Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
by Guadamour
Writer, Dandelion Salad
January 20, 2018
The Roots Of Resistance (Rising Sun Press 2017) is the second book in the Dandelion Insurrection trilogy by Rivera Sun. The first book deals with how a non-violent revolution in the United States is able to topple an extremely corrupt corporate controlled federal government, and this book details problems entailed in implementing its policies which are aimed at benefiting the general public.
Image by thierry ehrmann via Flickr
by Guadamour
Writer, Dandelion Salad
June 4, 2017
“The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.” — Mark Twain towards the end of 19th century
Note: at the publisher’s request this review has been revised
by Guadamour
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published, June 13, 2016
Revised version, October 5, 2016
Science fiction deals with imaginative concepts such as futuristic science and technology. Many people are aficionados of science fiction, but what puts many off are when it goes into space/time travel and creates extraterrestrials and other phenomenon difficult for many to wrap their minds around. Science fiction has been called “The Literature of Ideas.” The genre can offer a glimpse into the future, and can be most realistic using the platform of the present and recent past to look into what is ahead. A truly classic example of that is Philip K. Dick’s novel, The Man In The High Tower, where Dick describes what it is like to live in Occupied America after losing WWII to Germany and Japan.
Note: at the publisher’s request this review has been revised
by Guadamour
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published November 24, 2013
Revised version, October 3, 2016
The success or failure of any work of fiction depends to a great extent on the writer’s ability to produce a Suspension of Disbelief in the reader. This is especially true of futurist novels, fantasy, or for lack of a better term, science fiction. The concept was first introduced by the poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 in his Biographia Literari. When a work overcomes the barrier of the Suspension of Disbelief, it draws the reader in and takes them into the world created by the author. Such is the case with the book An Epiphany On Wall Street (Author Networks Edition, 2012) by anonym.
Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
by Guadamour
Writer, Dandelion Salad
June 18, 2016
Billionaire Buddha is Rivera Sun‘s third novel. In it David Grant, a self-made billionaire, goes from the pinnacle of a most unfulfilling and emotionally deprived material success to homelessness, destitution and the spiritual contentment of knowing himself (which is the embodiment of Buddhahood). Sun describes the changes Grant goes through in a clear writing style which holds the reader and compels them to turn the pages to see what happens next in this book which should be read by all Americans with their general love of money.
Note: Here is the revised version: Inside the Nefarious and Unethical Worlds of High Finance, Intelligence and MIC by Guadamour
by Guadamour
Writer, Dandelion Salad
June 13, 2016
Science fiction deals with imaginative concepts such as futuristic science and technology. Many people are aficionados of science fiction, but what puts many off are when it goes into space/time travel and creates extraterrestrials and other phenomenon difficult for many to wrap their minds around. Science fiction has been called “The Literature of Ideas.” The genre can offer a glimpse into the future, and can be most realistic using the platform of the present and recent past to look into what is ahead. A truly classic example of that is Philip K. Dick’s novel, The Man In The High Tower, where Dick describes what it is like to live in Occupied America after losing WWII to Germany and Japan.
Here is the revised version: An Epiphany On Wall Street, reviewed by Guadamour
by Guadamour
Writer, Dandelion Salad
November 24, 2013
The success or failure of any work of fiction depends to a great extent on the writer’s ability to produce a Suspension of Disbelief in the reader. This is especially true of futurist novels, fantasy, or for lack of a better term, science fiction. The concept was first introduced by the poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 in his Biographia Literari. When a work overcomes the barrier of the Suspension of Disbelief, it draws the reader in and takes them into the world created by the author.
by Guadamour
Writer, Dandelion Salad
October 17, 2013
In the 30,000 word dystopian novella, Wellspring (Cosmic Egg Books, 2013), William T. Hathaway describes the drought devastated California of 2026. “The 18-year-old new high school graduate, Bob Parks, escaping from LA meets up with the 77-year-old retired public interest lawyer, Jane Catherine Willoughby while hitchhiking. The two of them go on a Quixotic search for water which they believe exists underground.
by Guadamour
Writer, Dandelion Salad
September 10, 2013
Image by MegMoggington via Flickr
Paul Theroux has long held the title of Dean of Travel Writers, as well as being an accomplished novelist and insightful literary and social critic. He started off his career in Africa where he taught for six years, and wrote about his travels around the continent. In his most recent travel book, The Last Train To Zona Verde—Overland From Cape Town To Angola (The Penguin Group, 2013), Theroux brings a thoughtful perspective unavailable to anyone without his experience in Africa.
Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
by Guadamour
Writer, Dandelion Salad
September 6, 2013
The Iron Heel by Jack London published in 1908, arguably the first dystopian novel, describes a totalitarian fascist state in the US which London felt would come to pass by 1913-14. George Orwell acknowledged the influence of The Iron Heel on his great work,1984. London was off with the dates, though the passage of The Federal Reserve Act, and the Federal Income Tax in 1913 sets the stage for the eventual corporate takeover of the world.
Updated: April 16, 2013; Free Ebook
by Guadamour
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
March 2, 2013
A Book Review of Steam Drills, Treadmills and Shooting Stars
Mark Twain coined the phrase “Gilded Age” in reference to the late 19th century in America. The hidden, “gilded,” corruption of the period was exposed by a special group of writers referred to as Muckrakers. The Muckrakers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries left a lasting mark on the US. Their response to the corruption and abuse in US culture set the pattern for future reform movements in America. It would seem a hundred years later the United States is again experiencing a “gilded age” of corruption at the top levels of business and government, and the country is in need of novelists like Upton Sinclair who brought events to such attention that laws were enacted which changed the course of US history. Continue reading
by Guadamour
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
March 7, 2012
Fawzia Koofi starts her autobiographical book, The Favored Daughter (Palgrave MacMillan 2012), by offering true insight into growing up as a girl in a large Afghanistan family, the 19th child of 23, and the last child of the second wife of a man who ended up marrying seven women in the Islamic tradition, many of the marriages for political and tactical reasons to form a dominate family kinship and political network. Remarkably enough, Koofi, left outside to die because she was a girl, survived, and because she survived, became the “Favored Daughter.” Continue reading
by Guadamour
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
January 15, 2012
Image by jennaddenda via Flickr
Pulitzer Prise winner James B. Stewart’s book, Den of Thieves, came out in 1992 and detailed the corruption in the financial and political underpinnings of the country. After reading it, one hoped they would never have to read another book on that topic, because the problems which caused it would be fixed. The book told the story of insider trading scandals involving Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and other financiers and their Investment bankers, using junk (high-yielding, high-risk unrated corporate ) bonds to takeover companies. Continue reading
by Guadamour
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
January 15, 2012
The Nameless
I have to get out of here
the heat shimmers
and I know no one
Phoenix sucks
I dress in the shortest skirt I have
put on fishnet stocking
over-paint my face
look like a good presentable whore
by Guadamour
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Dec. 9, 2011
In his important book, Border Wars (MIT Press, 2011) Tom Barry writes:
I found that the border security push has injected new life into the war on drugs by reconfiguring those failed policies as vital components of national security. Immigration control, too, has been swallowed by the security paradigm. Instead of reforming the economic incentives that make illegal immigration inevitable, the United States has been stuffing non-threatening people into for-profit prisons. Counter-terrorism, the ostensible purpose of these undertakings, is an excuse for sheriffs to absorb federal subsidies. And the lack of a coherent border policy provides a vacuum in which reactionary populism and nationalism have flourished at the local, state and federal levels.
Dandelion Salad 