BookAnon.com

Gatekeepers are a useful tool in fiction. They provide conflict and often offer the protagonist alternative ways to figure out how to reach their goals. I think about Ghostbusters when I think about Gatekeepers unless I’m thinking about that cool roller coaster at the Cedar Point gates.

In real life, though, gatekeepers are often self-proclaimed people who have decided that the rest of the world must follow their own moral code that they’ve developed from their own personal life experiences and interpretation of social and political events around them.

Oh, how I tire of the horror writer community and the gatekeeping that goes on. Perhaps things were better before we all got online, when we didn’t really know each other and our personal beliefs or our lives or our habits. We knew nothing of each other, and maybe that was a good way to be.

As someone who grew up typing novels on a manual typewriter, I’ve seen a lot of changes in the world. I was super resistant to personal computers; I thought we’d all get radiation poisoning and die, so I didn’t have a computer until 1987 when my husband bought me one to help me with my writing. I was very late getting a cell phone; I didn’t get one until 2008, because I don’t answer the phone anyw

From a guy who grew up in the Southern Baptist Convention and now swears like a drunken sailor, yet also actively reads books across a wider breadth of both genres and topics than nearly anyone

TL;DR: Labels are important, should be accurate, and should NOT detailed immediately before the story begins in eReader editions of books. “Clean” is not problematic, nor is “spicy”. “Christian” should in fact be “Christ-like”.

First up, let’s dispense with one thing: Like I said in the subtitle, I swear like a fucking drunk sailor - but as a “software engineering professional” by day, I come by it honestly. I’m not going to use it in every sentence, but I’m also not going to censor my thoughts here. I understand if you choose to leave, but I think I have a perspective you may likely miss entirely if you do. Your call, and I respect it. :) Also, this article was inspired by a discussion I saw between Bowen Greenwood and Andrew Gillsmith on Twitter/ X that also reached into Substack.

I grew up, again as I noted in the subtitle, in the Southern Baptist Church. My parents had actually gotten married at an Independent Baptist Church (that I would later be a member of myself in my early 20s), and my earliest memories of “church” were at a local Church of God before we moved to the SBC church I grew up in from roughly Kindergarten through when I left it for the Independent Baptist church I mentioned a moment ago.

The SBC church for a while had a church library, and that was actually one of the main libraries I used in that era. I was reading Josh McDowell’s Under

A few days ago, Bowen Greenwood had an interesting discussion on genres - and specifically on the "Christian Fiction" genre - on Substack, itself influenced by a post from Gaius Konstantine on Twitter/X and a discussion thereon with both myself and Blake Carpenter. It was interesting, but it needed a response... except I couldn't find my angle. I knew roughly where I was going, but the overall structure was simply lacking. Very formless, even though I knew essentially where I was going.

Then, in another discussion

For this blog tour, we're looking at an excellent and exciting conclusion to a series readers thought for nearly a decade had already concluded. For this blog tour, we're looking at Everything We Found by Kerry Lonsdale.

First, the review I posted to the book sites (BookBub.com BookHype.com /

Unremarkable Man Doing Remarkable Things. I began reading this book in the days after Neill's death not knowing I would be reading it through my cat's final days and finishing the book on the day we finally got confirmation that it was the right thing to do and had to end his suffering. Which, sitting to write this review roughly 36 hrs after that particular event, makes this review a bit more interesting - at least to me and so far

Australian Gothic With Interesting Storytelling Mechanism. The questions mentioned in the description of the book (as it exists now almost two weeks after publication) serve as a way of doing a version of dual-tim

Solid Story Of Legacy And Family Marred By Prominent Hyper Leftist Politics. As far as the tale as a whole here goes, this is one of those tales that is actually at least somewhat like The Great Gatsby: The beginning is a bunch of *utter* shit, but once you get beyond it into the actual meat of the story, it actually opens up into a rather spectacular tale... that in this case returns to at least some of the utter shit deeper in, but at least at this later point it is more "shit flavored" than straight "eating shit".

Solid Coming Of Age Story In Different Eras And Promising New Series. This is one of the more interesting books I've read in quite some time mostly because of how Bromke uses so many different elements in atypical m

Bailey's Spicy RomCom + Sarah Morgan's Women's Fiction. If you love Bailey's usual spicy romcom... this is yet another of those, and you largely know what you're getting here if you're already a fan. Where thi

Classic For Reasons. Will Offend At Least Some 2020s Readers. This is one of those ultimate classic American scifi tales that holds up remarkably well overall, with several areas that Zoomers and even younger Millennials won't be able to envision as easily as older Americans, including even Xenn