Book #93 of 2024: Yendi by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #2) Published in 1984, this second Vlad Taltos novel is a prequel that’s lighter on the worldbuilding lore, taking us back to earlier in that assassin / crime boss’s career when the antihero was running a smaller territory and hadn’t yet married. In fact, he …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: While Idaho Slept: The Hunt for Answers in the Murders of Four College Students by J. Reuben Appelman
Book #92 of 2024: While Idaho Slept: The Hunt for Answers in the Murders of Four College Students by J. Reuben Appelman This true-crime title is pretty slim, despite how much time author J. Reuben Appelman spends on describing the victims’ backstories. He painstakingly walks through the police bodycam footage from when officers were called …
Book Review: A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland
Book #91 of 2024: A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland I’m so torn in my reaction to this fantasy novel, which is very well-written but absolutely not my thing in a rather unavoidably central way. I love all the worldbuilding details, the queer representation including a trinary-split gender system, the political intrigue, …
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Movie Review: Babylon 5: The Gathering (1993)
Movie #15 of 2024: Babylon 5: The Gathering (1993) Okay, I like this. I don’t love Babylon 5 as a franchise quite yet, but this TV pilot movie is a solid setup for the sci-fi framework to follow. If I were a Warner Brothers executive in the 90s, I likely would have ordered a full …
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Star Trek: Done!
Stop the clock! Eight years after I decided on a whim to start watching the Star Trek franchise from the very beginning, I’ve finally done it. I’ve seen all of Star Trek now. And because this is how my brain works, I’ll give you my subjective ranking of the various shows, by tier. TIER 1: …
TV Review: Star Trek: Very Short Treks, season 1
TV #29 of 2024: Star Trek: Very Short Treks, season 1 These five digital shorts are silly and explicitly non-canonical, but I’d say they’re worth checking out for Star Trek diehards, especially given the minimal time commitment (about 18 minutes for the entire run, which you can find in this official YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLufIO1FTWFz_8X1Tmh3BAlJpqNadViR-E). Commissioned …
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TV Review: Doctor Who, season 1
TV #28 of 2024: Doctor Who, season 1 We have, for some reason, started over again with our numbering for this long-running science-fiction franchise, so that there now exists Doctor Who season 1 – 26 (1963 – 1989), Doctor Who season 1 – 13 (2005 – 2021), and a new Doctor Who season 1 – …
Book Review: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm by Greg Keyes
Book #90 of 2024: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm by Greg Keyes A surprisingly strong media tie-in novel, especially compared to the same author’s more aimless later work, War for the Planet of the Apes: Revelations. Like that volume, this one is aimed at bridging the gap between the events of two …
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Book Review: The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown
Book #89 of 2024: The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown I love the initial premise of this novel, and I still feel like many of its subsequent elements have some potential charm to them. But the execution is beyond abysmal, beginning with the heroine with a severe case of written-by-a-man-itis: “She caught her reflection …
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TV Review: Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 4
TV #27 of 2024: Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 4 Still a loving and satisfyingly funny low-stakes riff on the Star Trek franchise, but not quite as tight a production as the last couple seasons (especially following the phenomenal crossover “Those Old Scientists” on Strange New Worlds). There’s an overarching storyline involving ships of various …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 