The One Where The Little Guy Strikes Back | Weekly Update: June 1st, 2026

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:05]This week I learned job hunting and interviewing. It's like a full-time job in itself.

[00:00:17]Hey, what's up bookworms? Mike back with another weekly update. The first for June of 2026. Guys, already halfway through the year. Can you believe that?

[00:00:25]It's coming up really, really quick.

[00:00:27]Wild. But it's been a very, very fun week. We're going to talk about it now.

[00:00:30]The week that was, the week that will be, all of the in between. We begin by talking about what am I reading. I did complete The Forever War by Joe Howerman. Uh Hal Dubman. I want to say Herman. Joe Halddederman. Uh this is a book obviously that has quite the legacy. And I can kind of see why.

[00:00:47]There's some things in here that are very, very good. Way way way more things that I liked and I didn't. You know, I've said I've kind of struggled sometimes with some of these classic sci-fi. I'll go back to it, I'll be like, look, I understand why it was a classic. It's just just not hitting for me. Uh, this one uh definitely hit more than did not. Uh, it didn't quite have near the allegory that I expected. There are some things in here that I think some people will find to be social commentary. Obviously, this is very much euphemism for the Vietnam War, which Joe Heldman is a veteran of, and it's it's impossible not to see those things, but it's not quite to the level that I was expecting. Now, first what I want to say, what I like about this book a lot, and I want to preface this by saying I've never been in war. Obviously, I have never been in the military. I do not know. And I know some people get upset when I say it has the emotional realism of war. That's something that I say when I said this about Dark Age by Pierce Brown. A lot of people in the comments saying, "What do you ever what do you know? How many battles have you been in?" All of a sudden, I'm speaking from, you know, ignorance. I'm speaking from a point of saying, "Hey, I imagine what this feels like." like it just kind of does it in an emotional range that I've never really experienced before. So when I say it's the emotional realism of war, I'm saying it as a reader, obviously as someone who's never really experienced it. But the trauma, the alienation of coming home after the war is really the stuff in this book that hits very, very hard. As I said, my dad did fight in the Vietnam conflict, and it wasn't until many, many, many, many years later that he would even talk about how Vietnam veterans were treated when they came home from that war.

[00:02:15]course. So, that's something I think is very much uh prevalent in this book.

[00:02:18]It's something you're going to be it's be hard not to see, but I love how ordinary the protagonist is. He's just the every man. There's nothing special about him. Yes, they want to recruit nothing but really, really smart people, but that's kind of like what it was at the time. And the draft didn't care about where you were going to college, whether you were living in a trailer park, whether you were in Ivy League school, you were 18 years old, you were a male, you were eligible to be drafted and to go and fight in the Vietnam conflict. So I I think those things are are very much here. But I love again how normal protagonist is. This isn't a a superhero story. This isn't protagonist isn't the baddest man on the planet.

[00:02:53]He's just a guy. And I think that was what makes the emotional weight of what happens towards the end really hit harder. But I also think that the time jumps they use in this very very brilliant. It's really really well done.

[00:03:04]They mess with time dilation. Obviously more time is going by on Earth than it is for our protagonist here. And that's uh something that makes it easier to understand when he comes home and he feels like the world's moved on without him. That's something I think that a lot of soldiers feel like when they do go to a long long battle. But I I think it's just like the harsh reality of war and that we're not always fighting for what we think we're fighting for or we don't have any idea what we're fighting for.

[00:03:27]So yes, there's obviously some anti-war uh things in here. And it's one of those where, you know, you you look back on certain wars and you're like, what were we even fighting for? Or, you know, was this a false flag? Was it something that, you know, we had no reason being there? No one could tell us why, but hey, we're there forever just because war in the end is profitable. That's the sad sad thing. Uh, if there's some stuff I didn't really care for, honestly, I'm a character reader first, guys. The character characterization is very very sparse. Uh, even uh for Mandela, it's not exactly what you call rich uh a rich arc or something like that. Again, when you deal with sci-fi, I feel like a lot of these things are more about the idea or theme that the author is trying to get home. And he does that. He does a good job with that. But just getting full on like inside the inner workings of what makes this guy tick, you're not really going to get that. And all the side characters very very much. There's there there's there's one I think that they get some development. Everything else is just it's just kind of blank.

[00:04:23]You're not going to really get very much. Uh I think that the pacing can feel kind of uneven. And what I mean by that is it can feel slow with time.

