A review by nickjagged
Neoreaction a Basilisk: Essays on and Around the Alt-Right by Jack Graham, Elizabeth Sandifer

5.0

Neoreaction a Basilisk is a book that exceeds all expectations. These essays circle around the details of NRx, Gamergate, Paelolibertarianism, and other tangential reactionary/conspiracy movements, but the real work of it is engaging with the horrors lurking at the edges of the philosophies that support such groups. Roko's titular Basilisk is explored as an exemplar of the ever-present ideas that live in the cracks, beyond the endpoints of supremacist utopias, such that the utopian outcomes are dead in the water from the outset. Sandifer isn't doing this to dismiss the malignancy of these ideas (indeed, the entire book is premised on the idea that we are already too far gone), but to find a way to exist in these dark beyonds; if these monsters are so horrifying that fascism can't look at them without flinching, what better defense than to make ourselves monstrous?

Despite the heaviness that the above would imply, this book would absolutely be best described as a romp. The competency with which she approaches these truly horrible people in no way undercuts how eminently readable and blisteringly funny it is. The seven (!) months I took to read this can't be attributed to any difficulty wrestling with the concepts therein, but rather to how much fun I had reading it.

I don't think I could recommend a book more highly than I would this one. This is a fantastic book to end 2019 with, and I'm looking forward to revisiting it in the 2020s.