Archive | January 2018

The Thief: Book Review

Jan7

There’s a lot of buzz circulating about the Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner. Although I enjoyed the first book, The Thief, it very much seemed a simple opening act to a far larger, grander story, so I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series. Many YA fantasy series tend to take off from Greek and Roman culture and mythology, so I can’t say this series is very unique in that aspect, but the narration is done well to the point that once one finishes the story, one wants to go back and analyze it from the beginning. As a whole, the world of the series is well defined, which helps aid the slow pace of the story. The pacing is probably the most troubling aspect. Nothing “happens” for long periods of time, but, again, in going back, one would realize a lot happened, or, at least, a lot of information was given. The problem is that many readers may give up far before the ending, but as the series as a whole is getting a lot of good buzz and recommendations, I think that was a risk the author was willing to take.

This book reminds me of a similar tale regarding the narration called The False Prince by  Jennifer A. Nielsen. That book also has some trouble with keeping the energy up, but is well plotted.

Spoilers:

Both series involve unreliable narrators and both use that element well. It’s annoying when such narration is used, but there’s no “twist in the tale,” as they say (see my review of Here Lies Daniel Tate). Both stories are also smaller openings in a much wider story. Starting out simple and building is a great way to build an audience at the same time. I tend to like jump starting the deeper plot aspects right away, but there is nothing so satisfying as a slow burn of a tale and The Thief is that.

2018: Beyond the big lies

Jan1

All week I’ve been thinking the best way to sum up 2017, and for myself it would be this: the past year has all been about big lies revealed. 2018 will be for so many of us about living beyond the lies, living in a very different world.

Currently, I am reading Dinesh D’Souza’s The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left, so I’ve been thinking about the other big lies out there as well and just how much they’ve shaped my way of thinking, society’s way of thinking, etc. The biggest recent lie, of course, has been that President Trump is a buffoon, doesn’t know what he’s doing, his followers are racist, etc. And now we stand on the precipice of a DOJ investigation knocking out Trump’s adversaries one by one, due to their own stupidity. Anyone who at this point think’s he’s dumb just refuses to see the truth staring them in the face. Trump’s accomplishing his goals on a careful timeline and using Twitter and trollish statements to continually distract the dishonest media. He is bringing tax cuts, jobs, and more prosperity for all Americans, and poo-pooing the lie that putting citizens of a country first is somehow immoral as the Progressive Left would have us believe. He is likely the smartest president we’ve ever had, having both intellect and street smarts. Will we ever get tired of winning? I don’t think I will, but who knows?

Second lie: The media is remotely intelligent and honest. Sure, sure, they are. Just like Pulitzer and Hearst were, right? Any kid who watched Newsies in the 90’s was given a great lesson on crony capitalism and the corruption that happens when the media has too much power. What keeps the media in check is citizen journalism. Just like the Newsies, using the power of the press–uh, internet–we are recording and writing our own stories, hearing firsthand accounts of events in real time and analyzing coverage on our own. Trump’s dismissal and bypassing of the mainstream media and press has to be the single greatest move for the average person. The wizards behind the curtain aren’t much to look at and have nothing but sound bytes and talking points. It was hilarious to watch the media’s desperate efforts to get Hillary Clinton elected–and they don’t even like her! How smart is Trump? Smart enough to know that being interviewed on Alex Jones’s Infowars was a plus and not a minus! More and more people are waking up to the dishonesty of the media every day and it is awesome.

Third lie: The Republican party is for America. Okay, we voters gave them the benefit of the doubt for awhile during the campaign. Trump was a purple cow opponent and they really didn’t know how to handle it. What was shocking to a lot of us conservatives and Republicans, though, was that we heard Trump speaking the truth, and the party did not agree with him and even went along with the mainstream media’s lies about him. These were people who should have had his back, who themselves had been lied about just because of the political party to which they belonged. 2017 revealed more lies: Republicans in Congress had no interest in getting rid of either oppressive taxation or Obamacare. They were not interested in bringing back jobs for American citizens and would not even break a sweat speaking up in our defense. That they grudgingly passed some of the legislation late 2017 only shows that they aren’t too dimwitted to see the writing on the wall. Trump and his allies are cleverer, more informed, more influential, and have more at stake than the Deep State ever will. Would anyone doubt at this point that should Trump fail, he and his family would be drawn and quartered by his enemies for whom the word “mercy” is scarcely a word in their vocabulary?

