TV #20 of 2018: Orange Is the New Black, season 5 The latest chapter of Netflix’s flagship dramedy is somewhat experimental, spending the entire season on what turns out to be a three-day prison riot. For the most part, the experiment works: it shakes up the show’s usual storytelling rhythms and offers one of the …
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Book #90 of 2018: Warcross by Marie Lu (Warcross #1) There’s a lot of Ready Player One in the DNA of this sci-fi adventure about a poor teenage orphan who becomes a sudden celebrity after finding something strange in a wildly popular VR game. But instead of an intentional easter egg, Emika Chen discovers a …
Book #89 of 2018: Authority by Jeff VanderMeer (Southern Reach #2) I liked but didn’t love Jeff VanderMeer’s novel Annihilation, and I was hopeful that this sequel, set outside the mysterious Area X that clouds everyone’s thinking, would offer a more straightforward story. Unfortunately, it does not. Instead there’s the same creeping horror and hypnosis-fueled …
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Book #88 of 2018: This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Starbound #2) The first novel in the Starbound series took a while to draw me in, but this sequel improves upon its predecessor by offering two new central characters whose starcrossed Romeo and Juliet plot of soldiers on opposite sides of a …
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TV #19 of 2018: Archer: Dreamland I don’t usually care for extended dream sequences or retcons, because writers playing fast and loose with what’s been previously established makes it harder for me to invest in the new status quo. But with that being said, I think the reboot at the start of this eighth season …
Book #87 of 2018: Star Wars: Beware the Power of the Dark Side! by Tom Angleberger A fun junior novelization of the third movie from the original Star Wars trilogy. Stylistically it’s the least daring of the books in this semi-series, but it’s still a capable retelling of the film’s story with a few cool …
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Book #86 of 2018: Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (Enchanted Forest Chronicles #4) More or less a return to form after the disappointing third book in this children’s fantasy series. I wish this final volume hadn’t skipped forward 17 years after the last book’s cliffhanger, but the new story is fun enough and …
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Book #85 of 2018: The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss This 1812 children’s classic of a shipwrecked family is understandably old-fashioned, but it’s still a fun read. Although the action is incredibly episodic with almost no ongoing plot or sense of real danger, the characters’ plucky optimism makes it easy to root for …
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Book #84 of 2018: Universal Harvester by John Darnielle This novel by the Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle is fairly well-written, but its weird 90s midwestern gothic vibe doesn’t really work for me. (The comparison that keeps coming to mind is the old show Twin Peaks, which I gave up on in frustration after the …
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Book #83 of 2018: Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb (Liveship Traders #3) The Liveship Traders trilogy has been steadily improving as it goes along, and this action-packed final volume is particularly great for weaving back together the various storylines that have diverged over the course of the previous novels. It’s downright thrilling to see …
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