The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie

Book #304 of 2021:

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #23)

There’s an ingenious if improbable solution to this 1940 mystery (also published as The Patriotic Murders and An Overdose of Death), in which a dentist and his patient are each found dead hours after an appointment — the former of a gunshot wound and the latter of an anesthetic overdose. The police initially assume that the doctor committed suicide once he realized that he had made a fatal mistake with the medicine, but Hercule Poirot, who had likewise been in to see the man that morning, isn’t convinced. (At a certain point, are the cops ever going to look into the sheer number of untimely deaths that coincidentally happen around the diminutive Belgian detective??)

I think this particular novel works better as an intellectual exercise than a believable story with realistic character actions and motivations, two conflicting criteria which author Agatha Christie sometimes manages to reconcile into balance but often struggles with as she does here. The spy thriller elements are also a somewhat poor fit for the series, although they are handled more smoothly than in the abominable earlier title The Big Four, a supervillain crime syndicate adventure that the writer lampshades in this one. Ultimately this is a solid puzzler — and apparently the final appearance of Scotland Yard Inspector Japp, this hero’s version of Sherlock’s Lestrade — but hardly a classic.

[Content warning for racism and antisemitism.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Opal by Maggie Stiefvater

Book #303 of 2021:

Opal by Maggie Stiefvater

I’ve heard author Maggie Stiefvater refer to this Raven Cycle sequel as a novella, but at 38 pages, it’s probably scraping the lower limit of what could fairly be given that designation. It’s really more of a quick interlude in the lives of her heroes Ronan Lynch and Adam Parrish, as seen through the unique perspective of the literal manic pixie dream girl in the title. As established in the main quartet, Opal is a fey and ageless idea of a child made real by Ronan’s magic while he slept, and it’s neat to see her off-kilter take on the waking world. The domestic scenes between the couple are nice too, particularly for readers who want more of those characters and have not yet read the writer’s later Dreamer series. But overall, this thin sketch of a plot isn’t terribly essential to the canon and likely should have been saved up for a book of short stories rather than published independently.

★★★☆☆

TV Review: Leverage: Redemption, season 1.5

TV #80 of 2021:

Leverage: Redemption, season 1.5

If I had realized that this revival’s first season wasn’t ending after eight episodes, I probably would have waited until this second batch came out three months later to write up a review. As is, I don’t have much to say that I didn’t last time: it’s a feel-good but somewhat clunky enterprise, fun for fans of the original 2008-2012 series yet never quite justifying its existence or rising to the general level of its predecessor. (Noah Wyle’s aw-shucks newbie schtick is still nowhere near as endearing or interesting as the gruff Timothy Hutton figure he’s replacing, and Aldis Hodge is again largely absent and definitely missed.)

I’d call this back half a minor step up regardless, with a great opening piece starring LeVar Burton and a two-part finale that provides a welcome bit of plot structure to the overall affair. But I wouldn’t say you’re missing anything special if you give this one a pass.

[Content warning for racism and homophobic violence.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: The Unbroken by C. L. Clark

Book #302 of 2021:

The Unbroken by C. L. Clark (Magic of the Lost #1)

[I read and reviewed this title at a Patreon donor’s request. Want to nominate your own books for me to read and review (or otherwise support my writing)? Sign up for a small monthly donation today at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke !]

This fantasy debut reminds me strongly of The Traitor Baru Cormorant, another work rooted in colonialist critique exploring the subtle pressures of a dominant culture on the peoples that it conquers and annexes. (They also both star queer women, although in this setting, that’s entirely normalized, with no signs of homophobia anywhere.) The worldbuilding is further distinguished by its North African basis, and the plot finds a soldier deployed as part of an occupying force to the homeland she can’t remember, after being seized there as tribute when she was a child.

The population in that colony is on the verge of rebellion, and the ensuing story is one of conflicting loyalties and meditations on how the chain of heritage, once interrupted, can be so difficult to reforge as an adult. Does Touraine owe a greater allegiance to the land that birthed her, the nation that raised her, or the squad of her fellow legions whose deaths would mean little to the commanders of either side? There are no easy answers here, and few clear-cut lines between good and evil.

I like our main heroine a lot, but confess I don’t have as much patience for her counterpart, the imperial princess temporarily exiled to the region and seeking to secure a peace and research reports of indigenous magic in order to build up her political capital. Nor do I care for their eventual romance, both for the inherent power imbalance and for the lack of apparent connection beyond a mutual physical attraction. This relationship ultimately involves multiple betrayals by each partner, and just feels toxic all-around. I’m far more interested in the first protagonist’s complicated emotions about her adopted country than her feelings toward the regal scion who embodies it.

I do appreciate the representation of Luca’s disability, though, and the novel overall is pretty great. Even a slower stretch of narrative near the middle raises enough fascinating topics to consider that it never seems to drag, and I love how projects like this are pushing the genre to confront dynamics that used to exist as mere unexamined background details. I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of this trilogy unfolds.

[Content warning for ableism, torture, rape, and gore.]

