Anime Quick Reviews: Re-evaluating How Not To Summon a Demon Lord and Overlord

Housekeeping news: I routinely troll Jeff Hays of narratorial fame with requests for him to read explicitly bad books, known as "Cringe Theater".  And the cringe is strong in the series:  Troll: The First Three Books. Described by Jenny Nicholson as "The worst book ever written", it's chock-full of cringe at every moment, worse than… Continue reading Anime Quick Reviews: Re-evaluating How Not To Summon a Demon Lord and Overlord

The Use and Abuse of Tropes: Anime edition

So I've been watching animes recently and several of the shows, even the ones I like, fall under the use and abuse of tropes.  As a refresher, tropes are often literary shorthands for conveying a scene's idea.  An example is several shows have a newcomer who initially butts heads with an old military general, until… Continue reading The Use and Abuse of Tropes: Anime edition

The Escapist and criticism

I wrote about the art of criticism with the distinction between emotivism and criticism.  This one deals with criticism and politics. The impetus is the Escapist, which just came under new/old leadership.  One of their ex-employees left the company in 2011, and came back to it in 2017.  He wrote that when he came back,… Continue reading The Escapist and criticism

Michael Scott-Earle getting banned, Jason Cipriano banned, and a new trademark kerfuffle

Tl;dr:  Sign this petition to get the two authors reinstated.  If you want to find out what's going on with Jason, see his blog post here and find out where to get his books. Anyway, the sad news is both authors have been terminated with Amazon for right now.  Fans are sending emails to jeff@amazon.com… Continue reading Michael Scott-Earle getting banned, Jason Cipriano banned, and a new trademark kerfuffle