Book #60 of 2025: Society of Lies by Lauren Ling Brown Overall a substandard academic thriller. The timeline unfolds across three different periods, but it’s only really interesting in the last one, in which a woman investigates the recent death of her sister. In alternating chapters, the other sections detail the dead girl’s activities as …
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Book #59 of 2025: Tsalmoth by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #16) We’ve gone back to near the beginning of the protagonist’s timeline again, in the days when he was still a low-level Jhereg crime boss. It’s a productive visit, however — not so much for the immediate plot, which is a very typical Taltos affair, …
Book #58 of 2025: The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir The main problem with this horror novel is that it’s simply far too short. The heroine’s escalating situation is relatively gripping, but the root cause is still pretty unexplained at the end and the conclusion is hugely underwhelming. While I’m sure there’s some cultural variation …
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Book #57 of 2025: Féonie and the Islander Regalia by Victoria Goddard A lovely little companion story to author Victoria Goddard’s cozy fantasy novel The Hands of the Emperor. Near the end of that longer work, the protagonist Cliopher Mdang is honored with a ceremony requiring he dress in his finest clothing, and the servant …
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Book #56 of 2025: Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito As the title suggests, this 2025 novel is a nineteenth-century riff on American Psycho, in which a deranged governess gleefully recounts her violent impulses and crimes, leading up to her slaughter of the entire household over Christmas. It’s darkly funny, depending on your taste for gratuitous …
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TV #14 of 2025: Farscape, season 4 This is the end of Farscape proper, though I still need to watch the sequel miniseries. Setting aside the shocking cliffhanger, which I’m sure would have been pretty frustrating if no continuation had ever come along, it’s another solid run that doesn’t quite live up to the series …
Book #55 of 2025: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix Another outstanding horror title from author Grady Hendrix, this one focusing on the real-life horrific institution of mid-twentieth-century homes for expectant teenage mothers. Parents would forcibly check their daughters into such places for the duration of their pregnancies, after which the girls were strong-armed …
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Book #54 of 2025: The Last Bookstore on Earth by Lily Braun-Arnold The best part of this novel is the initial premise reflected in the title: after acid rain and other climate disasters have ravaged the planet and decimated the population, the teenage protagonist is the only person left working in her shop, which she …
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Book #53 of 2025: Doctor Who: Timewyrm: Apocalypse by Nigel Robinson (Virgin New Adventures #3) This volume doesn’t quite deserve its reputation as a series low point — it’s far better than Lungbarrow, for instance — but it’s an early indication of the limitations of the concept here. Classic Doctor Who wasn’t exactly a consistently …
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Book #52 of 2025: A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones Some Diana Wynne Jones stories — both Archer’s Goon and the Chrestomanci series come to mind — I read and reread countless times as a child and found that they still carried that same magic when I returned to them later in …
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