Book #220 of 2021: Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #40) Author Terry Pratchett is pretty reliably funny, and if you approach his individual books as scaffolding devices for his specific brand of clever humor, outrageous puns, and insightful commentary on our own society by means of its satirical fantasy version, this one is another …
Continue reading “Book Review: Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett”
Book #219 of 2021: Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal Given the title of this YA novel, I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to mention that there’s a literal werewolf in it, even though that fact isn’t confirmed until almost a third of the way through. But both before and …
Continue reading “Book Review: Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal”
TV #61 of 2021: The Americans, season 6 A time-skip is an inherently risky creative maneuver, introducing discontinuities that can suspend audience investment in the ongoing narrative and generate boring mysteries of the what-do-these-characters-know-that-we-don’t variety. (Both examples are apparent in the final season of Parks and Recreation, to note just one prominent example.) There are …
Book #218 of 2021: When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey Author Sarah Gailey always has great casual representation of gender and sexuality in their characters, and this YA novel is no exception with its tale of six queer best friends, including the bisexual heroine with two dads. I dig the gutsy premise too, which …
Continue reading “Book Review: When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey”
Book #217 of 2021: The Reaction by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #12) Another goofy one-off premise, this time involving Rachel’s allergic reaction to the DNA of a crocodile she acquires. (At least the Sario Rip of the previous novel’s time-travel eventually comes up again; the idea of a morphing allergy and the ensuing ‘hereth illint’ …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Reaction by K. A. Applegate”
Book #216 of 2021: Jews Versus Zombies edited by Lavie Tidhar and Rebecca Levene I like this short story collection marginally better than its sister volume on extraterrestrials — my individual ratings average to 3.25 out of five stars this time, an improvement on my previous 2.5 — but it’s still a decidedly mixed bag …
Continue reading “Book Review: Jews Versus Zombies edited by Lavie Tidhar and Rebecca Levene”
Book #215 of 2021: While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams A hokey but entertaining legal-political thriller, sort of halfway between John Grisham and Dan Brown. You have to really not think too hard about some of the developments here, beginning with the initial premise of a Supreme Court justice putting himself into a medical coma …
Continue reading “Book Review: While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams”
Book #214 of 2021: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (Aristotle and Dante #1) With its sequel due this fall, I figured I should finally check out this acclaimed 2012 Young Adult title about two Mexican-American best friends. I’d seen it described as a queer coming-of-age story, which …
Book #213 of 2021: The Atlas of the Land by Karen Wynn Fonstad This reference book is a true labor of love for the first six volumes in Stephen R. Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant fantasy series. (It was published in 1985, well before the final quartet arrived. And it’s been out of print ever …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Atlas of the Land by Karen Wynn Fonstad”
TV #60 of 2021: Justified, season 6 There are elements in Justified that have kept me from ever wholly embracing the show, but it goes out on perhaps its finest run yet, an operatic movement that delivers poetic justice to most of our major players. True to its roots in the fiction of Elmore Leonard, …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more