Introduction to Obscurity

Hello, my dear internet strangers! Today is an auspicious day for… well nobody but me. For today is the day I re-launch this blog, which I started over a decade ago and failed to keep up with—the likely fate of this time, too, if we’re honest.

So what are we doing here? I hear none of you asking. Reviewing books—mostly. I’ve read a few. Why am I qualified to review books, and why should you care? Because I’ve read a few, we’ve already been over this, keep up. Also, there will be hints sprinkled in the reviews to help you find the key that gets you out of the locked room you’re in, where you’re being forced to read this blog. Because I’m a stand-up guy, let’s go with that for why you should care.

How will this work? Good question, imaginary friend. For now, I will be breaking up my reviews in two sections, the non-spoiler part, and the spoiler part. Why? A cynical attempt to get you to read the same shit twice so you can get a broad understanding of a book before picking it up and then after reading it, have a more in-depth critique from a random 30’s something guy going through the millennial version of a midlife crisis, blogging—yes, I realize that means death is somewhere around 60 and stand by that assessment.

Within these parts, there will be subsections—I know, but contain your enthusiasm. I am also excited by subsections. If only life could be more like an excel spreadsheet. In the non-spoiler section, I will do a high-level look at a book through the lens of what I love about a particular novel and what I don’t love about it—why not just say what I like and what I dislike? It’s 2020, and we’ve already used up all of our negativity quotients as a species for this century, and there are like 80 more years left. Time for a positive spin on the apocalypse life.

In the spoiler part of the review, the fun part of the review, there are no real fun parts, as I like to call it, there will be a quick synopsis of the story, followed by an analysis, and then some parting thoughts.

That’s about it, but you may still have some burning questions, you probably didn’t, questions like will reviews be the only thing on this website? No—well, hopefully no—this year, I plan to self-publish my first novel, and this website will also be my platform for that. Why self-published? It’s part of my bold new strategy of failing upward to success. So dear readers, I invite you to come with me, to follow me on this journey—to probably nowhere.

Welcome to Writing in Obscurity!

Oh, and right now, the dream is to post a review every Friday.