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(group member since Nov 17, 2014)
Lena’s
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from the Spells, Space & Screams: Collections & Anthologies in Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror group.
Showing 1,601-1,620 of 7,888
October Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 ★★★☆☆ Nixon is 20 points ahead of McGovern, a man Bobby Kennedy described as “the most decent man in the Senate.”
The Unblinking Eye by Stephen Baxter ★★★★★
“The Inca consolidated, the great expansion called the Sunrise had begun.”
Reread: Still love it!
Inca-Futurism! Oh my wow, my eyes are blurry from not blinking, wide-eyed taking in every word. Now in my top three alternative history stories I’ve ever read, maybe top two!
This is one of those short stories you hope becomes a novel, or a series!
The Goat Variations by Jeff VanderMeer ★★★☆☆ “All of this has made him realize that there’s only one way to survive the presidency: to just let go of the reality of the world in favor of whatever reality he wants or needs, no matter how selfish.”
That sentence felt very Trump. The story is sort of an angry rant mixed in with Minority Report.
Hey getting through Black Spot is tough. You have some glitter in your will, lol. I want to know the secret of Black Spot too but it was taking me down. Spoil it for me when you can please! Just as I finished Equinox at 2am I found that Netflix now has LAs Finest. I actually considered starting it before sleep won.
Just finished a binge watch of Equinox, it was a slow witchy-pagan good time.
Our avid reader and longtime friend Tyler just lost both their grandparents today to Covid.
Yes it is. I enjoyed some Sliders, that was peak Jerry O’Connell.
This Peaceable Land; Or, the Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe by Robert Charles Wilson ★★★★☆ "I love peace just as fervently as I despise injustice.”
Ouch that was dark. In a world where Stephen Douglas beat Abraham Lincoln for President there was no Civil War. Those near seven hundred thousand lives were not lost and cities did not burn. Slavery died out with Industrial Revolution as unprofitable and unpopular. Wilson depicts the iniquity of this peace.
Thought-provoking entertainment!
Boom!
A better look at Clarice and her shitty hair: https://youtu.be/xfMHiNFOAisWhy the shitty hair?!?! Jodie Foster was tidy and tidy is the way I picture FBI agents, especially women.
September
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
★★★★☆ “It is a nervous thing to consider: Not just four more years of Nixon, but Nixon’s last four years in politics —completely unshackled, for the first time in his life, from any need to worry about who might or might not vote for him the next time around.”
Prophetic.
Later in June Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 ★★★★☆ “...the politics junkie is not much different on that score than a smack junkie. The High is very real in both worlds, for those who are into it..”
You can feel Thompson’s enthusiasm for the nitty gritty of this rollercoaster campaign as it closes towards the finish with upheavals in the party power structure. He also does not shy away from graphically describing the depraved antics that go on for votes: the squeeze and the reverse-squeeze.
And there’s his crap break down of the Nixon takeover:
“The pattern is already there, from 1964, when the Nixon/Mitchell brain-trust—already laying plans for 1968—sat back and let the GOP machinery fall into the hands of the Birchers and the right-wing crazies for a few months … and when Gold water got stomped, the Nixon/Mitchell crowd moved in and took over the party with no argument from anybody … and four years later Nixon moved into the White House.”
I tried it years ago but hated the narrator’s voice. Audiobooks are a favorite of mine for time saving.
June, 1972: The McGovern Juggernaut Rolls on
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
★★★☆☆ The highlights are the dirty tactics used, mostly outrageous lies that are caught by the press and thus putting the candidate on the defense. Lyndon Johnson had apparently become a mythological figure for using this crap in Texas:
“...he told his campaign manager to start a massive rumor campaign about his opponent’s life-long habit of enjoying carnal knowledge of his own barnyard sows.
“Christ, we can’t get away with calling him a pig-fucker,” the campaign manager protested. “Nobody’s going to believe a thing like that.”
“I know,” Johnson replied. “But let’s make the sonofabitch deny it.”
They were and I dislike them both for the imagery. I miss my cat.
Feeders and Eaters (2002) by Neil Gaiman ★☆☆☆☆ DNF after animal abuse. Two stories in a row of cat murders. This is bullshit.
The Genius of the Assassins: Three Dreams of Murder in the First Person (2002) by Michael Cisco ★☆☆☆☆ DNF after animal abuse.
Details (2002) by China Miéville ★★★☆☆
Ghostly story of a young boy that brings provisions to an old woman trapped inside her home by the terrible things she can see.
