Book #114 of 2021: White Cat by Holly Black (The Curse Workers #1) I’ve enjoyed this fantasy novel enough to continue on to the rest of the trilogy, but I have some real issues with the memory and emotion manipulation magic that populates the story. The protagonist at least somewhat recognizes how problematic it is, …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
TV Review: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, season 1
TV #39 of 2021: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, season 1 One sad truth about franchises with heavy degrees of serialization is that it becomes harder to judge discrete installments on their own terms — and that they can be ruthlessly undercut by the weaker elements they inherit. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, …
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Book Review: Lincoln and the Jews: A History by Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell
Book #113 of 2021: Lincoln and the Jews: A History by Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell A quintessential deep dive into a narrow topic, this 2015 book on Abraham Lincoln’s relationships with various Jewish Americans contains a lot of interesting information not often included in accounts of his life, but also a fair bit …
Book Review: Provenance by Ann Leckie
Book #112 of 2021: Provenance by Ann Leckie This space-opera comedy of manners takes place in the same broad continuity as author Ann Leckie’s earlier Imperial Radch trilogy, but it largely stands apart from that narrative, focusing instead on a few civilizations along the periphery of Radchian influence. It’s also a new tone for the …
Book Review: The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson
Book #111 of 2021: The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1) In the first Thomas Covenant trilogy, the titular antihero resisted the appeal of the fantasy realm that summoned him from our reality, but gradually came to decide that its ideals were worth fighting for even if he …
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Book Review: Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie
Book #110 of 2021: Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #11) This mystery almost feels like a Poirot story by happenstance; although the Belgian detective unveils his solution in the usual drawing-room denouement, he’s present for less than half of the proceedings beforehand. But the amateur investigators carry on fine in his absence, …
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Book Review: The Survivors by Jane Harper
Book #109 of 2021: The Survivors by Jane Harper Australian crime writer Jane Harper always excels at bringing the atmospheric vistas of her rural settings to life, and that remains true in her latest effort about a small town on the Tasmanian coast. But the protagonist is basically a stock figure at this point, both …
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Book Review: Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
Book #108 of 2021: Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor I think the conclusion to this novella could have had a little more punch to it, but overall it offers a great character study of a young girl afflicted by an extraterrestrial artifact with the involuntary power to kill anything around her when physically threatened. As …
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Book Review: The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark
Book #107 of 2021: The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark This 2018 novella is short enough that it feels more like a proof-of-concept for the setting than a full story, and while that worldbuilding has cool potential — a steampunk Afrofuturist historical fiction version of New Orleans that’s neutral in a Civil War …
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TV Review: Justified, season 4
TV #38 of 2021: Justified, season 4 As usual, I am torn on how I feel about this show. On the one hand, the fourth season has a more relaxed tone that I personally think is a better fit for its particular strengths than the urgent plotting of previous years. The Drew Thompson case carries …
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