Book #194 of 2019: How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi This is a clarifying read in many ways, and I appreciate author Ibram X. Kendi’s framing of racism as any policy or behavior that maintains or furthers inequity across racial groups. Moving the locus of activism from intention to effect is an …
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Book #193 of 2019: The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling Debut author Caitlin Starling has delivered a stunning, claustrophobic sci-fi horror novel, the entirety of which is spent in an underground alien cave system with the protagonist locked in a mechanized suit. Her only contact is an evasive handler back on the surface, who withholds …
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Book #192 of 2019: Sunshine by Robin McKinley This urban fantasy novel feels severely underbaked, like a first draft that was rushed to publication without any editor’s notes. The worldbuilding is vague, and the few details that we get generally arrive via infodump right when they become relevant, rather than threading organically throughout the text. …
Book #191 of 2019: The Lost Man by Jane Harper Australian writer Jane Harper’s first two books fit explicitly within the mystery / crime thriller genre, featuring a detective protagonist and clear whodunnit cases to solve. Given such bona fides, and the fact that this third novel opens with yet another corpse, I can’t have …
Book #190 of 2019: Fly Already by Etgar Keret Even in translation, Israeli author Etgar Keret’s short stories are challenging, haunting, and darkly comic. Few of them begin as explicit speculative fiction, yet they often take surreal turns in that direction as they go along, bringing in clones, or aliens, or magical transformations to an …
Book #189 of 2019: Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell (Simon Snow #2) Somewhat appropriately given the genesis of this series, Wayward Son reads more like fanfiction than a proper sequel to the first novel Carry On. There’s no pressing danger or overarching plot for much of the story, just three friends who still suspiciously resemble …
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Book #188 of 2019: Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack I’m really enjoying the recent trend of explicit Jewish representation in speculative fiction, and this new middle-grade fantasy novel is another fun example. The story is populated with all sorts of creatures from Slavic folklore, but the main conflict facing twelve-year-old Anya isn’t a …
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Book #187 of 2019: There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool (The Age of Darkness #1) A competent but somewhat derivative fantasy adventure, heavy on portentous omens yet light on significant plot or character growth. I normally defend the Young Adult genre as telling stories about people coming of age, rather than necessarily …
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Book #186 of 2019: The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates There’s a slow burn to the fantastical elements of this novel about teleportation on the Underground Railroad, but even when it seems like pure historical fiction, it’s still a devastating portrait of slavery in antebellum Virginia. Debut novelist Ta-Nehisi Coates channels the same powerful prose …
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TV #35 of 2019: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 6 With its future still uncertain at the time, the previous season of Marvel’s sci-fi spy show ended in such a way that it could have functioned as a series finale if necessary. Instead, the program got renewed for two final outings, leaving this first one …
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