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Lions In The Fog

SJ Ryan's Blog
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No matter how good a lion you are, you can’t see well if you’re surrounded by nothing but fog.


Featured posts:

Featured
May 31, 2021
Are We Biased Against Hard Work?
May 31, 2021
May 31, 2021
Aug 4, 2020
What Business Are You In?
Aug 4, 2020
Aug 4, 2020
Jul 30, 2020
Pace Yourself
Jul 30, 2020
Jul 30, 2020
Jul 28, 2020
Falling Off The Path
Jul 28, 2020
Jul 28, 2020
Jul 28, 2020
Advanced Leadership: Trust and Responsibility
Jul 28, 2020
Jul 28, 2020
Jul 27, 2020
Do We Crawl, Walk or Run?
Jul 27, 2020
Jul 27, 2020
Jul 15, 2020
Don't Forget Context When Offering Advice
Jul 15, 2020
Jul 15, 2020
Jun 29, 2020
And Then What?
Jun 29, 2020
Jun 29, 2020
Jun 23, 2020
Are You Sabotaging Your Own Strategy?
Jun 23, 2020
Jun 23, 2020
May 21, 2020
When Is It Okay to Quit?
May 21, 2020
May 21, 2020
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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.

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It's Not Easy Being The Yoruba Nightmare God

June 18, 2023 in SFF, Reading Notes, Fantasy

More divinity, more problems…

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Tags: Wole Talabi, Shigidi
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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.

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Tags: Vibrant, Ankur Mithal, OD
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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.

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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.

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April Magazines

June 16, 2023 in Grimdark, Magazine, Reading Notes

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

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Tags: Grimdark, The Dark, Nightmare Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine
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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.

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Tags: Ernst Junger, War, Storm of Steel
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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.

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Tags: Mercer, Jansen, Cooper, Jennsen, Reher, DaCosta, Gockel, Rogue Stars
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March 'Zines

May 05, 2023

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

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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.

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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

 

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Time-Shifting Private Eye

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

Quantum twists on classic boiler-plate noir themese.

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Tags: Van Coops, Private Eye, Time Travel
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That Which Kills You...

April 14, 2023

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

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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.

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An Exquisitely Dark Heart

April 12, 2023 in Series, SFF, Grimdark

So black it could only be obsidian.

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Tags: Fletcher
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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.

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Tags: Moren
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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.

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Tags: Michael Anderle, Zoo
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Zombies, Twice Touched

March 19, 2023

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

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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.

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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.

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Tags: Spencer Nitkey, Everlyn Freeling, Diane Arrelle, J.F. Gleeson, Dark Void Magazine, David F. Shultz, Jennifer R. Povey, Marissa James, Nelson Stanley
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email: sjr@gmx.us
phone: (571) 366-9110