Book #65 of 2016: Dodger by Terry Pratchett Dodger has its share of Terry Pratchett’s classic humor, but it’s missing the comic sensibility that his best books display throughout. Part of this is likely due to the setting, which replaces the author’s usual Discworld for the rather less fantastic Victorian London. (And we are supposed …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
TV Review: Star Trek: The Animated Series, season 1
TV #39 of 2016: Star Trek: The Animated Series, season 1 I was expecting this show to be a pretty shameless cash-grab (kind of like 1975′s awful Return to the Planet of the Apes cartoon), but it ended up being a pleasant surprise. Yes, the animators sometimes take shortcuts like having a character’s face take …
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Book Review: Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate
Book #64 of 2016: Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate This novel about a giant talking cat that only the protagonist can see really ended up being more about the boy’s family falling on hard times, and how his imaginary friend was something of a coping mechanism for that. It was honestly a very stressful read for …
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Book Review: Terrier by Tamora Pierce
Book #63 of 2016: Terrier by Tamora Pierce (Beka Cooper #1) This was only my second ever Tamora Pierce book — counting the four-part The Song of the Lioness as a single volume, as my edition was — but I liked it even better than the first. This prequel world feels very lived-in, with fun …
Book Review: The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
Book #62 of 2016: The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson (Millennium #2) Not nearly as good as Larsson’s first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in large part due to the sudden genre shift. Tattoo was primarily a detective novel, with a central mystery, two investigator protagonists, and clues that a …
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TV Review: Deadwood, season 3
TV #38 of 2016: Deadwood, season 3 It’s surprising this final season works as well as it does, given that (as I understand it) it wasn’t originally intended to close out the series. The original plan was for Deadwood to run for at least four seasons, most likely culminating in the fire that burned down …
TV Review: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, season 2
TV #37 of 2016: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, season 2 Wow, Kimmy Schmidt really came into its own this season. The first season was very funny in a 30 Rock sort of way, but it didn’t really do much on the emotional level for me. Season 2 maintained that humor, but it also became very interested …
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Movie Review: Star Trek Beyond (2016)
Movie #14 of 2016: Star Trek Beyond (2016) This new Star Trek film feels exactly like a feature-length episode, which unsurprisingly works great as a showcase for the series. I think I still like the first movie in this new continuity the best, but Beyond is lightyears ahead of Into Darkness, and that’s really all …
Book Review: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Book #61 of 2016: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks The Sarajevo Haggadah is a real book, a 500-year-old illustrated manuscript depicting scenes from the Jewish Passover saga. People of the Book is a beautiful work of historical fiction, tracing a possible history of the Haggadah back through the centuries with a series of …
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Book Review: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
Book #60 of 2016: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch #2) Ancillary Sword is just as good as its predecessor, but with the added bonus that the reader now understands Leckie’s odd system of ancillaries, ships, and tea ceremonies right from the start. (I ended up loving Ancillary Justice, but that story took far …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 