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    Blog Launch

    July 11, 2019 by

    Hello! My name is Joe Kessler, and I’ve been blogging in one form or another since 2004. This is the launch of my new home for that, where I’ll be posting book reviews and other short pieces of writing. I’m also debuting a Patreon site for anyone who would like to support my efforts through… Read more

  • Movie Review: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

    June 12, 2026 by

    Movie #29 of 2026: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) It should be no surprise that a movie built around the stoner comic relief from Kevin Smith’s View Askewniverse turns out to be so slapsticky and crude, and if you can manage to get on that level, there are genuine laughs to be found… Read more

  • Book Review: As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel

    June 12, 2026 by

    Book #94 of 2026: As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel This title offers an exquisite toxic lesbian horror-fantasy romance that is easily my top new read of 2026 so far. It’s everything that I wanted and didn’t quite get from last year’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, whose angsty vampires never… Read more

  • Book Review: Jupiter by Ben Bova

    June 11, 2026 by

    Book #93 of 2026: Jupiter by Ben Bova I’m not convinced that this story about an established research station orbiting Jupiter really is the next chronologically in Ben Bova’s Grand Tour sequence after The Precipice, in which humanity was first starting to mine the asteroid belt for resources, but that’s what the late author’s website… Read more

  • Book Review: Queen of Sorcery by David Eddings

    June 9, 2026 by

    Book #91 of 2026: Queen of Sorcery by David Eddings (The Belgariad #2) More interesting and distinctive than the first volume in this series, but not to the degree I feel obligated to bump my rating up at all. I’m starting to understand why people say the authors’ later standalone novel The Redemption of Althalus… Read more

  • TV Review: Classic Doctor Who, season 26

    June 7, 2026 by

    TV #28 of 2026: Classic Doctor Who, season 26 By certain metrics, what we now call the “Classic” iteration of Doctor Who had already gone on too long when it was eventually cancelled in 1989. Twenty-six seasons is far more than most TV shows get to have, and the program had passed through some dire… Read more

  • Book Review: Gregor and the Marks of Secret by Suzanne Collins

    June 6, 2026 by

    Book #90 of 2026: Gregor and the Marks of Secret by Suzanne Collins (The Underland Chronicles #4) This penultimate volume is easily the strongest of its series since the debut, largely for dispensing with the tired structure of yet another ancient prophecy sending our returning tween hero on yet another quest. (Granted, those elements both… Read more

  • Movie Review: Dogma (1999)

    June 5, 2026 by

    Movie #28 of 2026: Dogma (1999) This was the first movie that I ever saw in Kevin Smith’s View Askewniverse series, and together with the novel Good Omens, it represented a fairly seminal text for an agnostic humanist kid from a Jewish-Unitarian household in my heavily Christian town — a way of grappling with the… Read more

  • Book Review: Vigil by George Saunders

    June 5, 2026 by

    Book #89 of 2026: Vigil by George Saunders This one is a bit of a head-scratcher for me. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, which suggests that I should probably go ahead and read the author’s earlier novel Lincoln in the Bardo, as I’ve seen several reviews of this title comparing it disfavorably to that. But… Read more

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