Category: Book Reviews

Another Book I’m Not Gonna Read REPRINT

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From August 7, 2014

There are books that make you want to stand up and cheer; and there are books that make you want to sit down and sigh.

A publicist has invited me to review “a compelling new book [that] fuses science and religion, exposing the cross as an ancient navigational instrument.” For thousands and thousands of years, church and state successfully concealed these great secrets: until the guy that wrote this book came along and uncovered all this ancient knowledge that was kept a secret from everyone but him.

Sigh.

“By modern-day standards,” says the press release, “religion, astrology, and science [what–no palmistry?] are three separate entities that not only contradict each other, but rarely cross paths.” Mr. Author, however, “reveals that all three were once used in unison,” blah-blah.

Sigh.

Look, I have no problem with the idea that what we call “civilization” may be very much older than we think it is. Just because people lived long ago doesn’t mean they were jidrools. Was it only a lot of ignorant cavemen wiped out by Noah’s Flood? (God’s flood, really: but I use the shorthand.) Was it the Flintstones who built the Tower of Babel? Clearly the Bible allows us to speculate that ancient people were every bit as capable, intelligent, mischievous and sinful as ourselves, and that what we call “prehistory” is only history that has been lost. The Flood, for example, would have erased practically all traces of an antediluvian civilization, and the long years would have done the rest.

But here we have the usual drivel about how “the Church in its desperate struggle to keep a profitable business alive and functioning” was nasty enough to bury all this ancient knowledge and hold us back from being all we can be, etc., etc. Boo, hiss. I hate it when the Church does that.

No, I’m not going to divulge the title of the book or the name of the author. They won’t get any free publicity from me.

Atheism is only a small cog in the great machine of godless popular culture that teaches the human race to be numbskulls.

Yabba-dabba-doo.

 

 

This Book Has Got Me Cranking! REPRINT

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The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein: 9781585427123 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

From June 3, 2021

 

I spend hours every week studying the follies and deficiencies of our public education system, the costliest ever created in recorded history. I know it’s awful.

But just one chapter into this book–The Dumbest Generation, by Mark Bauerlein–had me shaking my head and muttering to myself.

It’s far worse than I thought.

Bauerlein, a college English professor, realizes something I realized years ago. The single worst thing about public school is, it makes your age-group peers the most important people in your life. That in itself was one of the worst ideas ever. But now, says Bauerlein, social media and a plethora of electronic gizmos have made an atrocious situation horrifyingly worse.

Kids and teens now live in the moment, cut off from the past, never pondering the future, unable to look any farther than their own little social media bubbles–obsessed with what other kids are doing, saying, playing… And they know… nothing.

All those boxcar-loads of money spent on “education,” and they come out of college knowing bloody nothing. They’re fixated on their peers in the social media. They never look beyond it. No history, no civics, no literature, no nothing. Maybe they’ll read a comic book now and then. And watch TV.

The author bases these claims on the results of many authoritative studies involving hundreds of thousands of school and college students.

What’s to worry?

Well, they can all vote, can’t they? And they’re always ready to Protest For Social Justice. Because it’s expected of them. Because their peers do it.

It is literally the march of ignorance.

I’m going to review this book for Chalcedon, so I have to read the rest of it. And I think I’d better pray harder! We are talking about creating a country full of conformist know-nothings who will not be able to sustain a constitutional republic. I’m a political scientist, I know these things, trust me: you can’t have a republic of idiots.

David Horowitz: It’s War REPRINT

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From May 16, 2019

I have to review a book for Chalcedon, Dark Agenda by David Horowitz, and I’m feeling overwhelmed by the weight and seriousness of his argument, and the mountain of evidence he cites to support it. This blog post is an effort to warm up for the challenge.

Usually when I read a book to review, I mark striking passages with a pen and dog-ear the pages that I want to cite. I think I’ve dog-eared every other page in here. Well, that won’t do. Think, think, think…

Horowitz was raised by Far Left parents and grew up to become an activist for their movement in the 1960s. When he talks about the revolutionary Left, he knows what he’s talking about. That’s why they ban him from the social(ist) media. He has left his radical past behind and come over to our side.

The book’s subtitle is “The War to Destroy Christian America.” The fact that “war” is the most appropriate word he could have used is what’s so overwhelming about it. The Far Left literally means to destroy and erase everything about America that makes it America.

