The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby

Book #324 of 2021:

Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby

This is a heavy title, both for the graphic violence / gore and for the inherent bleakness of the premise: two grieving fathers, unaccepting of their sons’ sexuality in life, are drawn to one another in shared rage after the young husbands are brutally murdered and the police seem unable to solve the crime. Each man is also an ex-con, and together they embark on a mission of bloody vengeance, vowing to not let anything stand between them and the killer(s). Lots of shooting and torture and explosions follow as our antiheroes, one black and one white, search for answers and grapple with how their own bigotries have pushed their children away. I am totally unsurprised to learn that the film rights have already been bought up.

It’s not a particularly surprising narrative for fans of the pulp crime genre; I think there are exactly two big twists, both of which I called correctly as soon as their corresponding questions (who desecrated the boys’ tombstones and who Tangerine is dating) were raised. But the story is well-told in an almost Elmore Leonard fashion, and it’s interesting to see such flawed characters at the heart of a work coming to recognize and address those flaws. I like how capable the protagonists prove as well, especially in a world that keeps underestimating them due to their age. I may have winced a bit while reading this, but I’d say it succeeds at its goals.

[Content warning for racism including slurs, homophobia including slurs, transphobia, and child endangerment.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden by Peter L. Bergen

Book #323 of 2021:

The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden by Peter L. Bergen

A well-researched biography, although not one that actually answers its own question of explaining the unique radicalization path of its subject from millionaire son of a Middle East construction dynasty to Western-hating Jihadist and inadvertent architect of the modern US imperialist security state. Author Peter L. Bergen is a leading authority on bin Laden, and I gather that the main appeal of this particular title is in its drawing on personal interviews and newly-declassified documents to describe the final decade of Osama’s life, providing the most in-depth account yet of the Al-Qaeda leader in hiding following the attacks he orchestrated on 9/11. Personally, however, I think I’ve gotten more out of the earlier sections exploring the man’s experiences before his global infamy, a topic with which I was fairly unfamiliar.

The central takeaway seems to be that bin Laden, though a minor figure in ousting the Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1988 — our journalist writer insists there’s no evidence that the CIA operatives there ever gave his mujahideen rebels any training or resources, despite longstanding rumors to that effect — became convinced that he had brought a world power to heel, and thus set on doing the same thing to America. The original intent of his terrorism was apparently to encourage us and our allies to pull back from colonialism and military intervention in the region, which of course backfired pretty spectacularly. Later, he struggled to adapt his group’s methods to the new paradigm that he had ushered in, generally inspiring similar movements rather than direct recruits to his own brotherhood, and ultimately spent his last days brainstorming how to take credit for the dawning Arab Spring.

Overall I would say this is an interesting (and steadfastly unsympathetic) primer, probably worth reading for anyone looking to go beyond the news coverage of the time.

[Content warning for torture.]

★★★☆☆

TV Review: Fringe, season 2

TV #82 of 2021:

Fringe, season 2

This year drops the ball a few times in terms of maintaining the tension in its serialized plot — say hi to Meghan Markle, whose junior agent disappears after the second hour — but overall it continues the strong streak that developed late in the initial run. The show may have begun with biohacking and assorted weird science, but at this point, it’s pretty firmly a story about two parallel worlds, and it tends to tell its best, most emotionally resonant individual episodes within that framework (like 2×18 “White Tulip,” one of my favorite entries in the whole sci-fi genre). There’s the threat of incursions by shapeshifting enemy operatives, the cataclysmic effects that dimensional rifts are creating on both sides, and the looming question of when everyone will learn the secret about Peter and Walter that audiences did in the previous finale. It’s a productive and gripping narrative most weeks, and it builds to the clearest depiction yet of that other plane with its technological advancements and intriguingly different versions of familiar faces. Top marks for that ending, Fringe. And full steam ahead.

