For the last few years the blog Astral Codex Ten has run contests for the best reader-submitted book reviews. This year Scott mixed things up and asked people to review anything except books.

You can review a movie, song, or video game. You can review a product, restaurant, or tourist attraction. But don’t let the usual categories limit you. Review comic books or blog posts. Review political parties – no, whole societies! Review animals or trees! Review an oddly-shaped pebble, or a passing cloud! Review abstract concepts! Mathematical proofs! Review love, death, or God Himself!

The 13 finalists have a couple of entries on the sorts of things that are typically reviewed: a play, a food, a specific school. But most are pretty abstract or unusual as reviews go: like the general idea of school, dating men in the Bay Area, and fighting in the Russo-Ukranian War.

“This is not like Iraq” the Ukrainian recruiting officer soberly told me with a thick accent. “You have 50% chance of dying.” That wasn’t actually true, but it was a lot closer to being true than almost anything you can voluntarily sign up for in an organized way. I decided it was worth it.

Recommended, I thought several of the essays were excellent, voting goes through October 13th.