Book #194 of 2025: The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy (Daughters of the Empty Throne #1) I’m not blown away by the generic fantasy setting or the one-dimensional villainous motivations here, but as a personal story rooted in its protagonist’s gender identity, it’s certainly a more distinctive entry in the genre. Sixteen-year-old Lorel is someone …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy”
Book #193 of 2025: Star Wars: The Last Order by Kwame Mbalia This Star Wars title has definite potential, but it unfortunately doesn’t live up to it in my opinion. The action unfolds across three different timelines, one of which at least should have automatic appeal for any fan — it’s canonically the latest story …
Continue reading “Book Review: Star Wars: The Last Order by Kwame Mbalia”
Book #192 of 2025: The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (The Ripliad #4) Two observations I made earlier in this series continue to prove fruitful in shaping my understanding of Mr. Thomas Ripley: that his adventures can be as ludicrous as those of Dexter Morgan on TV, and that he’s best read as …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith”
Book #191 of 2025: A Hard Day’s Knight by Simon R. Green (Nightside #11) This isn’t the worst entry in its urban fantasy series, but it might be the most generic. Our protagonist received the legendary sword Excalibur at the end of the previous volume, and in this one, he has to return it to …
Continue reading “Book Review: A Hard Day’s Knight by Simon R. Green”
Movie #26 of 2025: Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) One of the strangest genre pivots for a sequel that I’ve ever seen, swapping the time-travel shenanigans of the first movie for the afterlife experience of this installment’s title. Things here start out fine: the last film established that a utopian future was somehow built …
Continue reading “Movie Review: Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)”
Book #190 of 2025: Silverlock by John Myers Myers This 1949 novel is a quaint picaresque adventure tale, similar in plot and spirit to a work like Gulliver’s Travels, except that the foreign land our titular protagonist visits is populated by existing characters of literature and myth. (He even encounters Gulliver’s own talking horses and …
Continue reading “Book Review: Silverlock by John Myers Myers”
TV #57 of 2025: The Sopranos, season 5 There’s a strong sense of inevitable fatalism running throughout this penultimate run* of The Sopranos, ultimately rendering it my favorite season yet. I love it when TV is structured around a single cohesive storyline for the year, and while serialization leads to the typical open ends here, …
Book #189 of 2025: The Last Dragon on Mars by Scott Reintgen (The Dragonships #1) A fun little blend of Ender’s Game, Red Rising, and Fourth Wing, all age-appropriate for the middle-grade audience. Dragons exist in this setting as avatars of every planet and moon, and they each choose one human rider in a generation …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Last Dragon on Mars by Scott Reintgen”
Book #188 of 2025: Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow A dense and meandering novel, full of witty observations and [pseudo-]intellectual digressions but light on any actual story. This 1976 Pulitzer Prize winner is apparently author Saul Bellow’s most autobiographical work, detailing his fixation on an influential older writer who ended up dying penniless and alone …
Continue reading “Book Review: Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow”
TV #56 of 2025: Classic Doctor Who, season 22 Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor is a hard incarnation to love, especially here in his first full season (after regenerating near the end of the last one). He’s pompous and insulting to everyone, but particularly to his companion Peri, whom he yells at, belittles, fat-shames, leaves for …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more