Reviews and Comments

I read this primarily as research for a university essay on right-wing extremism, so I was certainly expecting the rhetoric expressed throughout this book. If you don’t know, The Turner Diaries is a notorious piece of white supremacist propaganda that has reportedly inspired more than 200 attacks and murders. As such, you’re probably going to be offended by the book unless you are yourself a white supremacist antisemite. On a personal note, I didn’t love the realisation that I would’ve been sent to march off a cliff at the very best.

Even disregarding the blatant racism this just wasn’t well written. The constant references to the ~System~ were a clear, unimaginative ripoff of 1984 and despite the frequent use of the term I’m still not sure what it means (I think it’s just the authors ridiculous way of trying to make a slightly more authoritarian version of the U.S. government sound deeply dystopian.) The writing is as basic as the world-building and the book reads more like bad fan fiction than anything that should’ve sold 200 000+ copies.

I did find it worrying/interesting that MacDonald described an attack killing ~4000 on September 11 (albeit in Houston and with bombs). Was 9/11 a coincidence or was it somewhat inspired by his work? He also predicted antiracism protests turning riotous, leading to destruction of property and murder. However, I’m not gonna credit him with any predictive powers for that since you could reasonably assume that mass protests of any kind have the potential for violence.

In conclusion, read this if you feel like it but be aware of its flaws. To any white supremacist/neo-Nazis/general ethno-nationalists, please improve the quality of your literary offerings.

Ocker provides a broad overview of various cursed objects and the history and traditions which are behind them. I found the selection to be generally diverse and interesting, going far and beyond the classic Annabelle and Hope Diamond stories I was expecting. The writing was also pretty entertaining with the author having made a clear effort to bring humour to an otherwise dark subject.

Unfortunately, in reading this in audiobook format I think I missed out on a great deal by lacking the visuals of these objects. My reading experience was further hampered by this as an audiobook because the chapters were so short and created their own narrative - which made it personally difficult to keep track of what was happening and the lore of a given object. As such, I would recommend this book in an ebook/hardcopy format.

I'd like to thank NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.