More Dark Horses (Vols. 2 and 3)

June 19, 2023

Yeah, yeah, they’re from last year. But still interesting magazines and still worth reading.

It's Not Easy Being The Yoruba Nightmare God

June 18, 2023 in SFF, Reading Notes, Fantasy

More divinity, more problems…

Underdeveloped Organizational Development

June 18, 2023 in Reading Notes, Non-fiction

I may not have what it takes to be a fully compliant ARC reviewer.

Nine Dark Horses

June 17, 2023

The editor doesn’t think you’ve read any of these authors. Click through to see if you should.

Vietnam With A Portuguese Accent

June 16, 2023

A veteran war correspondent takes us on a tour of three bitter and ruthless struggles from the end of Africa’s colonial era.

April Magazines

June 16, 2023 in Grimdark, Magazine, Reading Notes

Better late than never, and featuring a fourth title this month.

**The original meaning of “another day in the trenches.”**

In Stahlgewittern

June 09, 2023 in Non-fiction, War

A classic and controversial take on the First World War from a German perspective.

Strong and Free

May 18, 2023 in Collection, Indie/Self-Published

…And no, this is not some sort of paen to ‘Merica! It’s a pleasantly solid SF collection from 2018.

March 'Zines

May 05, 2023

Do they still call them “‘zines”? Am I just showing my age? Who cares — these were good.

**African war dead from the First World War in a French cemetery.**

Darkness and Blood

May 04, 2023

David Diop explores the seething hell of battle through the eyes of a Senegalese rifleman in the First World War.

A Warning From History

April 18, 2023

The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment In Literary Investigation, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1973 (701pgs)

This is doom-scrolling in literary form. If you wonder how much worse things can get, Solzhenitsyn’s justifiably-famous expose offers a master class in possibility. Springing from what was sold as an effort to build a utopia, the system Solzhenitsyn describes is instead one of terror, suffering and murder on a massive scale. His writing should be a required reading for anyone with blithe dreams of overthrowing the status quo and replacing it with something revolutionary. This is why norms and institutions matter. And why and how the slow and creeping replacement of principle with the pursuit of power, unbounded by humility or effective limits, can and will end in tragedy on a massive scale.

Nonfiction. Total: 8/10

Time-Shifting Private Eye

April 15, 2023 in Collection, Reading Notes, Science Fiction, Series

Quantum twists on classic boiler-plate noir themese.

That Which Kills You...

April 14, 2023

…is maybe not quite what Nietzsche had in mind, but wow, it works.

Blood-Soaked Dreams

April 13, 2023

A little sacrifice here and there is the way of things. But oceans of blood? That’s out of hand.

An Exquisitely Dark Heart

April 12, 2023 in Series, SFF, Grimdark

So black it could only be obsidian.

Showdown on Jericho Station

April 06, 2023 in Reading Notes, Science Fiction

Book 1.5…err, Short Story 1.5 in the Galactic Cold War series.

McFadden and Banks The Complete Omnibus

April 05, 2023 in SFF, Series

Not a personal injury law firm. (There’s lots of personal injury, though.) A whirl through the Zoo universe.

Zombies, Twice Touched

March 19, 2023

What’s in a touch? More than it seems…

**That’s a heck of a beak on that thing…**

Dark Horses: A Strong Beginning

March 19, 2023

Another short-story specialist ‘zine, off to a strong start.

A Dark Void Arises...

March 18, 2023 in Grimdark, Magazine, Reading Notes, Science Fiction

Two delightful issues from a relatively new biannual SF horror e-zine.

May 31, 2021

Are We Biased Against Hard Work?

The naturalness bias may push us away from fairly evaluating people who have had to work hard for success and towards people who seem like “natural” successes — even when we say we value the things the strivers are living.

August 4, 2020

What Business Are You In?

Change is a given in life and work, but we frequently anchor our identity in the past or to things we cannot control. There is a huge difference between being attached to a durable, lasting sense of mission (“what” and “why” we do things) rather than our business models (“how” and “where”). Getting the two confused can have a terrible price.

July 30, 2020

Pace Yourself

Ever been told “it’s a marathon, not a sprint?” Most people intuitively understand the suggestion that we should start slow and conserve our energy. Even if you’re someone who only runs when being chased, we can still learn from this.

July 28, 2020

Falling Off The Path

All of us have ambitions, and all of those come with a list of things that need to be done to see them through. But there are always temptations to do things which don’t help advance our cause. We unpack advice on dealing with the real source of our issues.

Advanced Leadership: Trust and Responsibility

High-performing organizations choose to empower and trust their employees to do the right thing. They also enforce accountability for those standards. The alternative is to try to micro-manage each individual, which creates oppressive organizational cultures and environments, and eventually saps the employees and the organization of vitality.

July 27, 2020

Do We Crawl, Walk or Run?

There is plenty of glittering advice that promises to catapult us and our work into the next realm of performance. Before we embrace this advice, we should be sure that we and our organizations are ready for it.

July 15, 2020

Don't Forget Context When Offering Advice

The Harvard Business Review article, “Look to Military History for Lessons in Crisis Leadership” offers Covid-era leaders advice drawn from throughout military history. Much of the advice, though, needs more nuance and context to be fully applicable to modern leaders.

June 29, 2020

And Then What?

Slogans capture and channel our dreams. Iteration, adaptation, and the hard work of implementation make them real. Pausing to ask “And then what?” isn’t an admission of defeat. It’s a sign of wisdom and maturity, a willingness to at least start trying to think more deeply about complex and troubling problems.

June 23, 2020

Are You Sabotaging Your Own Strategy?

Change is in the air. As we enter mid-2020, organizations and populations everywhere are grappling with a series of powerful social, economic and political shocks. There has never been safety in clinging to the status quo, but it is even less of an option now.

May 21, 2020

When Is It Okay to Quit?

It’s said that quitters never win and winners never quit, but is this true? For highly motivated people, the drive to achieve can be a direct line to accomplishment or into a dead end. The key is the ability to discern when our goals no longer suit us. Ironically, this can be hardest for the best-motivated.