★★★★☆

TV Review: Scandal, season 3

TV #79 of 2021:

Scandal, season 3

This series is becoming ever more of a soap opera, such that when Fitz replaces his treacherous VP with a running mate he says is the one man he trusts, it’s almost inevitable that that new fellow will end up in a love triangle with him and the first lady. It’s also a sign of the program’s ludicrous idea of politics that these two politicians are supposed to represent a competitive presidential ticket as two white men from the same state — and that the race soon comes down to a contest between them and the sitting veep running as an independent.

Outside of that campaign nonsense, there’s a lot of further nonsense on a general plot and interpersonal level, too. The show is still churning through its material at lightspeed, but roughly speaking, this season is half about Olivia’s parents and half about her mission to take down B613, the secretive assassination agency that makes less sense with every new retcon we discover. (The leader sneers at one point that they exist beyond the White House jurisdiction in order to serve the country more purely. The president responds by somehow firing him and appointing a lackey in his place.) The stuff with Mr. and Mrs. Pope is likewise ridiculous, although harder to discuss without spoilers. And of course, everyone continues to talk about top-secret and/ or potentially career-ending scandals in crowded public settings where anyone could overhear.

Overall, though, that’s maybe not a big difference from the first two years, and at its most focused, this latest iteration feels like a deliberately sordid tale of awful individuals being awful to one another. I do appreciate a particular storyline given to Mellie that really helps clarify her characterization and personal arc, as well as the belated attention to how race and racism have shaped our main heroine and her relationship with the media. And I have no complaints regarding the acting, as the cast members continue to gamely throw themselves into these absurd scenarios left and right.

What’s frustrating, however, is that all their characters seem to have the memory of a goldfish by now, amiably teaming up with people who were recently torturing them, threatening to shoot them, murdering their spouse, etc. The sudden pivots in allegiance I think are intended to be surprising each time, but they’re just exhausting to encounter in quick succession, hindering any actual engagement in the theoretical stakes here. “Oh, that happened,” I find myself reacting a lot. Certain developments are fun enough for the sheer spectacle, but there’s no deeper core of consistency to get me invested even to the minimal degree that I had been before.

[Content warning for gun violence, rape, self-harm, suicide, death of a child, and gore.]

★★☆☆☆

Book Review: The Pretender by K. A. Applegate

Book #301 of 2021:

The Pretender by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #23)

This Animorphs title feels built around a single scene near the end, when our current narrator sits down to hear a piece of news about his family that most readers likely already learned in The Andalite Chronicles, published the previous year. He is there in his Ellimist-restored human body, functionally incognito amid enemies watching to see if he shows signs of extraterrestrial knowledge, and able to keep his face neutral despite his roiling emotions thanks to his time as an expressionless hawk. Later when he’s alone, he again morphs into his temporary person form in order to cry as he regularly now can’t.

It’s a powerful moment, but the book until then is a little meandering. Before this meeting and its revelations in the lawyer’s office, Tobias is wondering whether a woman claiming to be his older cousin is genuine and debating her offer to take him in, which would probably mean giving up his ability to morph. At this stage in the series, it seems like a foregone conclusion that he will stay in the fight instead, and so his indecision never really registers as particularly meaningful. He hates the Yeerks and has grown to accept and even welcome his identity as part-bird and part-boy, so why would he be tempted to give all that up to go live with a stranger? Some touching exchanges with Rachel, in which she explicitly casts their relationship as romantic via comparison to Romeo and Juliet (and their friends Jake and Cassie) constitute a partial explanation, but still don’t provide the dilemma enough heft, in my opinion.

Likewise, the subplot where the protagonist is starving and under territorial threat from a different animal is rather odd. He’s feeling insecure before his rival, and he keeps getting unexplained flashes where he switches places with his prey anytime he tries to make a kill. At the lowest point it drives him to feed on roadkill, where he’s seen by Rachel to the embarrassment of them both. The teen’s own bizarre interpretation that these visions represent his two natures trying to tell him something about his hybrid self is unlikely, but we’re not given any alternate answer like Ellimist intervention, either. It’s just a weird unnatural experience he’s going through for no apparent reason, which is not a very satisfying development.

Meanwhile, the team is investigating the disappearance of a child from the free Hork-Bajir colony, who could be abused by humans or lead the Yeerks back home if not found quickly. I appreciate the returning focus to this section of the franchise, especially for its tense note of the former Controllers looking out for their own interests and not wanting to share all their information with the Animorphs, whose mission doesn’t necessarily align with their own. Under the guidance of the young seer Toby, our hero’s namesake, the aliens want to continue raiding enemy installations for new recruits so that they can grow to a sizable force to defend themselves against earth’s natives in the far future. It’s a cold calculation and one of the better elements of the novel, but it’s ultimately a peripheral detail on a slower installment.

[Content warning for body horror and gore.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: The Verdigris Pawn by Alysa Wishingrad

Book #300 of 2021:

The Verdigris Pawn by Alysa Wishingrad

A solid children’s fantasy adventure. I think the metaphor of the chess-like board game that recurs throughout would have been stronger with a clearer explanation of its rules, and I wish the protagonists had a greater sense of personal agency, rather than seeming fated to act out rigidly-prescribed roles within that structure. (Indeed, those two issues exacerbate one another, as we’re often told that someone is a perfect example of a particular piece without actually understanding what that means the way the characters do.)

