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There is a saying that an author should/can only write about what they know. Obviously with fantasy/sci-fi etc that is thrown out the window to a large degree but when it comes to everyday type stuff could that be true? I wasn’t sure until reading Game Changers. This is a book about a closeted hockey player, Scott Hunter, falling in love with an everyday guy, Kip, and what it is like dealing with navigating a closeted relationship. I don’t know anything about being rich, famous, or about hockey, so I can’t comment on how realistically she captures any of that. I do have tons of experience with being a gay guy, dealing with being in closet way too long, the process of dating in that environment, the coming out process feelings (good and bad), and of course gay sex (too much of it for my tastes but probably on par with a romance novel not soft core porn lit). I have to say Reid really captured the essence of it all more than I could have guessed anyone besides a gay man would. I’d say she did as good as any gay guy would with writing that up. I don’t know if she had an intuition of it, had a lot of experience with gay friends she built on, or heavily researched it. Either way she really nailed it with this book.

I had heard that this book was kind of weak compared to its sequel, Heated Rivalry. It was that tv series that got me wanting to read the books. I decided to not follow the advice of reading this book second because Episode 3, the one about the Scott and Kip relationship, was the one that really sucked me into the show. The book did so again and perhaps even more so. It’s been over 30 years since I came out to my first person ever. It’s been over 25 years since I was out more generally, and sadly only 15 years since I was totally out to literally everyone. The way she wrote the story instantly brought me back emotionally to those formative years decades ago. The whole tv series did too so maybe I am having some residual effect from that being projected into my impression of the book. For me, though, this really resonated and I think it more than stands up on its own to read. I can only imagine how good the second book is if I enjoyed this one so much already.

I ran across this book on Tech Won't Save Us podcast years ago. Being a modern "Luddite" in terms of being sick of the hyperconsolidation of money/power in the hands of a handful of billionaires/megacorporations and their reckless pursuit of growth at the expense of anything and anyone else I thought this book would resonate with me more. The pitched premise was that the Luddites weren't just anti-technology people that broke machines. They had real grievances and were more than just about stopping technological progress. That's what I was expecting. The book didn't really deliver that. It did deliver development of their actual grievances, mass starvations and destitution caused by the textile jobs being automated, the horrific factory conditions which owners at best turned a blind eye to, how it amplified the use of slavery, the government not lifting a finger to help the masses but using the full force of the military to tamp down resistance to industrial onslaught, et cetera. That wasn't a story completely unknown to me though. The little details I wasn't up to speed on, if I ever learned it. But I wanted to know about what the Luddites themselves did beyond the machine breaking, physical violence, and then ultimately murder. That part either wasn't developed or the story isn't as complex as pitched. There was some notions of slowing the development of the technology, which most factory owners didn't pursue so had their machines broken, or some minimum wage stuff. But a lot of that was pushed by adjacent movements not the core Luddite we were followed. The book does document those appeals at the Parliamentary level by these adjacent legislators and thinkers, some you've definitely heard of like Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. Those mostly didn't come to much either though. Maybe the problem was the pitch didn't match the history and therefore I was bound to be disappointed. It's not about being disappointed in the outcome but by the fact that after laying out the righteous anger it didn't show the pitched promise of the Luddite's solutions to the industrialization problem being ignored, they really didn't have them. I knew I'd be disappointed in the outcome since we know the industrialists won and further brutalized the masses into the 20th century, after which the brutalization was outsourced to the Global South. But that's like saying you are disappointed in Star Wars Episode III because the Jedi lose to the Empire. You knew what was going to happen.

If you are unfamiliar with this era or labor movement history then this book is a worthwhile read. If you were hoping, like I was, to get some more insight into the more nuanced positions of the Luddites I think you will leave disappointed. Much of the nuanced positions were being done by adjacent actors not the Luddites themselves. Those adjacent actors are explored as well but that's not the same thing. Perhaps Merchant is picturing the two movements as two wings, one more extremist than the other, of the same movement. Based on the reading of the book it sounds more like two different movements trying to address the same base problem.