From science fiction and other worlds, John Scalzi takes us next door and down the street. In this book, we see Scalzi’s talents on display through brief and vivid entries.

These are timely topics, handled with wit and the right amount of acerbic insight. Above all, the entries are well-written.

I have to admit, before I begin, that I am definitely biased in writing this review; no, I do not know Mr. Scalzi personally, but I have followed him on Twitter ever since I first read Old Man's War, and I know that his and my political views are very much in line (stances on cats, however, are a sticking point).

Virtue Signaling and Other Heresies collects Mr. Scalzi's blog posts from one of the most turbulent periods of ideological clashes in American history since the Civil Rights era (and definitely the most unstable in this reviewer's lifetime); as such, it's difficult to digest reading as a start-to-finish book.

Where this shines is as a collection of well-penned reactions, both immediate and meditated-upon, to changes in the American social and political climate (everything from the minor to the cataclysmic) which dig into the psyche of the type of American who might resist the current Presidential administration as well as those who defend it vehemently; Scalzi is not shy about voicing his disapproval of those who use power and visibility to embolden bigotry and hatred, and writes candidly about the responsibility to use his status as a well-respected White male in a well-regarded profession to champion victims of that bigotry.