Book #27 of 2016: Lifeboats by Diane Duane (Young Wizards #9.5) Lifeboats is an “interim” novella in the Young Wizards series, taking place in the narrative gap between main novels A Wizard of Mars (#9) and Games Wizards Play (#10). There are two other stories by Duane that also fall in that gap, “Not on …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Movie Review: Thor (2011)
Movie #7 of 2016: Thor (2011) I was only rewatching this film to look up the scene where Coulson mentions linguistics, but by the time I found it there were only about 20 minutes left, so I went ahead and finished. I feel like this is one of the less memorable MCU titles, and it …
Book Review: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
Book #26 of 2016: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven Cycle #3) I really enjoy this series, but this particular book felt less complete than the others somehow. (Perhaps because the next one to come out is going to be the last, so Blue Lily, Lily Blue had to do too much …
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Movie Review: My Fellow Americans (1996)
Movie #6 of 2016: My Fellow Americans (1996) This is one of those movies that my family watches ALL THE TIME. (Or at least, we did back when I was growing up. It’d been several years since the last time I saw it, though.) And as such, we quote it all the time. But my …
Book Review: Adulthood Rites by Octavia E. Butler
Book #25 of 2016: Adulthood Rites by Octavia E. Butler (Xenogenesis #2) I feel like I still don’t really get this series, which is somewhat less than ideal given that I’m now two-thirds of the way through it. Butler does a good job of making her aliens, well, alien, but more often than not that …
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Book Review: Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Book #24 of 2016: Pet Sematary by Stephen King Pet Sematary is probably the quintessential example of a Stephen King novel with a great, moody build-up throughout the book and then a letdown of an ending. This makes sense, in a way: Pet Sematary is a loose retelling of the short story The Monkey’s Paw, …
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Book Review: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Book #23 of 2016: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins The Girl on the Train has been described by many reviewers as “the next Gone Girl,” and it honestly struggles to escape that novel’s shadow. In fact, without getting too spoilery for either, I would say that this book doesn’t truly get good until …
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Book Review: Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
Book #22 of 2016: Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore (Graceling Realm #3) Kristin Cashore has improved a lot as both a writer and a worldbuilder over the course of this series, and Bitterblue is easily her best novel yet. This is a work of fantasy from a strong feminist perspective, as a queen and her people …
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TV Review: Deadwood, season 1
TV #13 of 2016: Deadwood, season 1 I’m not sure what to make of this series so far. The production values are great, as is the cast and the acting, but I still feel like most of my enjoyment is coming from spotting all those familiar faces in Wild West getup. The characters themselves are …
Book Review: Rogues edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
Book #21 of 2016: Rogues edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois Rogues took me forever to read, partly because it’s a really long book and partly because I had to share custody of the library copy with two or three other people, so there were weeks at a time when I couldn’t …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 