Book #114 of 2017: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (Strange the Dreamer #1) A gorgeously-written fantasy novel about a boy raised in a library, who spends his early life chasing down obscure references to the faraway city whose name was removed from the world by magic. It’s a bit reminiscent of The Kingkiller Chronicle, …
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Book #113 of 2017: Star Wars: Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn It turns out that “Star Wars meets Ocean’s Eleven” is a better idea in concept than in execution. Or at least, this novel about Han Solo putting together a team for a heist soon after the destruction of the first Death Star — which has …
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TV #18 of 2017: The Flash, season 3 The Flash is kind of in a weird place right now, where it’s trying to be both as comic-book-bonkers as DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and as dark and brooding as their big brother Arrow. So as a result you have this show where there are time remnants …
Book #112 of 2017: I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who survived being shot by the Taliban for her public advocacy on female education rights, is undeniably an inspiring figure. Unfortunately, …
Book #111 of 2017: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen Fanny Price is a somewhat passive heroine (which I gather was more of a virtue in Jane Austen’s time), but I still found myself liking Mansfield Park more than I did Pride and Prejudice. Call me a sap, but Edmund’s lifelong decency towards Fanny warms my …
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Book #110 of 2017: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury Ray Bradbury’s vision of the Martian frontier is a haunting dream, populated by a telepathic indigenous species that humanity can never hope to truly understand. In this collection of loosely-related vignettes, he walks us through a history of the human presence on Mars from first …
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Book #109 of 2017: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch This science-fiction novel is like It’s a Wonderful Life, if George Bailey had ended up in that alternate reality without a wife and children because the version of himself there kidnapped him at gunpoint and forced him to switch places. The other version of our hero …
TV #17 of 2017: Supergirl, season 2 Kind of an uneven season, but then, I think at this point we just have to accept that Supergirl is kind of an uneven show. It continues to be unabashedly 100% girl-power in a way that I think is probably amazing for the smaller girls and boys who …
Book #108 of 2017: Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel (Themis Files #1) I expected a lot more from this novel about humanity discovering parts to a giant alien robot buried beneath the earth, especially once I found out the author has a PhD in linguistics. (There’s even a linguist character in the book, and the …
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Book #107 of 2017: Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising #1) Just as great as when I first read it last year, so I’ll just quote from my earlier review: Red Rising at its heart is telling a story like The Count of Monte Cristo or Gattaca, where someone from a lower class has …
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