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 …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
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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Book Review: Made to Kill by Adam Christopher
Book #20 of 2016: Made to Kill by Adam Christopher (Ray Electromatic Mysteries #1) Made to Kill stars a robot private eye, but it’s nowhere near as good an execution as A. Lee Martinez’s novel The Automatic Detective, my first exposure to that concept. This book never clearly establishes the rules of its world, which …
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Book Review: Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman
Book #19 of 2016: Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman This Neil Gaiman short story collection is about what you would expect if you’ve read a Neil Gaiman short story collection before. I really liked the Sherlock Holmes story The Case of Death and Honey, and of course it’s always fun to …
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Book Review: Another Day by David Levithan
Book #18 of 2016: Another Day by David Levithan (Every Day #2) Another Day is a “companion novel” to Levithan’s earlier book Every Day – it covers the exact same span of time and tell the exact same story, but from a different character’s point of view. I know some people don’t like that sort …
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TV Review: Star Trek, season 1
TV #12 of 2016: Star Trek, season 1 How do you even begin to describe something like Star Trek? I’m now watching it through from the beginning, and I’m coming into it fairly fresh – or at least, as fresh as one can be in this culture. I’ve seen the two J. J. Abrams films …
TV Review: The Shannara Chronicles, season 1
TV #11 of 2016: The Shannara Chronicles, season 1 The Elfstones of Shannara is a thoroughly mediocre novel, the kind of thing that you devour in middle school but in no way holds up to a reread later in life. (I did reread it in anticipation of this MTV adaptation, and it’s fairly unremarkable. Like …
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TV Review: Marvel’s Agent Carter, season 2
TV #10 of 2016: Marvel’s Agent Carter, season 2 A solid follow-up, but a definite step down from this show’s first season. Way too much focus on the hetero romance stuff, too. (And a terrible ending, on that front.) Still, I really love how this show helps build out the world of the Marvel Cinematic …
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Book Review: Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
Book #17 of 2016: Dawn by Octavia E. Butler (Xenogenesis #1) Dawn is the first novel in a trilogy by Octavia Butler, known alternately as Lilith’s Brood and Xenogenesis. This first book was good, albeit a little bleak. (But, I mean, it’s from the author of the Parable books, Kindred, and Fledgling. Bleakness was not …
Book Review: The Dark Half by Stephen King
Book #16 of 2016: The Dark Half by Stephen King Like much of Stephen King’s mid-career output, this horror thriller was just okay. I could see the novel having special significance for the writer himself, since it’s about an author forced to go public about his pseudonym (which then comes to life and starts murdering …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 