Eóin Dooley (Author of No Sympathy)

Eóin Dooley liked Nick Badot's review of No Sympathy: "One has to admire a short book that takes aim at (and successfully hits) a lot of big themes, and No Sympathy certainly achieves that. Without giving much in the way of spoilers , we are presented with the notion of sympathetic magic, that is, a linki" Read more of this review »
Jul 25, 2025 05:36AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of No Sympathy by Eóin Dooley. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — No Sympathy by Eóin Dooley <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
May 12, 2025 07:39AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Eóin Dooley is now following Jedd Cole's reviews
Dec 12, 2024 06:14AM · like
Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing Capitalism: A Horror Story: Gothic Marxism and the Dark Side of the Radical Imagination by Jon Greenaway	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A thoughtful, wide-ranging, and engaging book which offered me a new lens with which to examine horror (and darker subgenres in general). It offered just the right balance of philosophy to pop-culture commentary. Easy recommendation for any fan of ho ...more
Nov 14, 2024 08:19AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Capitalism by Jon Greenaway. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Capitalism by Jon Greenaway <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing A Palace Near the Wind (Natural Engines, #1) by Ai Jiang (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
(ARC Review) to kill one self to begin another There's a particular quality I've come to enjoy a lot in Ai Jiang's writing, present in Linghun and I Am AI, which is a certain feeling of groundlessness. Characters are often at risk of losing their sense ...more
Nov 01, 2024 09:44AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing Sorrowmouth by Simon Avery (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Strong piece of atmospheric, gloomy horror, which never loses sight of his characters or its central theme in the process. Deserves a lot more attention.
Oct 31, 2024 10:22AM · 1 like · like · see review
Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 25, 2024 08:42AM · like
Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 25, 2024 08:41AM · like
Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing A Brilliant Void: A Selection of Classic Irish Science Fiction by Various	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A very interesting curation of Irish short stories, for hardcore nerds who want to really dig into the history of SF as a genre. Truthfully, it'd be a mistake to approach this as you would any modern collection. The style can be quite archaic in plac ...more
Oct 25, 2024 08:14AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of A Brilliant Void by Various. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — A Brilliant Void by Various <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Eóin Dooley is now following Rachel Handley Author of Possible Worlds and Other Stories
Oct 21, 2024 06:04AM · like

Eóin Dooley liked Nick Badot's review of No Sympathy:

"One has to admire a short book that takes aim at (and successfully hits) a lot of big themes, and No Sympathy certainly achieves that.

Without giving much in the way of spoilers , we are presented with the notion of sympathetic magic, that is, a linki" Read more of this review »

Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory
by David Graeber

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Eóin Dooley is now following Jedd Cole's reviews

Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing

Capitalism: A Horror Story: Gothic Marxism and the Dark Side of the Radical Imagination
by Jon Greenaway

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A thoughtful, wide-ranging, and engaging book which offered me a new lens with which to examine horror (and darker subgenres in general). It offered just the right balance of philosophy to pop-culture commentary. Easy recommendation for any fan of ho ...more

Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing

A Palace Near the Wind (Natural Engines, #1)
by Ai Jiang (Goodreads Author)

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(ARC Review)

to kill one self to begin another

There's a particular quality I've come to enjoy a lot in Ai Jiang's writing, present in Linghun and I Am AI, which is a certain feeling of groundlessness. Characters are often at risk of losing their sense (ARC Review)

to kill one self to begin another

There's a particular quality I've come to enjoy a lot in Ai Jiang's writing, present in Linghun and I Am AI, which is a certain feeling of groundlessness. Characters are often at risk of losing their sense of themselves, creating narratives which feel fluid and chaotic. It actually reminds me a little bit of the work of Philip K. Dick, only, where Dick's characters are undermined by technology and government paranoia, Jiang's characters are subject to emotional and cultural displacement.

