Book #5 of 2025: From Dust, a Flame by Rebecca Podos Three-and-a-half stars, rounded up. This novel is pretty YA, in a way that I think I’m finally starting to outgrow as I approach my late-thirties. There are lots of flowery poetic descriptions of how the teenage protagonist feels about her newly-discovered love interest, for …
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Book #4 of 2025: Jhegaala by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #11) There’s always been a noir element in the DNA of this fantasy sequence, but it’s rarely as overt as it is in this installment, which finds the ex-assassin Vladimir Taltos traveling in the East, far from the familiar Draegaran Empire. (For those reading his …
Book #3 of 2025: House of Odysseus by Claire North (The Songs of Penelope #2) Unfortunately not as gripping as the first book in the series, though just as committed to its feminist reclamation of Penelope’s traditional narrative. The problem here is that the previous volume already established her basic status quo keeping the suitors …
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Book #2 of 2025: The Saint of the Bookstore by Victoria Goddard A lovely midwinter interlude in the Greenwing & Dart series, taking place soon after #6 Plum Duff and following up on a certain momentous development from #4 Blackcurrant Fool. The protagonist is a new character, a sister from a religious order, who’s been …
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Book #1 of 2025: The Art of ReBoot by David Roberts and Gavin Blair Inspired by the recent ReBoot: ReWind documentary, I decided to check out this art book from 2007 (via InterLibrary Loan — I had an eBay alert set up for a little while, but I never saw any used copies going for …
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Book #188 of 2024: Deep Black by Miles Cameron (Arcana Imperii #2) A competent military sci-fi / space opera that unfortunately shies away from the interpersonal drama that I found so appealing in the first book of this series. Our protagonist is no longer new to the service, her lies about her past have come …
TV #53 of 2024: The Umbrella Academy, season 4 Even for a messy series that’s always coasted on vibes and fun personal interactions at the expense of any legible story elements, this farewell season is a bit of a rough time. The shortened episode count doesn’t help, nor does the fact that the writers have …
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TV #52 of 2024: What If…?, season 3 This once-promising Marvel cartoon continues to deliver diminishing returns, and since this third season is apparently intended to be its last, it’s hard not to feel a sense of good riddance at this point (and to ponder the wasted potential left on the table, truly the biggest …
Book #187 of 2024: The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter A cute winter mystery story, in which a famous elderly writer of detective fiction has invited several younger peers to her mansion for the holiday, along with her seemingly ungrateful relatives. Soon after the guests arrive, their hostess vanishes amid evidence …
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Book #186 of 2024: Doctor Who: Death in the Stars by Bonnie Langford and Jacqueline Rayner Overall a fairly average Doctor Who-adjacent volume of science-fiction, somewhat marred by a plot structure that’s more akin to a three-part serial than one cohesive full-length adventure. (The mystery teased on the cover, in which the heroine winds up …
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