pedanther's reviews
486 reviews

A Dark Victory by Dave Luckett

adventurous challenging medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Death, Violence, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent

A Dark Journey by Dave Luckett

adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Excrement, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation, War

Looking Backward: 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy

challenging reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Mental illness, Racism, Sexism, Classism

Minor: Child death, Suicide, Islamophobia, Grief, Acephobia/Arophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War

The Good Book: A Secular Bible by A.C. Grayling

reflective slow-paced

3.5

There were parts of this that were definitely worth reading. I wish they'd been properly attributed, so I knew who to thank for them. 

I have mixed feelings about the "Secular Bible" conceit. It works as a way of drawing a potential reader's attention; I might not have ever heard of this book if it had been called something more restrained, and the series of events that led to me having this copy would never have happened. But I don't feel like the efforts to mimic The Style of The Bible achieve anything useful, only to distance the reader and give the impression that the work of one man is trying to drape itself in the borrowed finery of a major cultural artifact created by many hands over the course of centuries. 

(Of course, while the compilation is the work of one man, the text isn't - but that brings us back around to the fact that I wish the one man had chosen a different format that included proper attribution. Some of the more distinctive bits are susceptible to being Googled, but there are other bits that I'd really like to know whose words they really are.)

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Xenophobia, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Classism

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Miscarriage

The content warnings largely pertain to the section "Histories", which is derived from Herodotus' histories of the Greco-Persian Wars and includes accounts of atrocities both on and off the battlefield, and to the section "Acts", which is derived from Plutarch's biographies of famous Greek and Roman leaders.

A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Racial slurs, Racism

Minor: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Sexism, Antisemitism

The Diamond Lens by Fitz-James O'Brien

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Murder

Moderate: Death, Racial slurs, Grief, Alcohol

Minor: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Drug use, Mental illness, Racism, Slavery, Suicide, Colonisation

Killing Floor by Lee Child

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual content, Suicide, Police brutality, Grief, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Classism

Minor: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Sexism, Slavery, Medical content, Death of parent, Alcohol, War

Spinneret by Timothy Zahn

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Genocide, Slavery, Islamophobia, Medical content, Colonisation, War, Classism, Deportation

The Workers' Paradise by Russell B. Farr, Nick Evans
Did not finish book. Stopped at 48%.

Small press short story anthology that I bought to support the publisher, even though I suspected it wasn't really my kind of thing. I got halfway through by telling myself that maybe the next story would be the one that proved me wrong, and it never was. I got to a certain point and just couldn't muster the enthusiasm to keep trying. To be fair, putting it off for over a decade probably didn't help, because it means that when the stories go for topical satire I no longer really remember what they're on about, but I suspect I wouldn't have been keen on most of these anyway.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Rape, Slavery, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol

Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book by Gerard Jones

informative medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Infidelity, Racism, Sexism, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent

Minor: Bullying, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Suicide, Violence, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, Classism