Horowitz, who is Jewish, believes that Christian America is one of the best things that ever happened to the human race, and that it deserves to be defended and preserved.

The bad guys aren’t kidding, folks. Radicalism is their religion, and they are waging a jihad against Christianity, which they hate with a passion that, for many of them, crosses the line into the psychotic. No debate, no compromise, no shared humanity: their goal is to wipe out every vestige of Christian America and create an authoritarian, atheistic hell-hole with themselves in charge.

No, I’m not exaggerating. Neither is David Horowitz. This book was shocking even to me.

The ancient Chinese sage, Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War, laconically described a certain kind of military situation in which strategy and tactical finesse don’t matter.

“On death ground, fight.”

Either Christian America wins, or Christian America dies. God give us strength: and may God fight for us.

Scientific Ninnies REPRINT

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From May 7, 2017

I love archeology, and I enjoyed one of the writer’s earlier books; so I’ve been reading The Lost City of the Monkey God (2017) by Douglas Preston.

In 2015, using the latest technology, scientists finally found a lost city in the heart of the most impenetrable jungle on the planet, in Honduras. People had been looking for this city, and not finding it, for some 500 years. They called it The White City, or The City of the Monkey God.

All of that is very interesting. It isn’t every day we turn up what appears to be a whole civilization that history had forgotten.

Now, the thing is, some of these native American civilizations went out of business before the Europeans came, so their demise can’t easily be blamed on Whitey (although you can be pretty sure our academics will soon get around to trying). The Mayan cities in the rain forest were simply abandoned: it seems the people got tired of the way things were and just walked out. There are still Mayan people today, and because their language has survived, we finally learned how to read the ancient Mayan inscriptions.

But none of those writings mention these very large cities in Honduras. Ah, but the question comes up again–why were these sites abandoned? What happened to the people who build the cities? Why was it all left to be devoured by the jungle?

And here’s where the scientific ninnie-ness comes in.

When the 2015 expedition announced its findings, academics who just sat on their fat kiesters in air-conditioned offices hastened to denounce the reports as hype, or even hoax. Really, there is not even a reasonable doubt that the expedition found the things it said it found. But academics, to paraphrase Deion Sanders, are like a bunch of crabs in a bushel basket: whenever one tries to climb out, the others pull it back down.

Preston himself is guilty of major ninnie-ness.

He thinks, see, that civilizations go bust because of capitalism, which he likens to a “cult” on a par with Scientology. Oh, well, just get rid of capitalism and bob’s your uncle, everything will be just perfect from then on. Says Preston, it’s the capitalist “elites” who crash civilizations. As if it would really make a difference if the elites just changed the color of their jerseys and called themselves socialists! Yo, Doug! You don’t like capitalism, go live in North Korea for a while. You won’t find any elites there (wink-wink, nudge-nudge)!

At the risk of incurring the displeasure of the whoopee crowd, dare I suggest that the main reason these American civilizations collapsed–or were overthrown by Spain–is because their abominable religious practices estranged them from God’s protection.

God hasn’t really let all that many civilizations get wiped out for good. He may destroy their empires and turn them into has-been nations, but usually something survives.

The native religion of the American civilizations revolved around the worship of gods who were no gods and the practice of human sacrifice on a massive scale. Should God have protected this? It seems He chose not to.

And before you scream at me for being an apologist for Spanish imperialism–well, that empire isn’t around anymore, is it? Could it have been accused of governing itself and its possessions according to God’s commandments? According to Jesus Christ’s teaching and example? Not a bit. So no more Spain as a great power in the world.

We live and thrive, all of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, at God’s pleasure. When He turns His face from us, we are troubled.

God will judge the whole earth, every nation, every tribe. And, as Abraham declared, shall not the judge of all the earth do right?

He will. He has and He will.

REPRINT ‘The Call to Wonder’: R.C. Sproul Jr. Captures the Joy of Christianity

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From December 3, 2012

Part of my regular job as an editor for the Chalcedon Foundation is to review books; and I review a lot of them. There’s always a danger that I might get blase about it.

I didn’t expect much from R.C. Sproul Jr.’s The Call to Wonder. I’ve learned a lot from listening to his father, R.C. Sr., on the radio, but I didn’t know much about the son and I hadn’t heard anything about his book.

Now, I’m not quite finished reading it yet, but I think I can safely say, You gotta get this book and read it!

