plcd22

It was “OK” - Ben should stick to political talk

Reviewed: 04-30-19

I listened to this book because I really enjoy listening to Ben’s podcasts daily! He is a brilliant young man. This is the first and only book I have ever read/listened to of his and it was mediocre. The plot line was an interesting concept but I was not drawn into the story. This could have been due to the usage of pronouns... I don’t know if Ben just used way too many pronouns or if the reader just did a terrible job reading and emphasizing them but something about the usage of pronouns really turned me off, so much so that I almost couldn’t finish the book, but I am someone who can’t leave a book/movie/etc unfinished so I listened to the whole thing.

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Good except for the political misrepresentations

Reviewed: 02-20-19

Let me preface this by saying that I listened to “The Perseid Collapse Series Boxset” series first and thought that it was very well written and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to then listen to this one by Steven Konkoly. Also I should say that I am only on chapter 18 of this set so maybe my opinion will change as I make my way through the rest (if I can tolerate more of it).
Now onto the story: I do like the setting and the story line so far - Alex has just quit his job and is beginning the quarantine of his family. But I am already VERY annoyed by his (Alex’s) snide remark’s about “conservatives”. Alex acts much more like a conservative than he does a liberal but the author has made Alex a liberal and his brother David a conservative who only watches FOXNews. But the inaccuracies part that is annoying is that conservatives are far more likely to be “preppers” and distrust the governments involvement in “nation security” and the like. The author has completely flipped that in his characters. Alex is well prepared because he has been “prepping” for a couple years and does not believe the reports from government officials who say all is fine and there won’t be a pandemic, while his “conservative” brother on the other had hasn’t done any prepping and completely trust whatever government officials say/report! I don’t know everybody in this country but if I was a betting man I would put my money on a conservative being ready because he has been preparing while not completely trusting what the TV tells him on the news!
There is also the “gun” issue in this set so far. Alex is portrayed as a veteran and someone who knows guns well but acts wary around them, by that I mean he has guns hidden in his house for “quick access” yet he has trigger locks on them, which completely defeats his “quick access” statements (although so far I have noticed that his encounters involving guns have happened in a very typical liberal fairy tale land, Alex has all the time in the world to go retrieve his gun and take off the trigger lock and even check to make sure it is unloaded because he “knows”, ‘it only takes him a few seconds to load a Mossberg shotgun’ with the shells he put in his back pocket...). His son is also shocked to find out that his dad has a Mossberg - yeah right, IF he was as proficient as he is (especially in the next box set that I mentioned above) there is no way that he wouldn’t have taken his son to the range yet - Ryan is 13 I think.
Aside from those kind of political inaccuracies it has been a decent listen so far. I will try to finish the series and update my review once complete - IF I can manage to listen to the rest, I guess that will depend on how bad the political hackery gets.

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Great book and very informative

Reviewed: 07-04-18

First I really liked the book. The story of Josiah Henson needs to be told more and more people need to be aware of his life!
The book was well organized and told the story in a captivating way! I listened to the whole thing in 2 days - 8 hours straight one day and finished it up the second day!

The last chapter was the only part that I didn’t enjoy. The author tried to “call to action” by naming some things that we SHOULD do now. A lot of his ideas sounded ok but he seemed to stress the importance is paying black people now as retribution for their past - I agree that what happened was terrible and horrific but this does not fall on the shoulders of anyone alive today in the USA. Yes our ancestors did some terrible things but we don’t have slaves anymore and to promote this kind of “pay them back with money” will only further incite the racial divide in the country. He also tried to equate low wages today to slave labor which is not only inaccurate but actually cheapens the horrific live that blacks faced in this country. Low wages is nothing like slave labor - if you don’t like how little you are paid then find another job. Slaves didn’t have that option!

Other than that I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone as a must read/listen!

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5 people found this helpful