[Content warning for body horror, gore, gun violence, suicide, drug abuse, child abuse, and Nazi medical experimentation.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

Book #322 of 2021:

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik (The Scholomance #2)

An improvement on A Deadly Education, which I already enjoyed quite a lot. This sequel returns us to the Scholomance, that magic boarding school / honeypot in a pocket dimension of Lovecraftian space where the students are prey to all manner of hungry monsters and everyone is subtly encouraged to look out only for themselves. Our prickly protagonist, however, is even more exasperatedly determined to resist her natural talent for evil works and help any classmates that she can. (The title refers to her plan to be the final senior to cross the graduation threshold back into the real world, when the normal approach is an every-person-for-themself scramble past the slavering guardians.) I love the disconnect between the selfless heroism of El’s outward actions and her own gloomy interior monologue and clear discomfort with any praise or signs of affection from others.

If I have one small critique, it’s that the cliffhanger from the first novel is dismissed with a shrug and never really brought up again, although I suppose it might yet inform the last book of the trilogy, which will also have to deal with the diabolical ending to this volume. But the diversity of the setting reads less like tokenism the second time around, the character dynamics continue to delight, and the plot feels far more momentous. If the former story was primarily about finding the strength for survival, this one concerns taking that newfound power to rip apart an unjust system at the roots. Since I gave the series debut four stars and this one is so much better, I basically have to award it my top rating.

★★★★★

Book Review: The Magic Labyrinth by Philip José Farmer

Book #321 of 2021:

The Magic Labyrinth by Philip José Farmer (Riverworld #4)

This 1980 sci-fi finale is honestly worse than the miserable third volume, although it picks up slightly for its closing stretch, in which the tower at the headwaters of the river is finally reached and breached. Not that that goal has ever been grounded in any clear motivation to explain why multiple people have spent over a half-century now in seeking it! Most of the novel is again nominally geared around that vague quest, minus a long diversion for the inevitable Samuel Clemens / King John battle, but we also have to sit through interminable passages of stream-of-consciousness philosophical musings and pointless backstories, telling us what every minor character did both back on earth and thus far in the resurrected afterlife. As usual, author Philip José Farmer seems particularly preoccupied by bringing in notable historical personalities rather than creating original protagonists, though they are developed so poorly beyond the simple presentation of biography that it often feels like a kid playing with action figures.

This is a series centered on mysteries, and a number of answers are provided here. But many still are not, and those we get are fairly dull and uninspired given all the build-up beforehand. Furthermore, several proposed resolutions aren’t even necessarily the truth, merely idle conjectures with no more evidence than we’ve had all along, despite how they’re received. For an intended conclusion, this book never manages to offer definitive compelling closure on any such open topics.

While I’m nitpicking, I hate all the tossed-off details about the luxury of Sam’s riverboat too, like its ten pianos and closed-circuit security cameras, which fly in the face of everything we’ve heard about this resource-strapped setting and civilization created from scratch. And I loathe that we have yet another redemption story for the Nazi leader Hermann Göring, arguing that his earthly crimes are forgivable and he’s worth readers investing in as a reformed soul.

So, am I going to continue on to Gods of Riverworld, the loose sequel to this main quartet? I don’t know. I remember it being weaker yet, and based on how the rest of the entries have failed to live up to my childhood recollections, I can’t say that I’m in a hurry to be underwhelmed further. On the other hand, my morbid curiosity may just get the better of me.

[Content warning for racism including slurs, ableism including slurs, sexism, fatphobia, incest, and rape.]

★☆☆☆☆

Book Review: ReDawn by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson

Book #320 of 2021:

ReDawn by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson (Skyward Flight #2)

I’m still not entirely sure why these Skyward novellas have been produced as co-written supplements to the main series that many readers will inevitably skip (accidentally or otherwise), but so far they’ve been worth seeking out, both as engaging independent tales and for the important developments they contribute to the overall plot. I can already imagine the confused reactions when Cytonic is released later this month and some folks are thrown by how much has changed since the previous novel.

But one benefit of the shorter works is in their ability to explore additional perspectives on this YA space-opera setting, and so this volume follows up with Alanik, the alien Spensa impersonated in Starsight but who spent most of that book convalescing off-screen. Featuring her here allows authors Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson to belatedly flesh out the character as well as her home culture, and it’s particularly interesting to see how bloodthirsty she considers the regular human protagonists. There’s been talk before in this franchise about our species being relatively overaggressive, but it hasn’t really come to life until now.

