Imagine a world where there are no books, where nobody reads, where nobody thinks for themselves. Where the world is run by machines, by robots. Where the human race is, quite literally, stoned, and often self immolates for no discernable reason. Welcome to a dystopian 25th century America. Reading has been outlawed, books have been destroyed, the public at large has been drugged, and the government is run by an intelligent, never-aging robot whose only desire is to be able to end his life. Mockingbird […]
The Unabomber Manifesto is NOT an anarchist’s handbook nor a madman’s rant.
Forty-fifth book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. All of 150 pages, but one hell of an essay! He falters in a lot of places where he loses control and rants madly, but when he is coherent, he is really very sharp. His observations are quite spot on and he does seem to have seen through the charade that is the modern civilization. I started reading this book just because I was curious about the mind of a serial murderer. Ted (aka The Unabomber) […]
A Never Let Me Go For the Senior Set
I’ve never been a fan of dystopian YA fiction and I guess the opposite of that would be SA or senior adult fiction with a dystopian twist, which is what The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist would be. The premise of the story caught me a little off guard, but as a Never Let Me Go, senior citizen edition, I was pretty impressed. When Dorrit Weger moves into the Second Reserve Bank Unit as a permanent resident, she has few expectations beyond having a secure place […]
How ’bout we just keep this particular Circle broken?
I read The Circle back in August while on a family vacation in San Francisco/Silicon Valley. Needless to say this made Dave Egger’s exploration of life and culture in a dystopian, data-centric near-future all the more depressing. Mae Holland is thrilled when a good friend from college recruits her to come to work at The Circle. Mae starts at the bottom, as a call center customer service rep who fields calls from world-wide clients to help make sure their experience of Circle products and services […]
What if the NAZIs had won?
I will admit to y’all up front that I have no idea what I’m about to say in this review. I don’t want this to become one of those roadblock reviews for me. You know, the ones where you just can’t figure out what to say because the whole book just overwhelmed you, and you can’t even figure out your own reaction, let alone how to sum up the book for other people. I have no idea what my reaction is, or how to sum […]
The Hunger Games: Now with Scary Metal Knife-wielding Bulls (No, Really)
So. I’ve heard all kinds of things about The Maze Runner, but until I realized there was a movie coming out, I didn’t feel an urge to read it necessarily. And then I saw the trailer, which left me a bit intrigued. And then I read the book very quickly. I have no idea how or where to start, because I have a lot of complex feelings about the book. I guess a synopsis should come first, eh? Thomas wakes up in an elevator-like lift […]