Fourth Lie: Vaccines are good for you. You saw that right, after actually, finally taking the time to look into this whole vaccine issue for myself, I think that the assertion that any vaccine is generally good for a person is an outright lie. Could I regale you with tales of CDC, big pharma corruption? Could I tell you that there is evidence that sanitation and nutrition had more to do with falling disease rates than any vaccine? Could I list story after story that I’ve heard, read, and witnessed for myself about vaccine injury? Would any of these things really convince you? This is a lie so, so big, that it really takes individuals doing their own research, reading the studies, reading the articles and stories. Most will not be convinced if they don’t do the research for themselves. We are all “doubting Thomases” when it comes to the modern healthcare. We have to press our fingers into wounds to believe they are there. This is also the scariest lie, because it calls the entire health industry into question. More and more people are waking up to the fact that at least some vaccines, like the flu shot, aren’t really worth getting for various reasons. Over time, those people will start to question other vaccines and the whole line of dominoes will fall one by one, changing the landscape of modern healthcare, some of us hope, forever.

These are only some of the big lies I’ve learned about lately, but I’m sure there are more, so, so many more. I had to say goodby to a friend this year because of the lies she told, and it was hard to swallow that she’d been lying to me for years upon years and I just sort of overlooked it. Now that I see the lies, I can’t go back. I can’t trust her ever again, I can’t trust the media, and though I follow it, I am skeptical of the new media, too. Profit, not necessarily truth, is king in media. It’s just the way it is and the way it always will be. Our society is now taking up new lies, that people can be whatever, gender, race, or animal they choose to be. What the ramifications of these delusions will be, I don’t know, but though they may at first seem more laughable and harmless than the other lies, they are not. Whatever ground we have won revealing the other, political lies, we cannot sleep, we cannot lose to these even more damaging lies. Our children’s futures are at stake.

2018 will hopefully be–should be–about law and order, of lie-tellers and deceivers being brought to justice. Hillary Clinton and many other deserve to be in jail. We are actually doing them a wrong to not hold them to account for what they have done our country. I hope with Trump’s executive order regarding trafficking, that he and his allies will be able to finally hold them accountable. For we the people, we need to continue to live in the light of truth. For many of us Trump supports, even though he won, our worlds have been shattered. We’ve lost friends and family members who think we are evil for supporting him and we’re not sure we want to belong to a political party anymore. Some Trump supporters have even been physically attacked while they at the same time get called fascists and Nazi’s. Ever wonder how that all started? I highly recommend D’Souza’s book. Though he wasn’t born in America, D’Souza is American at heart, something most legal immigrants have in common. More importantly, he cares about researching the facts, something we should all take the time to do. Truth is where Good is, it’s where God is, it’s where all the blessings of life reside. We remember to clean our homes, yet often forget to clean our minds of the trash, dirt, and garbage that accumulates.

How do we live in 2018 after so many lies have been shattered? No fear. We now have the opportunity to go forward in the truth. It won’t be easy, but it will be a lot more rewarding than living under the tyranny of lies. God is perfect love because he is and has perfect truth. How can we love our fellow man and our families well if we do not at least try to live in the truth? Are we doing anyone any favors by pretending someone’s entire self-worth should rest in their skin color, genitalia, and sex preferences? By pretending that certain lifestyles do not carry dire risks and consequences? By teaching them that the world should and will conform to each individual’s whims rather than the other way around? Should we really be afraid to share these truths? If the truth isn’t worth experiencing or suffering a bit of uncomfortableness, well, then what is? Can we protect our loved ones by telling them they have imaginary super powers or can we protect them by advising them to live diligently and show them practical ways to defend themselves? Can we find ourselves, now that we are winning, to speak the truth in love? Can we bring the sunlight that people so desperately need? For Christians, can we hope to share the truth of the Gospel if we can’t even talk about the truth of sin? Let 2018 be the year. No fear. Let us live in the truth.