This story is heavy on political intrigue and somewhat short on multidimensional villains — I would have loved to see a more nuanced take on the UrDail factions, rather than the heroine’s oppressed ideological minority being perfectly right and their opponents a bunch of uniformly evil collaborators — yet the wider stakes and the returning cast are well-established by now, and the aerial dogfights remain a delight. Certain events seem a bit perfunctory and unchallenging, and the worldbuilding isn’t especially distinctive, which is why I’m opting for a middle rating of three-out-of-five stars. But if you want to see Jorgen and his flight on a different planet and/or just not feel lost at the start of the third novel, well, read on.

[Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with Sanderson.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: The Attack by K. A. Applegate

Book #319 of 2021:

The Attack by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #26)

A whole twenty volumes after Jake saw a vision of a malevolent red eye turning his way as the Yeerk inside him starved to death back in book #6, we finally learn something of this terrible presence. His name is Crayak, and he is the arch-nemesis of the Ellimist, that more familiar all-powerful being who has alternately meddled with and subtly helped the team on several occasions now. These two ancient forces are locked in some kind of galaxy-spanning conflict, and for their latest skirmish they have agreed to pitch two small groups of champions against each other on a distant world. On one side, the six Animorphs are joined by their android ally Erek; on the opposite, they face seven of the Howlers, the race that massacred the Chee’s creators and are actually Crayak’s private shock troops. (Monstrously, it turns out they are like children and view all the slaughter as a game without consequence.)

That personal connection is important, as for a while here, the stakes can feel somewhat abstract. Our protagonists have been sent lightyears from home to a planet where no one has ever heard of Andalites, humans, or Yeerks, nominally fighting on behalf of the obnoxious local species there but mostly just getting into outmatched battles with their opponents and barely escaping with their lives. We want them to win because we don’t want them to die, but it’s hard for us or them to care all that much about the fate of the Iskoort early on. The backstory that the Howlers are responsible for killing the Pemalites helps deepen the contest, and Erek himself is a neat addition to the typical battlefield calculus, still programmed for pacifism but able to act as a barrier and project out helpfully misleading holograms. It’s also a nice change of pace to be in a setting where everyone can morph and demorph freely, without having to worry about keeping their identities a secret from any onlookers.

Nevertheless, I’m glad this title doesn’t maintain its air of inscrutability towards the mission throughout, placing Jake and his friends in the position of “an ant wandering around a chessboard,” in the narrator’s own words. They do eventually discover why the survival of this particular people is so significant to the struggle back home, and it deepens the storytelling considerably. I’m a fan of how the heroes manage to win in the end too, given that they initially fail in a six-on-one ambush and spend the rest of the novel narrowly fleeing from the Howlers again and again. In light of such odds, the intuitive plan Jake devises to save the day is exceedingly clever.

It’s a good outing for him overall, really. He’s the only Animorph who manages to dispatch one of the relentless enemies, tricking it into chasing him in bird morph off the edge of a platform high above the ground. But not content to simply watch the alien plummet, he dives down too, returning to his own form to acquire its DNA in free-fall and then restoring his wings at the last second to avoid likewise smashing upon the rocks below. Jake’s also the only one who’s encountered Crayak before, although he didn’t have a label for the thing which has apparently been stalking his dreams for months saying merely “Soon.” And perhaps most momentously, this is the story where the teen leader and Cassie finally kiss, a fact that I admittedly noticed less on this adult reread but remember being a pretty big deal when I was younger.

Due to all the trauma — which accumulates further here for certain — I think it’s sometimes easy to forget that these are middle-school kids waging their hopeless guerilla war, and to assume that our lovebirds, having expressed their feelings for one another some time ago now, would have already had this tender first exchange of physical intimacy, even if ‘off-screen’ between volumes. But no, it takes a surprise return from apparent death on the other side of the galaxy to send Cassie into the arms of her love interest, and the moment is decidedly more meaningful for that delay. (I don’t know if it fully registered with me back in 1999 that theirs is an interracial relationship as well, but I’ve seen interviews with author K. A. Applegate highlighting the importance of writing that romance for a young audience not necessarily inclined to accept it, and comparing this specific development to Star Trek’s famous primetime Kirk/Uhura kiss.)

