Book #136 of 2026: The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones by Lex Croucher When they were eleven, Briar Jones anxiously waited in vain for an admittance letter from Britain’s famous magic boarding school. Their rich best friend did get in as a legacy student, and our protagonist never saw him again — until seven years …
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Book #135 of 2026: A Face in the Crowd by Stephen King and Stewart O’Nan I was looking over a list of Stephen King titles recently when I saw this one that I didn’t recognize. Since I believe it’s the only published fiction of his that I haven’t read yet — aside from a few …
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TV #37 of 2026: Blake’s 7, season 1 Not mindblowing as yet, but certainly a solid slice of 70s British sci-fi. All I knew about this show going into it was that it was created and written by Terry Nation, better known as the guy who came up with the Daleks on Classic Doctor Who, …
Book #134 of 2026: Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend (Nevermoor #1) There’s a heavy Roald Dahl flavor to this middle-grade fantasy debut — in terms of both the unhappy homes of Matilda or James and the Giant Peach and the eccentric wealthy benefactor of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — but …
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Book #133 of 2026: Murdle: The School of Mystery by G. T. Karber I still enjoy these little logic puzzles with a background queer romance and pretensions of an overarching murder mystery storyline, but I feel it’s fair to ask of any ongoing series what each new volume brings to the table. In the case …
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Movie #40 of 2026: Jurassic Park (1993) This is very close to a perfect movie, and any nitpicks I could raise are probably tediously familiar at this point. (Dr. Sattler and Lex are fine as characters, but they barely interact and the human cast is otherwise entirely male. It’s also rather white, with Samuel L. …
Book #132 of 2026: Star Wars: Legacy by Madeleine Roux Three-and-a-half stars, rounded up, for this Star Wars tie-in novel that takes place between the movies The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. It’s a messier narrative than I would ideally prefer, with too many extraneous characters and a plot heavily revolving around Force …
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Book #131 of 2026: The River That Ran Away to Paradise by Victoria Goddard I tend to prefer author Victoria Goddard’s novel-length fiction over these shorter releases, but this latest novella is well-pitched for the amount of story that it has to tell. It also represents my favorite sort of expanded universe item, wherein the …
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Book #130 of 2026: Enchanters’ End Game by David Eddings (The Belgariad #5) A perfunctory conclusion to what’s been an unfortunately pretty generic fantasy saga all along. I wouldn’t specifically recommend the lot, but the worst complaint I can probably lodge against this final novel is that it’s aged as poorly as its predecessors in …
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Movie #39 of 2026: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) This was the only Pirates of the Caribbean title that I hadn’t seen before, and having finally now done so, I can understand why Disney has been struggling to figure out how to continue the franchise ever since. Folks, this just …
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