Dan Burton lives in Millcreek, Utah, where he practices law by day and everything else by night. He reads about history, politics, science, medicine, and current events, as well as more serious genres such as science fiction and fantasy.

Review | The Price of Politics by Bob Woodward

AND NOW: something completely different than our typical posts of late on time travel, different worlds, and wizards. Politics. (And just like that we loose half our readers…or more). Just a short while ago, the US of A was in the throws of yet another manufactured crisis–the sequester! A long word with a very simple […]

Review | Oz Reimagined: New Tales from the Emerald City and Beyond edited by John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen

I can’t help but feel fortunate each time I open my front door to find the tell-tale rectangular shaped package that promises to contain a book. It’s a promise of a new story, a new adventure, and I look forward to opening the book and diving in. Last month, I found one such package containing  […]

Review | Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell

Good science fiction does two things well: first, it blows your mind. And second, it’s less about the science than it is about the story, about the characters, and the conflict. In other words, it’s good literature that just happens to have a scientific element…even if loosely. Sean Ferrell’s Man in the Empty Suit accomplishes […]

Review | Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Few novels I have read recently have made me stop and think, reexamine my world, quite the same way that Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother does. Although published five years back when the politics of the Bush Administration and the post-9/11 expansion of government surveillance were still fresh in our minds, I found the novel fresh and […]

Review | The Emoticon Generation by Guy Hasson

Unless you want to be entertained, intrigued, and possibly disturbed, do not read this book. On the other hand, if you enjoy thought provoking short fiction, then download a copy of Guy Hasson’s The Emoticon Generation today. A collection of short stories that seem to focus on human nature when technology allows us to play with the rules […]

Review | The Emperor of all Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

In the author’s note to The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee  notes that “Cancer is not one disease, but many diseases.” It anticipates Mukherjee’s history, a look at cancer starting in the ages and proceeding forward to the modern day. It’s a 4,000 year history, and Mukherjee tells it well. The […]

Review | Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber

David Graeber is an anthropologist and anarchist, an early member of the Occupy Wall Stree movement. He’s so “out there” that even Yale decided not to renew his contract as an assistant professor in 2005. If he’s too liberal for Yale, then…well, you know. Probably too liberal for me, too, right? Or maybe not.  If just […]

April is A – Z Challenge Month

Beginning today, Attack of the Books is part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Started in 2010 by Arlee Bird in an effort to force himself to post everyday (except Sunday), it has grown to include 1,758 blogs. The challenge requires participants to draft posts thematically with the corresponding day of the month. Sort […]

Review | The Allow of Law by Brandon Sanderson

I took me a long time to pick up The Alloy of Law: A Mistborn Novel, and I regret that I didn’t read it sooner. It’s a great read. I am accustomed to being surprised by Brandon Sanderson.  He’s one of the more innovative writers in the fantasy genre today, managing with his Mistborn Trilogy […]

Review | City of Thieves by David Benioff

I love this book. I cannot recommend it to everyone, and I’m not sure who else will like it, but I found City of Thieves: A Novel beautiful, if tragic, sad, and raw. Description from Goodreads: A writer visits his retired grandparents in Florida to document their experience during the infamous siege of Leningrad. His […]

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