[00:04:29]That's a very short book. So a fantasy reader not going to have problem with this. Is what I mean is like sometimes it'll be slow and then sometimes be like way this is moving way too quick you know. So I feel like there could have been a more sweet spot to kind of get the balance there. But again it's a short book. There's never anything where I feel like they're you're slogging through anything but when the the the high impact moments happen you just kind of wish they would slow down and breathe just a little bit. And yeah look the social commentary can feel quite dated.

[00:04:53]There are some things in here and not the way that you think. I know a lot of you are shaking your head right now and saying, "Oh, that's not it's not what you're thinking." It is not. It's not like what we're seeing now in a lot of uh fantasy and sci-fi. It's very, very different. It's just there's some things obviously in the 1970s that were going to feel a little different than they do now. So, you might look at those with a modern reader's eyes and say, "That's an interesting twist there." So, it might seem kind of dated, but again, it's not in the way that you're thinking. It really, really isn't. It actually surprised me cuz I was expecting much, much differently. And what it gave me was something very different. We'll talk about that more guys in depth on the Illuminati get together here uh probably next week or the week after. I don't know. I'm the only one who's finished the book. The other three guys either they were waiting for it, they hadn't started it yet, and that's fine. Uh so sometime in the middle of this month, we'll probably get together here on the channel, my channel, and we'll be talking about the Forever War and some of those those themes I talk about that might be outdated. I don't think we're going to shy away from. We're going to talk about them and uh because I think that they deserve to be talked about and we will do that at length. But overall, very very happy uh with the book and I'm glad that that I did pick it. I don't know how the other guys are going to feel. Uh again, every time I think that they're going to love something, it seems like it's kind of mixed and every time I think, "Oh god, everybody hated that," they all end up loving it. Like Interview with the Vampire. So, who knows? We'll see where we get to with that. As for what am I going to read, guys, I decided I'm going to be picking up book three. It's it's a month of very much continuing a bunch of series. Book three in the Unwind series by Neil Schustman. This is Unsold. already read the first little bit of that. I was very excited with the way that book two ended. I thought that book two was kind of the breath of error you had after just the frantic pacing of the first book. Book two was a little bit more of a a character study on the character of Cam. Uh it was very much asking that moral question of is this person human when they've been made completely 100% of unwind parts? Felt very much like his hat tipped to Mary Shel's Frankenstein.

[00:06:47]I felt like he did it in a tasteful way.

[00:06:49]But uh again, what I repeat what I've been saying about this, but if you're new here, what I like that Neil Schustman is doing with this is he's not grinding a political axe with this. It's a very, very, very serious social issue that's still wildly debated today. And he doesn't tell you one way to feel or the other. He just says, "Hey, this is the way the future is and this is the world we're living in now. Have fun." He doesn't tell you how to feel. He doesn't feel. He doesn't tell you you should feel bad if you have a different opinion. He doesn't do that. I think he's doing it exactly the way that you should. And that's probably one of those ways that probably gets him a lot of flack from people on uh both sides of that opinion. But again, to me, uh I'm just reading a dystopian book and I'm enjoying it for what he's doing cuz like I said, he's just letting the characters tell the story and I like that. I think that what Schman does really, really well is he just kind of rolls with his characters. You're just taking a trip with them and he's not waxing poetic on anything. He's really just getting straight to it. Now, he is a YA author and again I say this this has some twisted twisted stuff in it, man. some stuff. I'm like, wow, I don't know if I would want my pre-teen kid to read that.

[00:07:50]So, when you say it's a YA novel, doesn't mean it's like Percy Jackson. It just means, yeah, it's closer to Hunger Games. You know, there's a lot of depth.

[00:07:57]There's a lot of serious themes in there. But, yeah, I would be hardressed anyone who likes Hunger Games wouldn't like this. Hopefully, he sticks the landing better than he did in the Scythe series. And uh maybe better than Suzanne Collins did with the Hunger Games, but uh that might get something thrown at me. Now, there is a fourth book. So, uh but I I do plan to wrap this series up this year. I am still very very much enjoying it and uh I will if it doesn't the bed like the toll did in arc of a scythe I'll be reading more Neil Schustman definitely without a doubt after that I'll probably head back into the inheritance cycle and get eldest will be my third time attempting the book Eldest and I think this time we're going to push through and actually finish it and I'm excited to do so and happy that some of you have joined me for that even be for a nostalgia trip or you know it's like you're like me just hey why have I not read this series, why not? So, go into those expectations of yes, this is a fantasy, very much starter fantasy, but I think sometimes we can have fun with that. You know, you don't got to take it so damn seriously.

