Brien Foerster

This book covers an extremely interesting subject, one deserving of careful study. The author, whose business is providing guided tours to ancient megalithic sites around the world, but especially in his country of residence, Peru, is himself an extremely interesting person. He is part of the much-loved/much-hated “alternative archaeology” movement. And it is quite apparent that on the subject of this book, the skull remains of the Paracas people of coastal Peru, he has done good work.

But this is not a good book.

It is a carelessly written and ill-organized treatise, and serves as a regrettably perfect example of a burgeoning genre: the badly designed self-published book.

We live in the golden age of self-publishing, as a result of print-on-demand technology, and I have been valiantly wading through the field recently, as my interest in esoterica and arcana has increased, and as the rise of YouTube entertainment has spread far and wide many heresies to what is now commonly and cavalierly referred to as “consensus reality.” I have not made up my mind about a lot of this. But I do have one strong judgment: most of its practitioners are very amateur in the art of presenting their ideas.

They need to hire editors, proofreaders, and book designers. Good ones. Not necessarily those with the highest price tags, but at least people with talent and some experience. For books like this are dreadful.

My main complaint is not the typeface, no matter how clunky, or the book’s style of paragraphing (indents, margins, etc.), chapter divisions, and the placement of images and charts and other visual elements. My main complaint is the literary organization and presentation of the material. There is no narrative structure — which helps in this kind of writing — and no clear thesis and marshaling of evidence.

Oh, there is much of interest. But reading the book is like wading through the notes of someone who abandoned the project one third of the way through.

This is not the book on this subject to buy. I do not know if Mr. Foerster’s other books fail in the same way, or are, instead, competently produced. But I do know that the art here is so rudimentary that this book will signal to fastidious readers that the subject matter may be dismissed.

When it comes to style and substance, most people assume “as above, so below.”

And consign content to outer darkness merely for stylistic reasons.… (meer)