The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Bonus Black Hole Book Post (It Has Rivets)

— by Wombat-socho Oh, the embarrassment. An author sends me a review copy of his most excellent hard-SF technothriller, and I completely forget to do the review in yesterday’s book post. Well, I promised him a review before the end of the month, which is now here, so you get a bonus book post! Michael […]

The Back To School Labor Day Book Post

— compiled by Wombat-socho Actually, I’m not going back to school – the spring semester at UNLV went badly, and summer was worse, so I’m punting the fall semester and concentrating on tax & insurance stuff in preparation for the upcoming tax season. Also, reading some good books so I can pass along recommendations to […]

Summer Reading List

— by Wombat-socho Good heavens, it’s been almost six months since I sat down and bashed out a book post. I’ll try to be a little more regular about it, maybe step it up to quarterly from semi-annual. We’ll see how it goes.For those of you who have forgotten how these posts work, here’s the […]

‘Gender,’ Nature and Sexual Economics

Cynthia Yockey has repeatedly urged me to write a book of advice to young men which, in the imaginary alternative universe where I’d actually write that book, I would call The Pleasure of Her Company. This title reflects my criticism of the self-defeating attitude one sometimes encounters in the so-called “Manosphere,” where scoring is given […]

Ursula LeGuin, RIP

— compiled by Wombat-socho Not going to lie: I didn’t care much for Ursula LeGuin’s writing. Had to read The Left Hand of Darkness in college, and it was okay, but “The Word For World Is Forest” was crap, and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” was vile. After that, none of what she […]

A Tattoo-Covered, Mentally Ill Ex-Stripper Whose Real Name Is Chelsea Van Valkenburg Publishes Dishonest Book

  Today is the official publication date of a dishonest book by the woman who caused #GamerGate, whose story I explained last year: “Zoe Quinn” was Patient Zero of the #GamerGate controversy. A tattoo-covered, mentally ill ex-stripper whose real name is Chelsea Van Valkenburg, Quinn was the creator of a tediously dull game called “Depression […]

Taking Out The Laundry

— by Wombat-socho Welcome to another all-too-infrequent book post at The Other McCain. As you might have guessed from the post title, this post is mostly going to be about Charles Stross’ Laundry novels, which are about the adventures of “Bob Howard”, a rising star in the British agency tasked with defending Her Majesty’s realms […]

Indian Country and Other Not-So-Happy Endings

— by Wombat-socho The last time I had the energy to do a book post, it was during a slack time of tax season, and since then things have been busy, seldom in a good way. For one thing, I lost my Kindle somewhere along the way back from Balticon, and I was also rear-ended […]

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