[00:08:54]And maybe you can just enjoy it if you just enjoy it for what exactly it is. As for this week on the channel, guys, very, very slow week for me here on the channel. I know that only got out one video. Look, I've been job hunting. I had several interviews this week. Some of them are hilarious. Uh you ever have a job interview and like you really you're like 5 minutes into it and you're like, I'm not accepting this job. But you're like, I'm not gonna just walk out.

[00:09:17]So, you know, I I'm the type where like I would say, hey, well, my my attitude would completely change. No, I'm I'm never the professional. I'm gonna talk just like I was if I wanted the job. And at one point, they did ask me if I you know, if I was still interested. I was like, sure. You know, let's just keep going basically. But it was one of those that like when I walked out, I was kind of like laughing at like how much of a waste of time that was for both of us for reasons I'll talk about. Maybe if maybe if I do another live stream, I'll get more in depth to it. That's how why you guys are here. Another one would really great. I thought that you know it was one of those where I felt like she was about to say I want to offer you the job but you know corporate they have to go through certain channels and stuff and I am still expecting to hear back from them here very soon. So uh optimistic on that front and uh that's just kind of uh that kind of dominated my week and you know we took the kids to the beach on Friday and that'll just zap you. You know if you go to the beach it I don't care what it's like it's going to wear you out. be it the the ocean or or the sun or your kids or all they can combine. It's going to wear you out and yeah, so I did just kind of chill and read for a couple days. Didn't get the camera out until this morning. Uh but I did get out that one video which is my June reading plans. Like I said, it was very much a month where if you aren't following me on some of these series, I know that might be kind of a drag for you because uh three of them are series.

[00:10:31]Three of the four books I picked this month are continuing with the series and none of them are book one. So that was something I want to put a focus on this year. Like I said, was getting current with series or, you know, finally finishing some of them. That was some things that I wanted to do this year.

[00:10:45]So, some months like that are going to dictate that. Do have a new horror book on there that's a standalone from an author that I really, really enjoyed.

[00:10:52]Uh, the two books I've read from previously. But, uh, yeah, mixing it up is always fun. Like I said, I got an urban fantasy on there. I got dystopian, I got a fantasy, and I got a horror book on there. So, uh, but again, continuing some of the series if you're not with me, if you're not on board with some of those series or you know, you're not reading them or you have no interest in reading them. I understand it might be tough to kind of stick with me this month, but I hope that you will be patient with me while I try to get caught up on some of these series.

[00:11:15]That's what that the reading plans for the month were. Uh, really just catching up. As for some next week plans, guys, got I got something, but uh not it's just it's like trying to memorize something from a dream. That's kind of how I feel right now. It's like I have an idea for video, but I keep trying to nail down exactly what it is. So, I can't really say very much about what it is. I just I can't place how I'm going to talk about I have an idea and it just hasn't fully formed yet. So, I don't know if that's going to happen this week or not. I don't know. We'll find out.

[00:11:45]Like I said, I might just end up doing another live stream with you guys. I have no no clue. But, I will wrap up the month of May. Pick my book of the month, which was a pretty close race. Not as close as previous months, uh, but this one uh I think I have a pretty clear winner. pretty sure what I'm going to pick at this point, but uh I don't count rereads obviously. So, Aragon is not up for my book of the month. But, uh as for the the rest of the week, I don't know.

[00:12:07]It's just it's just kind of we're just kind of going with it here and seeing what does happen. And again, with the whole employment thing, it's just going to kind of figure out everything here.

[00:12:15]But, uh that's really all I have for the books, guys. Got a couple of TV and movie talk things here before I go. I want to talk about this show on Netflix called The Burrows. You probably heard of it by now.

[00:12:28]reason they got a lot of attention is because uh the Duffer brothers who did Stranger Things, they're executive producers on this. I'm not really sure honestly how much they're involved. Is this a story? Is this one of those where they just want to throw their name on it because Netflix knows it'll get attention? I have no idea how much they're in charge. It gives me kind of an Amblin vibe like uh early '8s Stephen King am vibe like a Stranger Things did.

