TV #79 of 2021: Scandal, season 3 This series is becoming ever more of a soap opera, such that when Fitz replaces his treacherous VP with a running mate he says is the one man he trusts, it’s almost inevitable that that new fellow will end up in a love triangle with him and the …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: The Pretender by K. A. Applegate
Book #301 of 2021: The Pretender by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #23) This Animorphs title feels built around a single scene near the end, when our current narrator sits down to hear a piece of news about his family that most readers likely already learned in The Andalite Chronicles, published the previous year. He is …
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Book Review: The Verdigris Pawn by Alysa Wishingrad
Book #300 of 2021: The Verdigris Pawn by Alysa Wishingrad A solid children’s fantasy adventure. I think the metaphor of the chess-like board game that recurs throughout would have been stronger with a clearer explanation of its rules, and I wish the protagonists had a greater sense of personal agency, rather than seeming fated to …
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Book Review: Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian
Book #299 of 2021: Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian An entertaining if not particularly deep airport thriller. I enjoy the college setting of this story, since that’s a rarity in fiction overall and especially this genre, but the plot has its share of weaknesses and the characters are a squirrelly and amoral lot. …
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Book Review: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
Book #298 of 2021: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder Powerful and uncompromisingly uncomfortable as the title suggests, this debut novel depicts an exhausted and infuriated young mother who is either having a psychotic break or legitimately experiencing herself turning into some sort of canine-human hybrid. Her body hair is growing coarse, her teeth are sharpening, she’s …
Book Review: The Fabulous Riverboat by Philip José Farmer
Book #297 of 2021: The Fabulous Riverboat by Philip José Farmer (Riverworld #2) It’s two decades later in the Riverworld, that strange place where everyone from earth’s history woke up restored to their 25-year-old bodies, which have not gotten any older in the meantime. (The children have likewise stopped aging after catching up to the …
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Book Review: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
Book #296 of 2021: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder This slim volume was published as a very pointed commentary on the newly-inaugurated President Trump, based on his despotic-leaning words and deeds throughout the 2016 campaign. It still works outside of that context, sort of, especially in its warnings of …
Book Review: The Hork-Bajir Chronicles by K. A. Applegate
Book #295 of 2021: The Hork-Bajir Chronicles by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs Chronicles #2) This prequel is the richest and most complex entry in the Animorphs franchise yet, even more so than The Andalite Chronicles, which I believe was the last time in this series reread that I ventured that claim. It’s also the earliest …
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TV Review: Star Wars Resistance, season 1
TV #78 of 2021: Star Wars Resistance, season 1 The debut run of this Star Wars cartoon about the lead-up to The Force Awakens gets marginally better in its last few episodes, but for the most part, it’s a real exercise in frustration. Despite the title and the hero’s nominal role as a spy, the …
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Book Review: Echo Park by Michael Connelly
Book #294 of 2021: Echo Park by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch #12) Bosch’s latest encounter with a serial killer is a bit rote, and a twist midway through — that the criminal is innocent of one particular murder, which a corrupt attorney got him to confess to as part of a secret deal — is …
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