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Silvia Moreno-Garcia provides another horror novel, also steeped into Mexican culture, in this case, the movie industry, mixed with occultism, and Nazis. She also includes the usual plucky heroine leading the action. She's an engaging writer.

@rainer@bookwyrm.social Yup, a very prescient book indeed. I wish she'd write an updated edition.

I suspect this book was specifically written for sociology instructors in survey courses with a lot of topics to cover, largely undergraduates. The author goes through the usual intro to sociology topics: class, race, culture, sex, gender, race, deviance and uses examples from Reality TV / unscripted shows (1) to demonstrate that we are more reactionary than we think, and (2) to illustrate the concept of social construction. For a book about unscripted TV, I was expected more examples and a deeper analysis of these shows. The examples are limited both in depth and numbers. So while the book is very readable, it spends more time on sociological concepts and theorists than on its subject matter.

I have loved the first two volumes of this trilogy. But this one, for some reason, was a bit of a slog, imo. Also, I'm not smart enough to enjoy loose ends.

The book delivers on its title. The author is the same guy who wrote Killers of the Flower Moon and he sure know how to write page-turners. Here, the basic story is about a squadron of British ships that, in 1740, were sent to chase after a Spanish galleon to steal its supposed load of silver. In order to do that, the squadron would have to round Cape Horn. A lot happens. Three different groups from the original crews make it back to England after about 6 years, some were shipwrecked, some carried out the mission, and two different groups of castaways ended back home through separate routes. It is a rich narrative, and a darn good story. Colonialism still sucks.