Dr. Shaun Duke, Professional Nerd

Book Reviews

Book Review: Start Finishing by Charlie Gilkey (2022)

Sometime near the end of the Spring semester, I decided it was time to take another crack and reorganizing my life. I’ve gone through years of on again / off again burnout, some of it my own fault (I’m disorganized and try to do too much) and some of it a consequence of things about which I have no control (my former university essentially bankrupted itself, forcing me to find a new job in my field, and I’ve since moved twice — the short version). All that burnout and overfilled plate-ism has made it harder to keep up with grading and find the energy to complete tasks on time. So it seemed only logical to use my university library privileges to borrow a variety of recommend productivity and project management books to see what advice, systems, etc. are out there.

May 20, 2025 No Comments

Book Lists

A Reading List of Dystopian Fiction and Relevant Texts (Apropos of Nothing in Particular)

Why would someone make a list of important and interesting works of dystopian fiction? Or a suggested reading list of works that are relevant to those dystopian works? There is absolutely no reason other than raw interest. There’s nothing going on to compel this. There is nothing in particular one making such a list would hope you’d learn. The lists below are not an exhaustive list. There are bound to be texts I have forgotten or texts you think folks should read that are not listed. Feel free to make your own list and tell me about it OR leave a comment. I’ll add things I’ve missed! Anywhoodles. Here goes:

January 22, 2025 No Comments

Random Stuff

Duke’s Best EDM Tracks of 2024

And so it came to pass that I finished up my annual Best of EDM [Insert Year Here] lists. I used to do these on Spotify before switching to Tidal, and I continued doing them on Tidal because I listen to an absurd amount of EDM and like keeping track of the tunes I love the most. Below, you will find a Tidal playlist that should be public. You can listen to the first 50 tracks right here, but the full playlist is available on Tidal proper (which has a free version just like Spotify does). For whatever reason, the embedded playlist breaks the page, and so I’ve opted to link to it here and at the bottom of this post. Embeds are weird. Or you can pull songs into your preferred listening app. It’s up to you. Some caveats before we begin:

January 18, 2025 No Comments

Announcements

2025: The Year of Something

We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus

January 9, 2025 No Comments

Announcements

Duke’s Great Book Sale Cause He’s Moving…

It has been an inordinate amount of time since I last posted. It’s been a busy year. New job incoming. New move incoming. Family is growing. Life is wild! Speaking of all those changes, I’m presently offering up for sale over 1500 books from my extensive collection. We’re downsizing because I can’t possibly read all of these AND we need to save up some money for the cost of moving and other family expenses (like, seriously, my life is about to change big time). I’m selling science fiction, fantasy, horror, general fiction, romance, non-fiction (history, writing books, English textbooks, literary criticism, science, and lots of fun reference and military history books), and more. There’s a LOT of stuff here, and I’m willing to ship to folks! You can find the massive spreadsheet right here. The main sheet includes information about the sale (what, how, why, etc.). Please tell your friends

June 3, 2024 No Comments

Announcements

CONvergence 2023 Schedule: Panels Ahoy!

Turns out I’m going to be at a convention this weekend! Specifically, CONvergence 2023 (July 6-9). Naturally, I’m going to be on a bunch of things for this event. Lots and lots of things. I’ve taken a screenshot of my list of panels for this convention. You can also find full details about these and other panels on the convention schedule. If you will be in the area, feel free to say hello! Anywhoodles…

July 5, 2023 No Comments

Shaun Duke

Shaun Duke is an aspiring writer, a reviewer, and an academic. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Digital Rhetoric and Writing at Bemidji State University. He received his PhD in English from the University of Florida and studies science fiction, postcolonialism, digital fan cultures, and digital rhetoric.

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