Look, I’m a tough old buzzard with a beard, I study swordsmanship and play basketball… and this little book has several times moved me to tears! I don’t mean those wimpy sissy tears that feminists want men to cry every time they see a flower. No–I mean tears of joy. The joy of realizing that God really is my father in heaven.

If I were a preacher or a missionary, and there were only one single lesson I could teach, it would be this: God is a person. Literally. That’s why He made us persons.

This little book by R.C. Sproul Jr. teaches that lesson better than I ever could, and a lot more besides. If you’re the dancing type, it’ll make you want to dance. You’ll throw your hat up into the air. It’s beautiful, it goes straight to your heart, and you’ll thank me for letting you know about it.

It’s available via amazon.com in both paperback and kindle format.

 

 

A Rejected Invitation REPRINT

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From March 11, 2014

Every day I get invitations to review books. Usually they’re by people I never heard of, about topics that have no bearing on my work.

But last night I got one that made my hair stand on end. I won’t tell you the author’s name or the title (you’ll soon see why). The email was from this person’s publicist.

So, here’s a book about a romance between “a bisexual woman” and “a transgendered man,” by which they mean a woman who, by dint of surgery and hormone injections, is being turned into a monstrous parody of a man. Or, as the publicist put it, a person “born female, but who became the man of her dreams.” And here’s the cute quote that was intended to pique my interest: “What’s a girl to do when she’s been unlucky in love with both men and women?”

You don’t really want to know my answer to that, do you?

We are told that writing and publishing this book is “therapy” for the writer. The last time I reviewed one of those therapy books, the author phoned my editor and angrily demanded I take it back.

The Bible teaches us that “It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves” (Psalm 100). But all this new wacked-off crazy foolishness about “gender choices” and “gender reassignment” and “celebrate” this or that perverted and bizarre lifestyle–it’s all about divorcing ourselves from God. We are going to be the ones who make us, in any “gender” we want. And maybe once we’ve mastered that, we’ll get around to re-making ourselves as members of other species. “What’s a girl to do, when she falls in love with a German shepherd that used to be a man that used to be a woman…?”

America’s moral meltdown continues.

When TV Personalities Spout Gibberish REPRINT

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From January 21, 2015

Remember, back in 2011, there was a spate of TV reporters, live and on the air, uncontrollably spouting gibberish? ( http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/judge-judy-the-4th-to-talk-gibberish-on-air/ ) The most famous victim of this mysterious affliction, was Judge Judy, who aborted a taping session because all that would come out of her mouth was nonsense. Judge Judy was immediately taken to a hospital and thoroughly examined. Doctors were unable to find any cause for what had happened to her.

There’s video, all over the internet, of this happening to reporters in and out of the studio–all of it at roughly the same time. Various explanations came and went. Reporter was having a mini-stroke; about to have a stroke; a mild epileptic seizure; some rare kind of migraine. None of these stuck. A few commenters suggested that someone was doing this on purpose, using experimental technology to interfere with the victim’s ability to function mentally. That didn’t stick, either.

So yesterday I found myself reading a novel in which the members of a scientific team working on a top-secret missile project, one by one become unable to talk anything but gibberish. Naturally I thought of that spate of on-air gibbering in 2011.

The book was written in 1957: The Electronic Mind Reader, a Rick Brant Science Adventure by John G. Blaine, the pen name for Hal Goodwin.

Goodwin, who during his career worked for just about every government agency you can think of, was on the cutting edge of his era’s technology. His Rick Brant books are full of insights into the electronics wizardry of the time–which was a lot more sophisticated than you might think.

The point is, Hal Goodwin was very well-informed and knew what he was talking about. In 1957 he described something that we didn’t see until 2011. I haven’t finished the book yet, so I don’t know how the bad guys made this happen–but what was Goodwin on to? I’m sure he wouldn’t have used his books to leak official secrets. But was there someone in 1957 who had found a way to foul up your brain by remote control? Imagine a hand-held device–something that maybe looks like a video camera–that gets pointed at you and suddenly you can’t express a coherent thought anymore. Would that be scary, or what?

Check out the link above, and watch the videos. Watch what happens to those poor reporters as they try to speak.

Hmmm….

Be sure to read the comments–there is a clip of Al Roker freezing for a number of seconds  almost as if he heard a trigger word…

REPRINT Fantasy by Y.B. Sane Already Rated Best of 21st Century

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From February 5, 2015

New York Times best-selling author Y.B. Sane has done it again: his newest Young Adults fantasy, The Spiritual Spirits, is a triumph.

