User Profile

I recall having watched, and forgotten about, the movie of the same title. The book is far more interesting. The characters are as entertaining as you’d expect when profiling New Age inspired warriors, and Jon’s conversations help make them come alive.

But the heart of the book is about the ways this line of thinking has influenced a number of military and law enforcement disasters, from Waco to Heaven’s Gate to Abu Ghraib. The long tail of how an idea can be officially jettisoned, but still influential, rings true to this day.

I’ve been reading Hodgman since he was a McSweeny’s contributor, but somehow went 15 years between reading the sequels to The Areas Of My Expertise. As before, the audiobook feels like the canonical version. There were a few passages taken directly from This American Life performances, but at least he got Ira Glass to contribute an interesting anecdote beforehand. I like the prose of Medallion Status or Vacationland more, but Hodgman being silly is pretty great too.

Maybe it’s because I was listening to the audiobook, but this didn’t do it for me. I felt like it was both too insular and failed to expand on the interesting world the author envisioned, and it also made the subtext text, to where I was being beaten over the head with its themes.

As the memes foretold, it’s best to go in cold on this one and just let it wash over you. What a wonderfully poetic novella. I’d say it’s worth taking the time to savor the epistles between Red and Blue, but truth be told I just read through it in a single sitting.

I was mixed on The Fifth Season - confused by some of the narrative styles, but felt better after reading a few summaries. I didn't have that problem with The Obelisk Gate.

By focusing on only a couple characters, the story is more streamlined and easier to follow, but it feels like a lot of the worldbuilding and kineticism of the first book is lost. Which is a shame, because that was my favorite part of the first in the series.

It feels like Jemisin's ramping up for the final book in the trilogy, so I'm excited to see what follows.

There’s some interesting world building in the book, but I ended up getting pretty confused by the multiple timelines and main characters the author was following, including one bizarrely in the second person. Spending a bit of time on Wikipedia to better get a synopsis of how the plots tied together was pretty helpful. I did enjoy the chapters opening with a quote from one of the sacred texts (very Dune like), but a bit more sign posting would have been helpful in its stead.