Book #111 of 2019: Nightingale’s Lament by Simon R. Green (Nightside #3) I’ve been enjoying this pulp paperback series far less on a reread than I did when it was my first introduction to the urban fantasy genre back in high school. The main plot has yet to really kick off beyond vague portentous rumblings, …
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Book #110 of 2019: Fool’s Fate by Robin Hobb (The Tawny Man #3) On balance, this final volume in Robin Hobb’s The Tawny Man trilogy probably has too much falling action after the major plot stakes are resolved. And it’s odd that the Piebald threat which loomed so heavily over the previous books is mostly …
Book #109 of 2019: The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump by Andrew G. McCabe The goal of this book is twofold: it joins a thriving genre of political tell-alls concerning the dysfunction and corruption of the Donald Trump White House, while also defending the Federal Bureau of …
Book #108: Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey This debut novel from author Sarah Gailey goes far on its concept of a non-magical detective investigating a murder at a school for young mages, but the worldbuilding is nothing special — more The Magicians than Harry Potter — and the procedural elements could have been a …
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Movie #8 of 2019: Friday Night Lights (2004) Having now seen and enjoyed all five seasons of the fictionalized Friday Night Lights TV program, I wanted to check out this earlier film, which purports to tell a true story about an underdog high school football team. And maybe it’s not wholly fair to compare the …
Book #107 of 2019: Defy the Worlds by Claudia Gray (Constellation #2) I’m enjoying the blandly-titled Constellation series overall, but this sequel is nowhere near as fun as the YA space opera’s propulsive debut. The second novel is more than half over before its two protagonists are reunited, and the new stakes don’t seem particularly …
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TV #24 of 2019: Veep, season 4 As always, Veep is a funny show that frustrates me with its petty vision of American politics and doesn’t really provide anyone or anything worth rooting for. I’ve given previous years 3-star ratings for that reason, but this one has such an uneven approach to its central campaign …
Book #106 of 2019: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle #4) There’s some interesting philosophizing in this 1969 sci-fi novel (which author Ursula K. Le Guin herself refers to as a ‘thought experiment’ in the Introduction), but the plot is scattered and a lot of its weighty, groundbreaking ideas …
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Book #105 of 2019: The Gameshouse by Claire North This book collects three novellas from author Claire North, previously published independently in 2015. Together they tell of a secret society who play wide-ranging games of skill and chance for fantastical stakes of extended life, memory theft, and more. North utilizes an omniscient first-person plural perspective …
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TV #23 of 2019: Arrested Development, season 5 The first three seasons of this show were so good and so perpetually rewarding of a rewatch that it’s little surprise it caught on as a cult classic after its untimely cancellation in 2006. The initial Netflix revival in 2013 was a noticeable step down, but it …
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