Nothing happens with the wider Yeerk plot; the victors emerge from their self-contained adventure with no interruptions to regular life. But we’ve moved a central character dynamic forward, met a new recurring foe, experienced some horrifyingly deadly combat, and uncovered a few intriguing details in the grander series mythos. I’d call that a worthwhile excursion, and I can see why Applegate didn’t use a ghostwriter for it, as she had for the previous entry and would again for the next several to follow.

[Content warning for body horror and gore.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

Book #318 of 2021:

Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #25)

This mystery — published in the U.S. under the much cooler title Murder in Retrospect — stands out in its series as a rare cold case for Hercule Poirot to take up, a fatal poisoning for which the victim’s wife was convicted and died in prison. Sixteen years later, their daughter brings the matter before the detective on the basis of a letter from her mother claiming innocence, but which the girl was instructed not to open until she turned 21. Intrigued, our hero reviews the available documents and gathers five witnesses to re-interview, with their different accounts forming a Rashomon-like effect of conflicting perspectives on the day.

I didn’t come close to solving the riddle of who really killed the client’s father myself, but I appreciate how author Agatha Christie plays fair with us by crafting a puzzle with evidence entirely in dialogue that we hear alongside her investigator. Although he still jumps to a few sexist conclusions that I could have done without, like that a man wouldn’t possibly help with the household packing, overall his little grey cells are put to good use by the distinctive challenge.

[Content warning for racism.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly

Book #317 of 2021:

The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly (Mickey Haller #2)

This sequel is a bit straightforward and anticlimactic, but it remains fun to watch criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller at work, staying narrowly inside the ethical bounds of his profession in general and covering his tracks well when circumstances lead him to stray. In this volume, another lawyer has been killed, leaving instructions that our protagonist is to take over all his active cases, including an upcoming high-profile murder trial with a client who refuses to delay. The main appeal of the story for most readers is probably that Mickey finally meets his half-brother Harry Bosch, the LAPD detective and hero of other books by author Michael Connelly, although the two men don’t share as many scenes together as I’d like. I’ve still enjoyed the read for its solid courtroom drama, but haven’t found the novel overall to be as twisty or clever as the original Lincoln Lawyer.

[Content warning for gun violence, drug abuse, fatphobia, and homophobia including slurs.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

Book #316 of 2021:

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

For nearly half of this novel, it seems a competent yet somewhat unremarkable iteration of the standard Bluebeard-esque gothic plot — see Rebecca, Jane Eyre, etc. — of a young woman warned not to dig into her brooding new husband’s secret past or their potentially-haunted manor, which she of course does anyway. In this case, the heroine’s partner is a surgeon who insists she sleep in his office quarters and not ever visit the house at night. When she inevitably breaks that promise, she finds him distraught and beset by visions of patients who have died on his operating table, perhaps including a first wife that he previously hasn’t mentioned.

She also learns that he has dabbled in necromancy, and from there things bend more toward the fantastic, with our protagonist seeing the apparitions as well and learning to do magic of her own to try and save them both. I like this dark turn, especially for the cancerous growths that sorcery in this setting inflicts on its users, but that beginning is awfully slow, the mind-bending action later can sometimes get too surreal to clearly follow, and the whole project never hits the paranoid and claustrophobic depths that made author Caitlin Starling’s debut title The Luminous Dead so gripping. (And the lack of wider worldbuilding that felt excusable by circumstance there now tends to dull the story instead, with the Lawrences’ society mostly appearing to be just England under a different name.) It ends stronger than it starts, and maybe my expectations were artificially high, but I haven’t really been blown away by this sophomore effort overall.

[Content warning for gaslighting, death of a parent, and gore.]

★★★☆☆