Book Review Contest 2024 Winners

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Thanks to everyone who entered or voted in the book review contest. The winners are:

• 1st: Two Arms And A Head, reviewed by AmandaFromBethlehem. Amanda is active in the Philadelphia ACX community. This is her first year entering the Book Review Contest, and she is currently working on a silly novel about an alien who likes thermodynamics. When she's not writing existential horror, she practices Tengwar calligraphy and does home improvement projects.

• 2nd: Nine Lives, reviewed by David Matolcsi. David is an AI safety researcher from Hungary, currently living in Berkeley. He doesn't have much publicly available writing yet, but plans to publish some new blog posts on LessWrong in the coming months

• 3rd: How The War Was Won, reviewed by Jack Thorlin. Jack previously worked as an attorney at the Central Intelligence Agency, and is now an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

First place gets $2,500, second place $1,000, third place gets $500. Email me at scott@slatestarcodex.com to tell me how to send you money; your choices are Paypal, Bitcoin, Ethereum, check in the mail, or donation to your favorite charity. Please contact me by October 21 or you lose your prize.

The other Finalists were:

• Autobiography Of Yukichi Fukuzawa, reviewed by Jason Rhys Parry. Jason is a researcher at Sapienship. He has a new tech and culture-themed Substack called Blueprint Canopy. You can read his debut post "The Sci-fi Career Guide" for a taste of things to come. He also tweets at @JRhysParry.

• Dominion, reviewed by Drew Housman. Drew writes about animal welfare on his Substack and about all kinds of stuff on his personal blog. He also wrote a book about his college days and early career. He’s interested in working with animal welfare orgs and can be reached at drewhous@gmail.com. 

• Don Juan, reviewed by Amedeo Rothson. Amedeo has been called “the greatest writer who has ever lived,” namely by himself. He writes occasional essays and still-more-occasional verse at The Titan’s Breakfast. 

• The Family That Couldn’t Sleep, reviewed by Vat, a neuropsychology/genetics student who writes at Vates Rising.

• How Language Began, reviewed by John V, a neuroscientist who lives in Boston.

• Real Raw News, reviewed by Blake Neff. Blake is a producer for an American conservative podcast and radio show, and previously wrote the scripts for Tucker Carlson's Fox show, so feel free to blame him for the present state of American politics. He doesn't have a Substack as of yet, but does take commissions and he'll respond to your email if you send one.

• Silver Age Marvel Comics, reviewed by Edward Nevraumont. Edward has a day job in private equity but has three side projects that may interest ACX readers: he co-hosted "What if Marvel was Real" — a podcast that pretends to be part of the 1960s Marvel Universe and discusses the real world implications of living with superheroes. He writes business-stuff at the largest marketing Substack: Marketing BS. And most recently he has started a project to coach his nine-year old daughter to (hopefully) the History Bee National Championship (using some technique from last year's contest winner): The Everest Era.

• The Complete Rhyming Dictionary And Poet’s Craft Book, reviewed by David.  David is a materials science PhD and programmer who blogs with co-author Felipe at The Hall of Impossible Dreams about fanfiction, poetry, video game machine learning, and fanfiction poetry about video game machine learning.  He is currently looking for work, and can be reached at david@hallofdreams.org.

• The History Of Rationalism, reviewed by Louis Morgan, a curmudgeon and cunctator who lives in a swamp in south Louisiana

• The Pale King, reviewed by Arielle Friedman. Arielle likes fiction, light technopessimism, and the occasional political screed. She writes at analogfutures.substack.com and runs a co-writing group every weekday morning that you can join here.

• The Ballad of the White Horse, reviewed by FLWAB. FLWAB works in mental healthcare administration, and is in the process of earning a PhD in clinical psychology. He writes the Substack Flying Lion With A Book, and is often found leaving C. S. Lewis quotes in the comments of other people's Substacks.

I’m also giving out six Honorable Mentions. These either came very close to making the finals, or had an interesting balance of very high and very low votes in the first round, or I just personally liked them. They are:

• Catkin, by ctrlcreep. They write microfiction as translucent as the finest yellow plastic. ctrlcreep.net. Otherwise prefers illegibility.

• Road of The King, reviewed by UnlimitedOranges. He is a rationality and fiction enthusiast as well as 1L law student at Rutgers Law School. If anyone is looking for a Summer 2025 law intern, email him at elvisqwalsh@gmail.com.

• World Empire Lost, reviewed by Iain. Iain is a former civil servant and government adviser based in England. He blogs on politics, government, society, books and miscellany at www.edrith.co.uk, where he also hosts an annual UK-focused forecasting competition.

• The Meme Machine, reviewed by Arvid Häggqvist. Arvid is currently doing a Master's degree in philosophy at Uppsala University, Sweden, and works as a software engineer. He asks you to consider donating to his friend's fundraiser for helping displaced people in Beirut.

• Determined, reviewed by Slippin Fall, who invites you to join him at Nobels in the Street where he will try to win himself, using zero math, a Nobel Prize every Monday for the next six Mondays. First up, on 10/14, the Nobel Prize in Physics. He sh*ts you not, and hopes to see you there.

The author of the final honorable mention, Piranesi, asks to remain anonymous.

I enjoyed watching you speculate on which reviews you thought were secretly mine, but I didn’t submit one this year.

All winners and finalists get a free ACX subscription at the email I have on record for them. I haven’t done this yet but I will next week. If you want it at a different email and haven’t already told me, send me an email saying so.

All winners and finalists also get the right to pitch me essays they want me to put up on ACX. Warning that I am terrible to pitch to, reject most things without giving good reasons, and am generally described as awful to work with - but you can do it if you want! I used to say I would pay you if I used your article, but I found that other people already wanted to pitch me more than I wanted to accept, so I’m suspending this offer for now.

All winners and finalists get the opportunity to be named and honored publicly here; if I didn’t include your details, it’s because I didn’t get your response to my email asking me what details to include, and if you want to change that you should send me an email so I can name you in an open thread or something.

Many people said the Book Review Contest seems to be declining. I may skip next year in favor of an Everything-Except-Book-Reviews contest, give you time to read some more good books, then return to book reviews in 2026. Let me know if you have opinions on this plan.