[00:12:51]So you kind of get that, you know, the the the music and the dark lighting, the way that they're kind of using the whole aesthetic, you know, that the whole community has that feel of like a ET or something like that, neighborhood ET.

[00:13:02]And so I mean, that's obviously going to draw my generation in because that's, you know, great nostalgia for things like that. Now, what I'll say about this that I love is that the cast is terrific. Uh Alfred Molina's always great. Uh I've appreciated his career ever since, you know, from Writers Lost Dark. Uh, Gina Davis is a national treasure. Adore her, love her. Bill Pullman, obviously, uh, that's that's still my favorite movie president ever.

[00:13:26]Alfred Woodard is always terrific. But even the even the cast members that I don't know, they've been really, really good. I feel like this this ensemble cast is really really great chemistry.

[00:13:36]Won't lie, it's kind of hard seeing some of these actors I grew up with so old playing the playing the senior age characters in these shows now. But, uh, that's that's the harsh reality of it.

[00:13:45]Time Waits for No Man or woman. But, I say I really like it. It has really strong character work. It really does.

[00:13:50]Like because it kind of starts off, you know, with Alfa Molina's character is just kind of standoffish. You know, he doesn't even want to be here. You as you can imagine what it's like going to retirement community. You know, you don't want to be here. You don't really want to make any connections. He's still grieving for the loss of his wife.

[00:14:03]Doesn't want to get nobody. So, it's hard for him to let anyone in. But, you know, he really starts starts to. And I think it kind of examines those those themes of aging and grief and what is purpose? You know, what is my purpose in life? That kind of thing that that you can only get into when you're in your 60s. I think. But, uh, I think it's doing a very, very good job with the character work, at least, you know, so far. We're not done with it yet. I do think it does. I've heard it described as Stranger Things for seniors. I I kind of get that vibe, but it's not overly reliant on nostalgia like I think a lot of Stranger Things was. There there isn't none of that. But I think if you kind of want that feeling of like, hey, there's there's a big creepy monster going on in the background and these characters are kind of getting together to figure out exactly what's going on to solve this mystery, you know, what's killing people, what's killing their friends, things like that. It it it has some of those similar themes and I think obviously they wanted to lean into that because, you know, they need a new Stranger Things now that it's over. But I'm not going to sit here and say, "Oh yeah, it's just Stranger Things for old people." I don't think I think it's different enough. But like I said, if you do like that kind of uh horror ambulin vibe, early 80s horror ambulin vibe, I think you'll like that. But it's more more like a mystery so far than the straight up horror. There's been like some parts of my like whoa. But I wouldn't call this a horror show.

[00:15:15]Definitely not. But u a little bit more supernatural, I think, or some big creepy monster. I don't know. Not enough. Like I'll be honest with you, I'm only three episodes in so so I don't know. But the soundtrack's awesome. The soundtrack is awesome. The first episode alone had Bowie. It had Bob Seager. It had Santana. Had Bruce Springsteen. I'm like, "Okay, this is my brand. They're playing all my music, right?" Which is ironically my parents' music. Kind of funny how that works. Just thing about my generation. But like I said, uh only three episodes in, so I can't attest to some of the people that say that, you know, the resolution is not the greatest. You know, the the narrative gets kind of clunky towards the the later episodes. I don't know. I can't I can't testify to that yet. I don't know.

[00:15:53]Not there. Uh we like it enough to keep going. We just kind of got we're also watching from we're also watching Widow's Bay. So, we didn't just run through this in like one week, you know, but we will we'll finish it up probably this week. We like it enough to keep going by the end of that third episode.

[00:16:06]We're like, "Okay, we're definitely all in. We definitely want to finish this."

[00:16:09]And I hear it's doing well enough they might get a second season. So, that's cool. But I I think some of the criticism is is valid at first. It can feel a little slow. It can feel underdeveloped, unpredictable, where they're getting you to know that our that our lead character Sam is just is struggling, you know, through the loss of his wife. I think it's setting the stage enough. It's giving you enough hooks to want you to keep going to find out what happens next. And it does that it does that Robert Jordan Wheel of Time thing where you're like, I don't know if I'm keep going and then something happens at the end of episode like oh well I have to see what happens next.

[00:16:38]Right. I know there are several parts of Wheel of Time where I'd always be like I don't know. This is starting to slow down. I'm going to take a break after this. And then like a third act would be like amazing. You like I'm not stopping after that. So it's not quite there.

