Into the Vortex
by Brian Eckert
(Terror House Press, 2020)

Brian Eckert’s Into the Vortex is a hilarious take on bugman culture versus anon culture which I recommend highly to anons and frogs alike. You’re here, reading this. Trust me: this book is for you. You will not be disappointed.

Zayne Moxley is the man who I wish Greg Gutfield would have become when he was fired from his position as editor-in-chief for Men’s Health in November of 2000. It was who I thought he would turn into when I heard about that stunt he pulled with the midgets at some shit-rag conference a few years later. The man had hope when he was working on Maxim; instead, he took a cushy job on an awful, cancerous panel show with a bonus weekend night shitfest. Sold his soul to Moloch then, if not long before. Thus is the tragedy of the world we live in. We’d have better luck trying to resurrect Tay or fundraising for a live action Sonuchu movie than put our hopes in any man of this stalk.

Luckily for us, we have Brian Eckert and Into the Vortex to give us what I know we all want-: a realistic portrayal of a path forward led by an alpha-chad who woke up one day after decades asleep at the wheel of the system. Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t some guide to victory if only the right man reads it, no. It’s a damn good book, though, and you should read it. I’ll let this excerpt from book two tell you why:

If there is a message I take out of the experience, it’s that you need to follow the story wherever it goes. The story has a life of its own. Things have a life of their own. We need to let them develop. But we don’t. We kill them when they are in infancy. Our preconceptions arrest their development. They are stillborn.

Which is the one thing this story is not. It lives and breathes with the same fiery bellows that has sharpened the iron of the greatest men in our history: Socrates, Paul, Nathan Hale. And Brian Eckert serves as a crucible for their collective spirits to be channeled through Zayne Moxley.

Drawn away from society and into the unknown other, Moxley undertakes subtle transformations from pop culture talking head to new age cult lord of incels and NEETs. A John McAfee of sorts with designs on spiritual awakening instead of drugs and women, though there are plenty of drugs and women. And aliens. How could I not mention the aliens? If you’re a new age huckster masquerading as a spiritual guru or an /x/file hell-bent on having his days consumed by tulpa-filled Tantric sex and nights overran by a dozen succubi, the esoteric bits in this book will have something that appeals to you.

Eckert’s takes on the commercialization of nature as well as the bureaucratic bloat and social overreach of multinational corporations’ quasi-totalitarian methods toe the line between prophetic visions of near-dystopian futures and satirical takes on the current political climate. The blending of these two elements is the core feature of the story that I enjoyed the most and also found the most maddening. Is the end nigh, or is this the end? Eckert doesn’t answer that question, but he sure as hell leaves you confused as to the answer after you finish the book. And above all this sits alpha-chad Zayne Moxley, whose aloof demeanor and sense of whimsy pokes endless holes in the safety bubble supposedly being cast all around him until it eventually pops in a whirlwind and leaves you pleasantly satisfied with the ending.

I have already given a copy of Into the Vortex to a friend to read and gave him instructions to pass it on to another of our buddies when he is finished.

Click here to buy Into the Vortex from Terror House Press.