Arthur Miller – The Crucible [Review]

September 7, 2021
Authors K-O (By Surname)FictionNon-Fiction

Title: The Crucible

Author: Arthur Miller

Type: Fiction/Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 128

Rating: 4.5/5

Well, it’s pretty unusual to be able to categorise a play as both fiction and non-fiction. Before going into this, I mostly knew Arthur Miller for being one of Marilyn Monroe’s husbands, but it turns out that he’s actually a pretty good writer. Who knew?

When I started reading this, a few of my friends had mentioned that it was one of their favourite plays, and I can see why. It really is excellent, both as a straight up account of the Salem Witch Trials and as an allegory of some of the witch hunts that we see on social media. It really isn’t one to be missed.

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Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom – The Jesus Incident [Review]

September 6, 2021
Authors F-J (By Surname)Authors P-T (By Surname)Fiction

Title: The Jesus Incident

Author: Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 406

Rating: 3.5/5

This book is a rare example of a book that was absolutely nuts and yet which I didn’t have too much to say about it, in part because I’d have to go into the story line for a lot of it to make sense. And I don’t really want to do that because it’s pretty intricate and full of little details that I didn’t necessarily understand the significance of because I’m not religious.

But as you can probably tell from the title, this book reflects a lot of the Christianity myth except it’s set in space on a spaceship. There are a lot of related puns there, such as the fact that people WorShip it.

Unfortunately, I don’t give a damn about religion, and so I didn’t particularly appreciate all of that stuff as much as I might have done. On the plus side, I also didn’t hate it, which was always a risk with a book like this.

The bigger problem was that it was pretty typical old-school sci-fi, and I’ve just read so much of that lately that all of the books are starting to blend together. That made it tricky for me to focus on some of the details and to keep everything straight in my head, especially when it came to the interplay between the different tribes on board ship.

There was also a lot of fictitious history to go into, which was an added challenge on top of all of the biblical illusions. That meant that even though I enjoyed reading this, I also felt like I was missing a lot, and that I’d have to read it a half dozen times before everything settled into place.

Luckily, the plot and the characterisation were pretty good, so even though I missed bits here and there, I still enjoyed what I did absorb. It’s a feeling that I’ve come to associate with Herbert, because the same thing tends to happen in the Dune books. I also don’t feel as though it’s my fault as a reader, because I’m pretty sure that Herbert went out of his way to write like that.

Still, even with all that said, this isn’t Herbert’s best, and I’d recommend the Dune books and even stuff like the Saratoga Barrier ahead of this.

Learn more about the Jesus Incident.