This theme remains present in A Palace near the Wind, the first of the Natural Engines duology. The protagonist, Lufeng or 'Fengfeng' has a very similar name to her home of Feng, only the Feng in her name means 'phoenix' and the Feng of her homeland means 'wind'. Thus the difference between the person and her place of origin is a matter of tone. This tension becomes central when when we learn that she is being offered effectively as a sacrificial bride to keep imperial powers away from her homeland and must learn to adapt to palace life. Family, as the midpoint between these two extremes, becomes vital to how Lufeng navigates the challenges in front of her.

I won't get into the various twists and turns of the plot (for there are a few), but suffice to say I'm glad this is the first part of a duology, as there are a whole lot of cool, weird plot elements brought up that I'd love to see examined further. The palace was an engaging setting, filled with strange contraptions and peculiar people who wouldn't feel out of place in a Studio Ghibli film (and indeed, the book has a similarly Ghibli-esque concern about environmentalism vs. industralisation). For me though, the compelling parts of the book for me were the various passages in which Lufeng is forced to do things she would find deeply unnatural to do at home. There's a wonderfully light body horror tone to some of these moments, most notably (view spoiler). Loved it, but then I am a sicko.

Overall, a cool, weird, chaotic story about a plant-person trying to navigate court politics, with a lot going on behind the scenes. The sequel promises a big shift in genre, and I look forward to it. ...more

Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing

Sorrowmouth
by Simon Avery (Goodreads Author)

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Strong piece of atmospheric, gloomy horror, which never loses sight of his characters or its central theme in the process. Deserves a lot more attention.

Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing

The Word for World Is Forest
by Ursula K. Le Guin

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Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing

The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia
by Ursula K. Le Guin

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Eóin Dooley rated a book it was amazing

A Brilliant Void: A Selection of Classic Irish Science Fiction
by Various

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A very interesting curation of Irish short stories, for hardcore nerds who want to really dig into the history of SF as a genre.

Truthfully, it'd be a mistake to approach this as you would any modern collection. The style can be quite archaic in plac A very interesting curation of Irish short stories, for hardcore nerds who want to really dig into the history of SF as a genre.

Truthfully, it'd be a mistake to approach this as you would any modern collection. The style can be quite archaic in places (and honestly the language was too much for me in one or two stories) and while I suspect the editor went to great lengths to avoid more problematic stories, there's at least one that has an alarming streak of antisemitism (though as far as I know that story was quite influential and hard to overlook).

However, when this collection is approached as a record of the progression of SF over time, it becomes quite rewarding. Core tropes of SF, whether mad scientists, dystopian futures, or conflicts between imperious logic and folk wisdom, were present nearly 200 years ago, preserved as well as any fossil or bog body. Even the big modern ambiguity of whether a fantastical conceit is really SF or just fantasy is present here.

The only real changes have been in the technologies du jour that are leveraged to make those conceits work, and, importantly, in the psychological realism, political awareness, and symbolic texture authors have learned to use in fleshing out their SF tales. The works span from 1837 to 1960, and there's clear progression in those respects even within this small curated batch (and of course, this ends the collection right at the start of the New Wave in SF). It really is quite remarkable to see which parts of the genre were there from the beginning and which parts weren't. A particular favourite of mine was Clotilde Graves, who for my money felt like she had the closest voice to modern writers despite her stories coming from the 1910's.

One thing I did wonder about with the book is how much of this is Irish SF and how much of it is Anglo-Irish SF, but I think that's probably too big and nebulous a question to ask of an editor while translation and curation are going on. Certainly the later stories felt a lot more Irish in their subject matter.

All in all, a great window into the past. ...more

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Author of Possible Worlds and Other Stories

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	No Sympathy 4.49 avg rating — 37 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dread Mondays by Steve Capone Jr. (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Xochilt Avila, Robert Bagnall (Goodreads Author) 4.58 avg rating — 19 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	rainy weather days: Volume 3—The Enemy Within by D. Aaron Campbell, Tinamarie Cox (Goodreads Author), CS Crowe 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Enemy Within by D Aaron Campbell, Eóin Dooley (Goodreads Author), Tinamarie Cox (Goodreads Author) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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