Reviews

The Haunting of Twentieth-Century America by William J. Birnes, Joel Martin

stewie's review against another edition

2.0

Well researched, but problematic. My full review is at HorrorTalk.com.

kmk182's review against another edition

2.0

Interesting information, but this really reads like a text book. Long and not always interesting.

spookybeast's review against another edition

3.0

I'm a skeptic and an atheist. While those aren't the first two adjectives I always choose to describe myself, they are certainly in the top 10. However, I love reading about the occult, the paranormal, and the just plain weird--provided that the authors are entertaining, literate, and perhaps don't take themselves too terribly seriously. So my main complaint about this book was how defensive and self-righteous these authors were without really having any credible substantive evidence; in fact, they frequently seemed to admit that there's no scientific data to support the phenomenon they discuss here but dammit you better believe it's real anyway because debunkers are just a bunch of meanie poo-heads. These guys frequently come off as whiny emo kids when it came time to address challenges to the legitimacy of this stuff. And they have a terrible tendency to proffer a wild and outlandish theory in the form of a hyperbolic line of questioning, immediately followed in the next sentence by (I shit you not, though the emphasis is mine) "Or DO they?"/ "Or DOES it?"/ "Or IS it?"

In short: Nazi time machines? Fucking rad! But don't take it too seriously, guys.