I like Lakdawala's goofiness - it's not a goal in itself, but in service of the points he wants to make. There is a lot of good explanation behind it.

On page 65, the Kulhanek-Chernyshov game, Lakdawala alas misses an important point.

Quote:

There is a golden rule, formulated by Spielmann I think, but I'm too lazy to check. An attack only can succeed if there are more pieces involved in the attack than in the defence. The defending king counts too. Take a look at the last diagram of page 64 and you'll notice that Black uses every single piece for the defence, which means he has a majority. So with accurate play Black is sure to have success.

Yep.  I see (via Amazon) that Lakdawala actually says it's his favorite with White. 

Reminds me of Keene and Botterill's term "Geller's Quiet System" (in what was maybe the first book on the Modern), but I'm thinking it was their contention that the B doesn't belong on d3.

From the sublime to the ridiculous. From Vigus' Pirc to Lakdawala's Modern.

http://www.everymanchess.com/chess/books/The_Modern_Defence%3A_Move_by_Move

Chapter 7 'The Coward's Variation'.

Oh dear. Sigh.

I appreciate the argument that much of our thinking is through metaphor (posited by Lakoff and Johnson in their  fantastic 'Metaphors we live by').
Hence 'chess' is 'battle/war'. Same for 'argument'. But this is metaphorical, either knowingly or unknowingly, not literal. 

Perhaps, in their race to the bottom, authors can think how to now better this.
The I'm Dead Hard Variation one could suggest.
A challenge for our favourite US Everyman authors Taylor and Lakdawala perhaps.