than just evil government overthrow the evil government. The story is much more multifaceted than that. However, that's the main thing I can say about this series. Because other than that, it's just there, you know, like the beginning of the book of the first book is really solid. And the end of the series, the climax is well defined. I at least remember it as well as the climax of the first book. That's pretty good. But it feels like everything in the middle is really just there to fill time. You know, it genuinely seems like the author planned for one book or only had ideas for one book and just for whatever reason had to make it into a trilogy. And so Middle Book Syndrome is particularly bad here. Like, I genuinely forgot everything that happened in the second book until I read the summary and that jogged a little bit of my memory. But even then, like, there's just a lot of stuff in here that feels like it's there to fill time. And the only, like, good thing I remember from the series that I remember going, yeah, I enjoyed that pretty much from beginning to end. Was the romance, the main one at least, between Arya and Perry, who, you know, they're both good characters on their own or at least decent characters on their own. But seeing them fall in love is kind of sweet. And I liked it. The main thing is that after the first book where they fall in love, they're just separated again for most of the rest of the series. And that's that's frustrating, you know. I see that done so often. Like, if you're going to do romance, show the main couple being a couple, you know, don't just have them separated and have them occasionally think and pine for each other, think about and pine for each other, you know, like just just don't do that. The rise of Athens, this is a pretty simple one. Like a lot of the nonfiction I read is historical in nature. This one is, you know, just the story, other history, rather, of ancient Athens, you know, from its inception to, I believe it ends a little after the Peloponnesian War and, yeah, it's very good. Like it's very, very narrowly focused. Like it is really just about Athens. It barely touches on any other part of Greece or anything outside of Greece or anything like that is just about Athens. And but it goes into a lot of detail about it, you know, about their society, their governments, law, warfare, like the arts and philosophy and all that. Like it goes into a lot of detail about it. So I mean, it is still kind of dry and academic at times. So if you're not into that, then this probably won't interest you. But I freaking loved it. Dark Energy. This book, I read it in one day, which is a rarity for me now. But part of the reason I read it in one day is because it's just way too short for the story it's trying to tell. And I still really enjoyed it. I liked it a lot, but man, it needed to be at least twice as long. So the premise is basically this massive alien ship, like miles long crashes to earth and it leaves a trail of destruction a couple of hundred miles long where it skids on the ground and then aliens come out. And the way that humans interact with the aliens, like I don't want to give anything away because, like going into it, I knew nothing about what would happen. And so every twist in the story really caught me off guard. All I want to say is that the aliens, I wasn't expecting them to be what they were and everything we learn about them just is fascinating and brings up more questions that I want to know about. It's it's really, really good. I just I don't know. I enjoyed it a lot. My main criticism other than, again, it being way too short to tell the story it's trying to tell is that the main character is a teenage girl and I don't know why. Like I think the story would have been better served if it was, you know, an adult character who was just a scientist working on the crash or someone else working on the crash, you know, or even if it was a teenage girl, I don't like that. Her dad is someone working on the crash. So she moves from another state to go to a school near the crash. And we spend time with her, like getting to know people at the school and making new friends and stuff. And it's like, it doesn't go on too long, but I'm also like, why is this here? You know, this should not be in this sort of story. Like if you had to have a teenage girl main character, have it be like the ship crashed near her and the government like quarantines her for a bit because they aren't sure if she like has any diseases or anything. They don't want them to spread. And so she's just nearby while everything's being done. Or maybe she's a member of the National Guard and she gets called out to, you know, do security on this or something. You know, you could have done that. But the way it is, it's just odd and a little bit clumsy. But I can't pretend I didn't really like this book. Children of Time. If you watch Hello Future Me, you've definitely heard of this one. It's basically a story about humans colonizing various planets far in the future, and there was a planet that was supposed to be colonized by intelligent monkeys that were, excuse me, injected. Is that the word? I don't know. They were infected with a virus which would speed up their evolutionary process, but the monkeys all die. And instead the planet winds up getting taken over by intelligent spiders. Yeah, that that's a thing. And seeing their society develop over the course of hundreds of years, maybe thousands, I'm not actually sure. The timeline's a little vague, while also humanity is trying to survive far out in space is fascinating. It really is. Like just seeing the different ways their society works and the different ways technology works and everything, it really gives you a different perspective on human society and how we could have turned out differently. And finally, there is Your Movie Sucks by Roger Ebert. Now, Roger Ebert, he was a brilliant man. He was an amazing film critic. And I still look at him as inspiration for a lot of my own criticism. And this is basically just a collection of, well, film reviews that he wrote over the years, but specifically negative ones like movies he hated for one reason or another. And it just it's amazing to watch him just savage these things. You know, like read about how much he hates battlefield earth for a couple of pages and read about all the creative insults he has. And it's great. It's a lot of fun. And I don't I don't know much to say. I just I loved Roger Ebert and I loved reading more of his stuff. So, yeah, that's it. I don't really have a strong closer or anything that connects all of these. It's just those are some of my thoughts on stuff I've read recently that I either have barely talked about or I haven't talked about at all on my channel. And I think that's it. See you later. Bye. Oh, my goodness. People are still watching this. I'm I'm not sure why I thought most people clicked away before the credits started. But yeah, these are all my Patreon Patreon people. 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