There are three levels on which one can respond to the claim that abortion has now been “sent back to the states.” First, one can point out that many states have been so gerrymandered by Republican state legislators (aided by the same Republican justices who just sent abortion “back to the states”) that their governmentsContinue reading “Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, Powers”
Author Archives: Brendan Moody
Where We’re Going, Where We’ve Been
Much of what our society frames as tolerance in political discourse is infantilizing nonsense. It is not actually respectful to treat people like children, to sit silently as they deny or obfuscate the consequences of their actions, to allow ill-formed or selfish intentions to weigh heavier than results. Adults ought to own what they believeContinue reading “Where We’re Going, Where We’ve Been”
Myths Transformed
What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket. Over the past 24 hours I’ve read Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad and Karthika Nair’s Until the Lions. Both are short, sharp reworkings of ancient literature that grapple with the violence of war and the subjugation of women. Both are also on sale in theContinue reading “Myths Transformed”
General roundup, late February 2022
Part of the reason my blogging is, um, let’s be charitable and say “intermittent” is that I have such a backlog of things to watch and read and listen to and play that it’s hard to justify spending time writing about the things I’ve actually managed to watch and read and so on. Here, inContinue reading “General roundup, late February 2022”
Reading list, 2021
I read 91 books in 2021. An asterisk means I was rereading something. January 1. Garth Greenwell, Cleanness 2. Thomas Rid, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare 3. James Swallow, Star Trek: Picard: The Dark Veil 4. Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other 5. Jonathan Metzl, Dying of Whiteness 6. John Gaskin,Continue reading “Reading list, 2021”
Book Notes: A Ladder to the Sky
I’m a compulsive buyer of bargain-priced e-books; if I did nothing else with my free time I might possibly be able to keep up with my purchases, but since I also watch TV and play video games I’ve more or less had to accept that collecting books and reading them are fundamentally unrelated habits. PartContinue reading “Book Notes: A Ladder to the Sky”
Lisey’s Slog
On first reading Lisey’s Story was one of my favorite Stephen King novels, as it’s one of the author’s own favorites, and though an attempt to reread it a few years back didn’t go well I’m still fond of the book in theory. So I was looking forward to the Apple TV+ adaptation. That KingContinue reading “Lisey’s Slog”
Book Notes: Pre-Posthumous Joan Didion
I’m never quite sure whether to regret that Joan Didion stopped producing new work before the rise of Donald Trump. It would be easy to say that in times like these the need for her incisive insight is greater than ever, but I don’t know that that’s true. When things get terrible, it’s obvious thatContinue reading “Book Notes: Pre-Posthumous Joan Didion”
Book Notes: The Angel of the Crows
This morning I finished Sarah Monette’s latest novel, the second published under the pseudonym Katherine Addison. I still haven’t read the first, The Goblin Emperor, but I’m a great admirer of the The Doctrine of Labyrinths, an epic fantasy series published under her own name that’s as much about the mental traumas of its half-brotherContinue reading “Book Notes: The Angel of the Crows”
Unliving History
If science fiction is as much about the present as the future, then alternate history is as much about the actual past as the imagined one. That Curtis Sittenfeld’s latest novel, Rodham, is alternate history as wish fulfillment (or, to echo Laura Miller, as fan fiction) is both more obvious and less interesting than justContinue reading “Unliving History”
Late Democracy 