Join Rubella, the 9-year-old Invincible Female Warrior, as she slashes and thrusts and kung-fus her way through rank after rank of able-bodied adult male bad guys in her quest to save the world called Oith from sure destruction.

And if that weren’t enough, the publishers, Coldsore Books, have provided a game and contests accessible via a special website you can find out about after you buy a copy of The Spiritual Spirits. You can also, on the website, discover your own Spiritual Magic Number, which will prevent anything  bad from ever happening to you.

But it’s the story that’s really compelling. An evil conspiracy called The Choich has vowed to conquer all Oith and then destroy it. Their first attack wiped out all but scattered opposition. These few brave souls have rallied around the wise, loveable sorceress, Genderama, and, guided by her loveable wisdom, have identified the young Rubella as a spiritual powerhouse able to give the Choich a dose of its own medicine.

We especially marveled at her many rescues of her 21-year-old male soul-mate, Loola, whose penchant for swooning makes him easy prey for the enemy. However, Loola is able to tap into the Power of the Earth Spirit–but to tell you any more would be to spoil it.

The American Library Assn. has already named The Spiritual Spirits one of its Top Ten Young Adult Fiction Novels of the millenium.

A Book to Make Me Wake Up Screaming REPRINT

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 From May 11, 2016

Those publicists just can’t stop barking up the wrong tree.

I have been invited to review a book “set against the mysterious and sexy backdrop of Southern Cuba”–actually, she lost me right there–that “follows the young Thalia Vandergruen as she searches for her true identity with the help of trusted clairvoyant Sofi…”

Stop already. Have you ever known anyone actually named “Thalia”? I haven’t. And what’s with “Sofi”? That’s not how you spell Sophia, or Sophie. And she’s a clairvoyant. Uncle! Uncle!

But wait, there’s more. If you think those are silly names, Thalia meets this guy named “Yahriel–” (You should see how my spell check is reacting to these names. You’d think Joe Collidge wrote this.)

Stop, I can’t take any more. And this by a supposedly best-selling author. I checked: she’s a real person. I’m not giving her name because I prefer not to hurt her feelings. And anyhow the issue is not her, or her particular book, but the kind of drivel that keeps oozing out of our publishing industry. This example is pitched especially to women, in the category “women’s fiction.” But I will not have that said about women.

“What sets it apart,” concludes the publicist, “is the author’s signature smart bent and social conscience.” Great merciful heavens–does that mean what I think it means? The poor defenseless reader! I can’t think of anything good to say about “social conscience” in fiction.

I’m always looking for books to read and review, but this will not be one of them.

Murdering Fantasy REPRINT

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From April 27, 2016

Y’know, I’m beginning to think ill of publicists. They’ll take anybody’s money.

Today a publicist invited me to read a great new fantasy novel “about a female warrior with a kind heart.” When the Sarmatians went culturally extinct almost 2,000 years ago, that was the end of the only nation that actually produced female warriors on purpose. Look it up in Herodotus if you don’t believe me.

Since then, The Invincible Female Warrior has become the most commonplace–and the most annoying–cliche in half-baked fantasy literature. Along with crusty but benign old wizards and know-it-all elves: but really, Ms. Gorgeous with the unbeatable kung-fu moves is the worst of them all–except for maybe little kids with fantastic martial arts skills that enable them to wipe out full-grown male villains.

The book seems to be self-published. This is what gets me about self-publishing: no quality control. The publicist ought to be ashamed for taking this author’s money and trying to hoodwink people like me into reviewing it. I won’t give the author’s name because it just wouldn’t be humane. By the way, though, she wants a pretty hefty chunk of money for this book.

If you are an aspiring writer, this author commits a literary stumble that I’ve told you about before ( http://leeduigon.com/2015/10/21/a-silly-name-can-ruin-your-fantasy-novel/ ).

Do not name the principle characters in your story after familiar household products. Trust me, it doesn’t work. Here we have an Invincible Female Warrior named “Aleave.” Does that at all bring to mind the brand name of a popular headache medicine?

If you conscientiously avoid all the cliches that make fantasy so prone to low expectations on the readers’ part, and write a great story populated by memorable characters, and yet succumb to the temptation to give those characters names like Drano, Tylenol, Pennzoil, or Fancy Feast–well, you might as well not have written it at all.