On the other hand, the general idea of a subversive pastime secretly teaching the peasant folk how to rise up against their oppressive king is pretty cool, and I like that his son / our main hero’s choice of a certain ally proves to be a costly mistake, providing the sharp lesson that not all rebels are necessarily better than the tyrant they’re seeking to replace. Similarly, it’s a neat detail that everyone initially believes the prince must be as awful as his father, when in reality he’s simply been sheltered and emotionally abused by the man. Such misconceptions get shattered as the plot unfolds, which is a nice sign of depth for the genre. With a little more polish to lean into those strengths, this title could have been an all-ages modern classic. But as written, I suspect that younger readers will ultimately comprise its core audience.

★★★☆☆

Book Review: Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian

Book #299 of 2021:

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian

An entertaining if not particularly deep airport thriller. I enjoy the college setting of this story, since that’s a rarity in fiction overall and especially this genre, but the plot has its share of weaknesses and the characters are a squirrelly and amoral lot. That’s by design — the premise is that a group of students with psychopathic tendencies are being anonymously studied by the university psych department, only for some unknown agent(s) to start killing them off — but it results in protagonists who are clearly keeping secrets from one another and from us, and thus are rather difficult to wholly root for. I don’t even mind the murder aspect, as the subplot of the main heroine planning to stalk and take out the upperclassman who raped her when she was twelve is a definite highlight of the novel. But for the most part, everything plays out like a typical slasher flick.

[Content warning for gore, gun violence, child porn, and revenge porn.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

Book #298 of 2021:

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

Powerful and uncompromisingly uncomfortable as the title suggests, this debut novel depicts an exhausted and infuriated young mother who is either having a psychotic break or legitimately experiencing herself turning into some sort of canine-human hybrid. Her body hair is growing coarse, her teeth are sharpening, she’s craving raw meat, and she’s feeling the urge to run naked through her neighbors’ muddy yards at night and howl at the moon. She kills wild rabbits and even her pet cat, in one particularly gruesome moment. Or maybe, none of those things are happening anywhere outside her head. It’s American Psycho crossed with Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.

The story artfully maintains the tension of that ambiguity, while tapping into a lot of uneasy truths about modern parenting and expected gender roles. I hope to never feel a fraction of the rage and resentment this nameless protagonist carries for my own partner or children, but her grievances are legitimate against a society that demands so much of mothers by default and gaslights us all into believing that’s normal. Raising a kid today can sometimes seem unspokenly draining and isolating no matter how dearly you love them, and author Rachel Yoder channels that knowledge into a white-hot feminist fury.

Certain parts of this text are more engaging than others; the satirical multi-level marketing element is a bit broad for my tastes, and I get extreme secondhand embarrassment from the rambling emails that the heroine sends to a professor whose book she happens across in the library. But the odd premise never slips into camp as it so easily could, and the core of the work expresses a righteous indignation on behalf of parents that we don’t see often enough in our culture.

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Fabulous Riverboat by Philip José Farmer

Book #297 of 2021:

The Fabulous Riverboat by Philip José Farmer (Riverworld #2)

It’s two decades later in the Riverworld, that strange place where everyone from earth’s history woke up restored to their 25-year-old bodies, which have not gotten any older in the meantime. (The children have likewise stopped aging after catching up to the rest, thankfully removing the element of pedophilia that was mentioned offhand in the first title.) Readers wanting to hear more about Sir Richard Burton’s quest for answers to the mysteries of the world will have to wait, as we have a largely new set of characters to follow for this sequel, headed up by Samuel Clemens / Mark Twain himself.

Author Philip José Farmer continues to seem preoccupied with how great men would react to this setting, so that protagonist is joined by other luminaries ranging from Odysseus to Mozart to England’s wicked King John. And I do mean men, since the women in this story are all off on the periphery, functioning mostly as passive objects of desire. The most central and well-defined is Sam’s former wife, and even she is there primarily for a love triangle with Cyrano de Bergerac.

Equally dated is the 1971 treatment of race, with an awkward explanation of why it’s not fair to call the hero a bigot (delivered by an African-American of the future) and a nearby territory run by a black nationalist who wants to expel all white people, which he insists includes the local Wahhabi Muslims. I didn’t notice those elements when I read this novel as a kid, but they sure jump out at me now.

To its credit, the plot is an interesting piece of political intrigue, and one that benefits from staying locked in the main character’s perspective on his small stretch of the river. I still don’t exactly understand what all of these folks hope to gain by drawing borders and waging war in a deathless utopia, but the depiction of a civilization essentially starting from scratch on the backs of clashing cultures from across time, not to mention the struggle to marshal the resources necessary for massive construction projects, is reasonably compelling. This whole book really is just about a single ship being built, yet I prefer it to Burton’s nebulous journeying regardless.

[Content warning for rape, slavery, gun violence, racial slurs, and Nazi apologia.]

★★★☆☆