Conspiracy – DaneCobain.com

Tom Nichols – The Death of Expertise | Review

Title: The Death of Expertise

Author: Tom Nichols

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count: 254

Rating: 4.5/5

This is easily one of the best non-fiction books that I’ve picked up this year and so I was a very happy bunny. It’s also pretty cool because it was recommended to me by one of my clients, to the point at which he paid for me to purchase a copy of it.

It’s basically all about the way in which everyone thinks they’re an expert today. We overrule doctors because we can Google our symptoms, but we also overrule experts in their different fields instead of taking their hard earned advice.

This is a huge problem, of course, but it’s even more of a problem in the midst of a global pandemic when people are convincing themselves that there’s some sort of secret conspiracy to deprive us all of our liberty by getting us to wear masks in shops. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I found this book more enjoyable than I normally would have because of the time in which I read it.

Arguably my favourite example in the whole book was that of American attitudes towards military action in Ukraine. It turns out that the less people knew about the Ukraine, the more likely they were to demand military action. Those who thought it was in Australia or South America were those who were most likely to support military involvement. What a world, man.

Learn more about The Death of Expertise.

Stephen King – Firestarter | Review

Title: Firestarter

Author: Stephen King

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 512

Rating: 4*/5

Stephen King – Firestarter

This is one of Stephen King’s earlier books, and it’s one of those that I’ve put off for a while purely because there are so many other well-known Stephen King books on the market, but I feel like the basic idea of this book had still made its way into my consciousness. I’ll try to cover that without revealing too many spoilers.

Before the main story starts, when Andy McGee was a college student, he volunteered for a medical trial in exchange for $200. Only something went wrong, and many of the volunteers died. Others survived but were forever changed, often by inheriting strange powers. McGee himself earns the ability to ‘push‘ people, which is a little bit like using a Jedi mind trick to convince them of something. He also earns himself a girlfriend – and later a wife – by befriending a fellow test subject.

And then they have a child, and it’s this child that’s at the centre of much of the action. Charlie McGee is a little pig-tailed girl with a hell of a lot of power – if some of the characters are to be believed, she might even grow up to have the potential to split the earth in two. The book starts with Charlie and Andy on the run from some mysterious government entity, and the plot basically barrels its way along from there.

Stephen King

That’s all I’m going to tell you about the plot itself, but what I will say is that King does a great job of creating a sense of a constant threat from the government. It was so successful that the only thing I can think of that comes close to it is the threat and the conspiracy in Prison Break. It’s difficult to communicate just how real and how visceral the threat felt, but it was always there.

The characterisation was great here too, whether we’re talking about Charlie and her family or whether we’re talking about the bad guys that are trying to hunt them down. I particularly liked John Rainbird, an American Indian with a heavily scarred face from the Vietnam War, and I liked King’s revelation of how it actually came about and how that clashes with what the government would have you believe was actually happening in Vietnam. It also kind of reflects the corruption that’s shown by The Shop and its attitude towards the victims of the medical trial.

Overall then, I’d definitely recommend this, and while it might not be the best book to pick up if you’re new to Stephen King, that’s only because he has so many great books on the market. It’s a better option when you’ve read three or four of his books and you’re ready to dig a little deeper, but it’s up there in his top 10-20%. I really enjoyed it, and I think you will too – after all, it’s kind of hard not to. It’s just a gripping conspiracy thriller but with a lot of fire.