demonxore's reviews
107 reviews

This topic is incredibly important - we need to learn the lessons of our past so we don't erase our future. 

Instead of a review, I'll paste the concluding section of the book's epilogue. While reading this, consider how elections will unfold next year. Think about the folly we will lemmingly walk into if Trump returns to the helm.

"[We face] a situation in which not only have old threats returned but new ones have appeared to make the situation even more unstable and dangerous. The unprecedented proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile technologies has dramatically increased the number of states that can launch a nuclear strike. Even extremely poor but determined regimes, such as the one that rules North Korea, can threaten a superpower with nuclear war. Two rivals, India and Pakistan, both have nuclear capabilities, and Iran's acquisition of nuclear technology causes grave concern not only in the undeclared nuclear state of Israel but also in the non-nuclear regional hegemon Saudi Arabia. Cyberwarfare also makes the current situation more dangerous than that of the early 1960s, as it allows one power to seize control of another's nuclear arsenal without firing a shot.

What remains largely the same is that control over nuclear weapons is still in the hands of a very few individuals, and the rest of the world depends on their leadership and political skills, the soundness of their judgment, and the strength of their nerves. What saved the world during the Cuban crisis was that both leaders considered a nuclear war unwinnable. This is now changing with the scrapping of the old arms control treaties, the renewal of the nuclear arms race, and the development of new technology making possible the execution of extremely accurate nuclear strikes. These factors have lowered the psychological barrier for using nuclear arms, making nuclear confrontation more likely.

What can be done? Hoping that populist and nationalist politicians will stop being irresponsible in their statements and actions, that revisionist autocrats will mutate into defenders of the status quo, that leaders of all political stripes will start following the advice of their experts, or that those experts will free themselves completely of their political and cultural biases is a hopeless proposition. We cannot count on that in a world where the number of nuclear "drivers" on the unregulated highways of international politics is growing with frightening persistence. So is the fear of being attacked and wiped out by a nuclear strike. Such fear may prompt a first strike, with incalculable consequences. The old strategy of mutually assured destruction works only if fear of nuclear war prevails, but such fear has waned with the withdrawal from the anti-ballistic missile treaty, nuclear testing, the end of the Cold War, and the growing conviction that tactical nuclear weapons may be used without provoking a wider war. 

Today we are back to a period resembling the one that preceded the Cuban missile crisis, when there is no generally recognized "balance is terror," to use Churchill's phrase of the 1950s, and various countries are competing in a race to improve and extend their nuclear arsenals. This is one of the most dangerous moments in history of nuclear arms. Back in the Reagan era, another highly unstable, period in the nuclear arms saga, the United States outspent the Soviets. The US can outspend the Russians once again, but what about the Chinese? Can Washington do so without borrowing from Beijing? 

To avoid a nuclear war, we must free ourselves from the belief that nuclear weapons belong to the past, are no longer relevant, and will fade into non-existence almost on their own -- a post-Cold War view dominant until recently in academic and political circles. We should return to the negotiating table and renew the arms control process that began in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis. We can't wait for another crisis of such proportions to bring leaders back to their senses, as the next crisis may prove much worse than the previous one.

At the height of the Cold War, public debate put arms control on the political agenda: governments alone would not have done so. Thus, as citizens, we must re-educate ourselves about the history of nuclear weapons and the dangers they present so that a new arms control regime can be negotiated. Elected politicians eventually listen to their electorates. As participants in democratic politics, we must relearn the forgotten lessons of the past in order to make politicians act upon them. Looking back is an essential prerequisite for moving forward."

It's like We Have Always Lived in the Castle dressed up in modern clothes and made even more social commentary! I was super creeped out by some of Marjorie's behavior and had to read a palate cleanser / brain bleach book before I could go to sleep. Also, the cameo of SGJ as a high school tutor was 😚🤌!

SGJ always knocks it out of the park, but Mongrels was especially resonant for me. The "home" environment the adolescent narrator grows up in is very similar to mine, although my family were not werewolves but a different type of monster. "Home" was an endless string of trailers, motel rooms, couches of acquaintances, the backseats of whatever jalopies we happened upon. I stopped counting the school systems I'd been through at number 13. The adults in my life were uneducated, dead-ended, irresponsible, and overall hopeless. They had no knowledge of how to get out of the lives they'd dug themselves into, so they dug their heels in ever deeper. 

This book brought up a lot of old feelings and experiences, but not in a bad way. It's good knowing someone out there has gone through this and can articulate it (extremely well, in the case of SGJ) to others who can't connect as well with their upbringing. I hope there are more authors who keep telling the stories of mongrels, inspiring urchins like me to break the mold.

I love both weird fiction and fishing, so my hopes were very high going into this. Unfortunately they were a bit too high to be met, so I regretfully have to give The Fisherman 3 stars. The concept is pretty good and I enjoy Langan's literary style, but I would have liked a lot more lore and more tie-ins to the nested story. The last 60ish pages (Part 3: On the Shore of the Black Ocean) are the best, so if you're having a hard time with the middle just keep pushing through to the end. 

This book wasn't technically detailed enough for my taste, but it did provide some helpful insights that better contextualize my day-to-day work. I also didn't realize how much progress North Korea's missile programs have made in the last decade. For folks who don't have much knowledge of or experience with US Ground-based Midcourse Defense, this book contains a pretty good overview of the mission and test history.

This was my first Joe Hill read and, given my distaste for his father's writing, I am surprisingly impressed. The Pram centers around the often overlooked topic of the grief men feel dealing with miscarriage. Hill does a great job, in such a short format, of letting the reader wade into the psyche of a grieving husband who has offered up his livelihood to shield his wife during her post-miscarriage depression. Having never made room for his own grief, the husband begins to lose his grip on reality. Hill also seamlessly weaves in elements of our post-pandemic existence (including loss of olfactory senses) to enhance the story, which was a great touch. The tone of the story's ending was quite rushed in comparison with the rest, but overall The Pram is an excellent story for creepy season. 👨‍🍼☠️

This is an almost perfect book. Elements of intrigue, creepy atmosphere, demented faith, and the occult. Plus the writing style is extremely good. The story feels very real, like it could have happened to you. The Loney might be my favorite read for this year.

Some of the body horror scenes were creepy, but overall this is an unrewarding book. Don't be fooled by the blurbs - this is decidedly *not* cosmic horror. The audiobook narrator's attempts at various foreign accents are the real horror here. Also, I don't have the capacity to suspend disbelief enough to accept that radiation works the way Van Wey tries to pull off. 

Ugh, this is not my jam. A local book club is reading this alongside Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, which I love, so I felt up to the task of reading this modern retelling.

From the first half dozen pages I could tell the writing was immature, but I gave it a chance (stove I don't believe in rating/reviewing books that haven't been read in entirety). It didn't get much better and the plot was hot garbage in comparison with the genius James piece. While James evenhandedly spreads breadcrumbs in two exclusive interpretations, Ware spells out everything in ELI5 fashion, leaving no room for imagination or difference of opinion as to what might've happened. I suppose some readers (actually quite a lot of readers, it turns out) like this kind of hand-holding, but that is certainly not my demographic. Maybe I would have enjoyed this if I were an adolescent 🤷🏼‍♀️

C'est la vie, and at least it didn't take much time to read. 

Not my usual fare, but it was really entertaining and much darker than I had expected!