Book #188 of 2020: Lord Foul’s Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever #1) On the surface, this 1977 novel is a Narnia-style portal fantasy, in which a person from our reality travels to another and gets caught up in an epic quest. The lush worldbuilding is as intricate and …
Continue reading “Book Review: Lord Foul’s Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson”
TV #31 of 2020: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 7 The plot logistics go somewhat off the rails by the end, but overall, this is a fun and confident sendoff to the unlikely durable Marvel property. Time travel allows the season to play in a lighter key than usual, more akin to DC’s Legends of …
Continue reading “TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 7”
Book #187 of 2020: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson Although this free-verse memoir captures some great impressionistic snapshots of author Jacqueline Woodson growing up amid the dawning Civil Rights movement, it’s overall a tad short and disjointed for my tastes. I’d still recommend the title for younger readers, especially those interested in a black …
Continue reading “Book Review: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson”
Book #186 of 2020: Destroy All Monsters by Sam J. Miller This novel plays with some interesting ideas, but it’s developed too loosely to be very effective. The two teenage protagonists, both repressing a certain trauma from when they were kids, are literally now living in different worlds: her in something like our reality and …
Continue reading “Book Review: Destroy All Monsters by Sam J. Miller”
Book #185 of 2020: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro It takes a while for me to warm up to this novel about an English butler looking back on his life, and I still wouldn’t say I love it by the end. Yet I have come to appreciate author Kazuo Ishiguro’s skill at …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro”
Book #184 of 2020: Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton This is a wild fever dream of a novel, heavy on the New York City party scene of sex, drugs, and drinking but somewhat lacking in any likable characters. Everyone in this story is some combination of vapid, foolish, and/or entitled, and although the plot …
Continue reading “Book Review: Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton”
TV #30 of 2020: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 1 This first season of the CGI show is a definite improvement over the 2008 feature film, and I appreciate the travelogue aspect of showing off different Star Wars settings. Still, it seems pretty nonessential to the canon so far, beyond the rare glimpses of …
Continue reading “TV Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 1”
Book #183 of 2020: Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh At first, this novel seems like it will be a simple whodunnit, perhaps even a Miss Marple pastiche, with its 72-year-old heroine making inquiries among the residents of her small town. The case stems from an unsigned note she’s found in the woods nearby: …
Continue reading “Book Review: Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh”
Book #182 of 2020: Starsight by Brandon Sanderson (Skyward #2) This sci-fi sequel goes in a pretty unexpected direction, but it’s all the stronger for it. After spending the first book training as a fighter pilot to defend her planet from alien attack, Spensa is suddenly whisked across the galaxy to the enemy capital on …
Continue reading “Book Review: Starsight by Brandon Sanderson”
Book #181 of 2020: Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. This American history title offers an in-depth look at Reconstruction — the short period immediately after the Civil War, marked by a measure of meaningful progress towards racial equality — and the Jim Crow …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more