The Rift

A Bolingbrook Babbler Story

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Pub Date 13 Jul 2022 | Archive Date 1 Aug 2022

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Description

Tom Larsen grew up believing in stories from the Bolingbrook Babbler newspaper: of UFOs, half-human weredeer, and of vampire gangs that roamed the streets at night. Then one day his parents told him the truth—the stories were all a lie.

Fresh out of college, Tom built a reputation as a blogger of the scientific skepticism movement, debunking the reports of paranormal events in his hometown. However, after famous podcast host,

Jamie Kyle, posted a video about how Tom's attempts to "hook up" with her at a skeptic's conference made her feel uncomfortable, the blogger was furious. Now, in his mid-twenties and still angry about his humiliation, Tom has made a career from defending the skeptical movement against "modern feminists", including Humanist Heart, a group of social justice skeptics. And, when he hears that his hometown of Bolingbrook will host Humanist Heart's congress, and Jamie will be their guest, Tom hatches a plan to confront the podcaster.

The only problem is that he must work for the Bolingbrook Babbler to gain access to the congress, and risk ruining his skeptic reputation. But an attack by a weredeer while working on his first assignment for the Babbler leaves Tom's beliefs in pieces.

The monsters, the UFOs, everything he tried to debunk—are all real! Now, there are angry Men's Rights Activists trying to disrupt the congress, weredeer have surrounded the area, and mysterious time rifts appearing throughout the village.

Only Jamie and the Babbler can help Tom fix this, but will he be able to get past his anger and distrust before reaching the point of no return?

Tom Larsen grew up believing in stories from the Bolingbrook Babbler newspaper: of UFOs, half-human weredeer, and of vampire gangs that roamed the streets at night. Then one day his parents told him...


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ISBN 9798985537017
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Average rating from 5 members


Featured Reviews

Five Stars for The Rift!

The Rift, is a wild adventure, sprinkled with humor, duplicitous characters, and extraterrestrials. You never know who is working for the good of mankind or creating a rift in the world.

The novel examines how people rationalize their behaviors. Each of the main characters is flawed. Anxieties and insecurities about the changing views of feminism, the skeptical movement, and desire for power are central themes

A well written and creative novel. Great character development. Five stars!

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A quick, easy and interesting read that had good writing, a good storyline and well developed characters.

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Tom grew up outside Chicago reading the Bolingbrook Babbler. Stories about UFO's and other strange stories keep his attention as he grew up. Then his parents told him the stories were all a lie. Until Tom discovered that was not true.

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The Rift is the second story in the Bolingbrook Babbler storyverse by William Brinkman. Released 13th July 2022, it's 257 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats.

Although it's not derivative, this gave me vibes of what would happen if you mixed X-Files and Roswell with a little bit of very dry Twin Peaks humor tossed in the mix. It's quirky and odd, but overall engagingly weird and a better than average read. Quite a *lot* of the plot turns on conspiracy theory and warring factions within the skeptical movement who are expending most of their efforts sniping at and scoring off of one another rather than trying to figure out what's really going on outside their sphere.

It's feminists vs. incels (more or less), and there's more mansplaining than readers can shake a stick at and it's not a good look for -anyone-. The author does a detailed and believable job of describing a convention experience to the smallest detail which was impressive. Most of the characters are superficially less than endearing and it took a while to really feel invested in the actual story. There is a redemption arc here, and there were some satisfying moments along the way.

I wonder if the author will wind up getting abuse from both the hardcore male-SF-puppy camp for including sympathetic and intelligent female characters as well as from long-time female SF fans for the nigh-continual redemption-of-Tom plot arc.

I was somewhere in the middle and enjoyed the book after it settled into the actual story.

Four stars. Engaging and well written.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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