Movie #1 of 2025: Star Trek: Section 31 (2025) This spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery had a complicated production history, beginning life as an intended sister series to that show and Strange New Worlds before getting derailed by COVID-19 delays and ultimately scaled back to the form of a TV movie with some potential room …
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Book #13 of 2025: Balancing Stone by Victoria Goddard Another interstitial novella in author Victoria Goddard’s Greenwing & Dart cozy fantasy series, this time focusing on Jemis Greenwing’s schoolmate Hope after the events of the sixth / latest novel Plum Duff. As introduced in the book before that one, she’s in love with his best …
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Book #12 of 2025: Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros (The Empyrean #3) I flitted between three and four stars for this latest Fourth Wing sequel, but was ultimately swayed by how wildly off-base the lower-starred reviews on Goodreads seemed to be. So congrats to those users, I guess, who convinced me to push my own …
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Book #11 of 2025: A Language of Dragons by S. F. Williamson As a fantasy-lover with an academic background in linguistics, I expected to adore this YA historical fiction title from debut author S. F. Williamson, which reimagines Britain’s WWII codebreakers at Bletchley Park as working to decipher the secret communications of dragons, rather than …
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TV #4 of 2025: Sex Education, season 2 Reliably funny, but not quite as charming as the first installment of this Netflix series. The main problem here is Otis, the awkward virgin and son of a sex therapist at the heart of the program, still dispensing unsanctioned but helpful advice to his classmates. This second …
Book #10 of 2025: The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #5) I’ll admit I was a little impatient during the first half of this latest novella in the Singing Hills fantasy series, which seemed to be setting up a fairly transparent Bluebeard plot. Our returning protagonist Cleric Chih is …
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Book #9 of 2025: Doctor Who: The Adventures Before by Mark Griffiths, Steve Cole, Janet Fielding, Gary Russell, Beth Axford, Janelle McCurdy, E. L. Norry, and Ingrid Oliver This short story collection has a fun concept that’s mostly executed rather well, depicting new prequel events for eight Doctor Who episodes: The Daleks (First Doctor, 1963-1964), …
Book #8 of 2025: The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart (The Hollow Covenant #1) I appreciate the distinctive premise of this epic fantasy novel, which is set in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by two different magical afflictions: the initial curse that made everything a wasteland and another that followed later and is now gradually spreading, …
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TV #3 of 2025: Classic Doctor Who, season 16 Ambitious in concept but significantly less impressive in execution, unfortunately. This 1978-1979 season of Doctor Who introduces two major elements: the incoming companion Romana played (for now) by Mary Tamm, and a larger plot arc focused on a powerful artifact called the Key to Time. The …
TV #2 of 2025: Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, season 1 Call it popcorn entertainment if you want, but this show absolutely nails its Star Wars children’s adventure vibe. The franchise has never really done anything like this before, give or take the old Ewok movies, but the mashup of the traditional science-fiction trappings with the …
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