[00:16:48]Just it has those every episode kind of ending a cliffhanger makes you want to start the next one. And uh yeah, so I'm pretty happy with it. We'll see how it goes. But again, I think I would I would recommend it alone for that cast. I mean, it's a great great ensemble cast and they're all really really well together. It's not a surprise really. I kind of want to talk about uh kind of horror kind of blowing up at the box office this weekend. Uh two movies, Obsessions, Obsession, not Obsessions, Obsession and Back Rooms. Uh they have just completely stormed the box office.

[00:17:19]And as a horror fan, I love to hear this. Now, I haven't seen either movie, so I can't attest to either of those.

[00:17:24]Obviously, I want to see both of them.

[00:17:26]Clearly, I've told you about my history with A24. My wife and I, we either absolutely love A24 movies or we can't stand them. So, I'm not sure where we'll fall on this, but uh the reason this actually first got on my radar is uh my oldest kid for his birthday, he said he wanted to go see back rooms in the theater, which if you're doing the math, he just turned 14. This would be his first R-rated movie in the theater. So, I would be going with him, obviously.

[00:17:49]That's what he wants to do. We're going to do that sometime later this week. But it's amazing. Back rooms. Uh $118 million it made this weekend. You're like, "Oh, that's not the You're still using like superhero numbers." You got to understand this movie was made on like $750,000. Uh and A24s never had an opening this big. The director is a 20-year-old kid who started in YouTube, you know. So, when people ask, "Hey, why do you put YouTube in your resume?"

[00:18:11]There you go, guys. YouTube is not like kind of the laugh thing. Oh, I got a YouTube channel. It's not quite the thing anymore. It used to be. uh people take it very very seriously and youngest director ever to have a number one movie at the box office. Incredible incredible work for him. So I I heard the movie's great back rooms the trailer looked really really awesome but I mean that's that's an amazing opening and Obsession uh Obsession I I'm hearing more and more this movie has incredible word of mouth.

[00:18:35]I I think they said it made more money its third weekend than it did in its first. I mean you talk about legs and you talk about word of mouth really getting out there. I've heard some people say Obsessions is the best horror movie they've seen in the last 15 20 years. And these are people I trust.

[00:18:48]These are people who I I know love the genre, love the horror genre. So that's that's incredible to hear. I'm I'm excited as hell to hear about this. But it's up to 148 million now. And I just have to tip my hat. Like I said, two horror movies beating out the new latest Disney Star Wars slop out there is you don't have to build anything. You don't have to tear anything down to build something else up. It's really not what I'm trying to do. It's just it's nice to see a win for the horror genre because horror has been kind of teetering a little bit I feel like the last few years where it feels like it's on another downward slope. I feel like it's peaks and valleys when it comes to the horror genre. They find something that works like The Conjuring and you see a million kind of clones of it. But this getting back to the the lowbudget let's focus on characters and what's going on with them in these movies and how their insanity is barely holding on by a thread. That's that's something I feel like we got back to. Got away cuz I started seeing a lot of CGI popping up in horror movies. I'm like, stop doing this. This is not it, you know. And it doesn't and also gore. Gore doesn't mean scary, you know. So, getting back to the psychological side of it, that's that's something I'm there for. Cuz what do I always tell you guys when I talk about a horror book? Every once in a while, you can still get scared from a horror book because it's that thing where you just see something bad coming, you can't stop it. It makes you uncomfortable. That's how horror can scare you once you get past the age of like 12 or 13. So, uh, again, I I I don't know. I watch the trailer for both of these. Obsession looks legit creepy. Uh, Back Rooms looks weird and, uh, I'm I'm here for some weird horror. I mean, Weird Tales is kind of where it all began for me. So, I'm excited to see both of them. And I'm just bursting with pride for the genre, you know, because that's really really great to hear that uh, like I said, two horror movies are beating the big huge, you know, big budget Disney flick out at the box office right now. It's really awesome. It's really really awesome. And I'll probably just get a bunch of people mad at me saying that Star Wars actually Grou did did get a profit. That's that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying I I like a win for the little guy. That's that's something I really really see. And horror will always be the little guy at the box office, especially when you don't have to use elevated horror to to get there. But guys, that was my week. I'd love to know what your week is looking like. Why don't you go ahead and drop in the comments, guys? Let me know what you're watching, what you're reading, which list, what you are playing. I will talk to you there.