Book #203 of 2018: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King (Mary Russell #1) This tale of a Jewish teenager being trained as a detective by a retired Sherlock Holmes in the early twentieth century is a lovely bildungsroman and portrait of a budding partnership. Mary Russell is a great character in her own right, …
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Book #202 of 2018: Doctor Who: Lungbarrow by Marc Platt (Virgin New Adventures #60) This is a fascinatingly weird book, the culmination of a series of adventures that the Seventh Doctor continued to have after the classic run of Doctor Who was canceled as a television program in 1989. When that version of the Time …
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Book #201 of 2018: The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander (The Chronicles of Prydain #2) I like this second adventure through the land of Prydain even more than its predecessor, perhaps because it has more twists and turns (some easy to predict, others not) and a greater focus on characterization over plot. But there’s the …
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Book #200 of 2018: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou A terrific piece of long-form investigative journalism, detailing the shady business practices of the Theranos blood-test corporation. From their heavy employee turnover and their “culture of secrecy and fear” to their overpromises of technical breakthroughs and their lies …
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Book #199 of 2018: Trickster’s Queen by Tamora Pierce (Daughter of the Lioness #2) Tamora Pierce is always hit-or-miss for me, and this particular Tortall novel is unfortunately more of a miss. The spycraft feels mostly like a repeat of the last book, the plot points are easy to predict, and the author ultimately does …
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Book #198 of 2018: The Outsider by Stephen King Stephen King’s latest novel is also his best work in years (since 11/22/63 in 2011, in my opinion). It’s a compulsively readable mystery-thriller with an irresistible premise: a man is arrested for the horrific rape and murder of a young boy, with irrefutable eyewitness, fingerprint, and …
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TV #46 of 2018: ReBoot: The Guardian Code, season 2 I ultimately gave the first season of this show a 2-star review, feeling that although it was significantly worse than the original ReBoot cartoon, it had occasional flashes of quality that showed promise. Unfortunately, I can’t be as generous to this second season (which was …
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Book #197 of 2018: There There by Tommy Orange This debut novel is a blistering look at the experiences of many contemporary Native Americans, as seen through the perspectives of a dozen “urban Indians” who are each drawn in turn to a pow wow in Oakland. The characters differ in their relation to their heritage …
TV #45 of 2018: Better Call Saul, season 4 I’ve mentioned this before, but one reason that I prefer Better Call Saul to its parent show is that Walter White has always struck me as being evil right from the start – Breaking Bad could be exciting and horrifying, but the story was never really …
Book #196 of 2018: The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (The Masquerade #1) A fascinating character and culture study, most reminiscent of Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch books. Baru Cormorant is a young woman whose homeland gets annexed by an expanding empire, after which she privately vows to rise through her conquerors’ ranks to take …
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