The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

TV Review: Fringe, season 1

TV #76 of 2021:

Fringe, season 1

This series is a little clunkier than I remember at the start, with lots of empty ominous talk about The Pattern (of strange events happening across the world but mostly in Boston that our new team has been created to investigate) that isn’t as inherently compelling as creator J. J. Abrams seems to think. John Scott’s murky backstory is likewise not always the most engaging plotline, and the individual early hours all tend to offer minor variations on a common theme of some mad scientist’s biomedical experimentation gone awry. This material is solid enough on a procedural level, and the cases are generally more interesting than you’d get on many such shows, but only the characters themselves particularly stand out for a while here.

And that main cast is great! Anna Torv is somewhat low-key as our heroine, but she has moments you can tell that’s a conscious acting choice when genuine emotions are called for. (And without spoilers, we will certainly see a very different performance from the same actress later on.) John Noble is deeply affecting as the flighty researcher recently sprung from decades in a mental institution, tortured by his fragmented memories of ethical missteps but devising ingenious methods of inquiry regardless, and Joshua Jackson is a capable partner to complete the trio. That last praise is fainter, but merely for how the scripts are still struggling to use him effectively; the actor does deserve credit for how quickly he’s made me forget his famous Dawson’s Creek role so soon after I finished watching all six seasons of that.

(I should note too that Jasika Nicole is utilized pretty poorly, treated as a perpetual afterthought on-screen and, as she has subsequently revealed, subjected to racist abuse on set throughout her tenure. It can be legitimately hard to watch her scenes now that I’m aware of all that, although I hesitate to rely too much on this outside knowledge in judging the program as a piece of fiction on its own terms. But for better or worse, her junior agent character is often removed from the developing bond of camaraderie among the others.)

Anyway, it’s that central triad that gives us an initial reason to invest in the narrative, and then about midway through this season, all the other elements click into place around that human core. The Z.F.T. and Cortexiphan arcs are more intriguing and more challenging to the protagonists, and the smaller stories no longer seem quite so similar from one episode to the next. We dive deeper into the questions of who these people are and what they’re coming to mean to one another, and away from the abstract mysteries which have been missing that personal connection. And the finale is a fantastic way of connecting everything back together, wrapping up the David Robert Jones bioterrorism angle while simultaneously expanding the canvas of possibilities for the future. Beyond this point, we are concerned with parallel universes over creepy science in its own right, and the show is all the stronger for it.

I’m not entirely sure how to fairly rate a TV run like this, where the first half alone would be a clear 3-out-of-5 stars and the second a definite 4. I suppose I’ll round up for the sense of improvement as it goes along, which makes for a richer composite feel than if the trend went the opposite way. But nevertheless, I am definitely looking forward to the even brighter days ahead.

[Content warning for body horror, gore, suicide, gun violence, and rape.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Solution by K. A. Applegate

Book #289 of 2021:

The Solution by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #22)

[Note — this review is more spoiler-heavy than usual! It was too hard to discuss this volume without getting into specifics.]

A chilling end to the saga of David, the reluctant recruit who has gradually blossomed over the course of this trilogy into a full-on villain. By now he’s absolutely terrifying, and an altogether greater match for the Animorphs than Visser Three and his legions have ever been. That alien commander is merely ruthless and well-armed; the scrawny teen is devious and cruel as he threatens to tell the Yeerks the true identities of the ‘Andalite bandits’ and uses the kids’ own morphing powers against them. He attacks them as stronger animals, he acquires and morphs into Marco to lure the others as birds into range of a baseball bat, and he becomes something small like a fly to privately taunt and spy on Rachel — a scene with pretty sick implications, although on the page she only mentions deciding not to take a shower while he might still be there, hiding unseen.

Rachel is the other giant strength of this book. We’ve already gotten two different perspectives on the newcomer, but with her as narrator, the story really clicks into gear. This is the girl’s first significant confrontation with her own inner darkness, realizing that perhaps alone among her teammates, she would be willing and able to murder the traitor to neutralize his threat. (We’ve seen them all kill before, of course, but never a human and seldom so cold-bloodedly.) That makes for a powerful crisis of conscience in and of itself, and is compounded by the dawning horror that Jake, her cousin and Animorphs leader, has specifically tapped her for the task. He too seems to understand that if the team needs to put someone down, she’s the one to do it, because on some level, she’ll like it. He compares her bloody enjoyment of their guerilla war to an addiction like alcoholism, and labels himself as her pathetic enabler. That’s a lot for a middle-schooler to wrap her head around.

This situation demands it, however. In his wickedest act, David kills their other cousin Saddler, languishing in the hospital after being struck by a car, and morphs him to take his place right under Jake and Rachel’s noses. (The crime happens off-screen, but it’s implied his body is stashed somewhere like down an elevator shaft.) From that position they can’t assail, he is safe to continue terrorizing them and their families, warning that their only hope is to give him the device that bestows the morphing capability, which obviously they can’t allow either.

Eventually, the good guys win the day. And this section could almost be considered a cop-out, as it relies on David’s mistaken belief that he murdered Tobias at the end of the previous novel when that was some random other hawk, a cheap cliffhanger on the part of author K. A. Applegate. Thus the antagonist thinks he has the group all cornered when he forces everyone but Rachel into cockroach form and seals them in a bottle — with the gruesome reminder that no one can escape by morphing without rupturing themself and the others — only for the overlooked Tobias to saunter up, release them, and spring the actual trap on David. The bizarre thing about this ploy, in addition to Applegate briefly fooling readers into thinking the former nothlit was killed too, is that his role could just as easily have been performed by someone such as Erek the Chee, and David is aware that the gang has allies like that whom he hasn’t met. But I guess that’s just a case of the character not reasoning things through, much as how Marco lies tied up in his closet all night after being attacked, apparently never considering morphing into a smaller creature to get out.

Speaking of Erek, it’s a little strange that we never do learn which of the world leaders is a Controller, as per the intelligence he provided back at the start of the mission with the political summit. But at least that thread comes to a delightful resolution here, with the weary teens unable to pierce through security again to stop the visser’s plans to secretly infest the rest, and so opting to simply morph elephants and rhinos, trampling across the resort site and causing the remainder of the meetings to be canceled. A fun lighter note amid all the bleakness with David.

The reason that the titular solution to that problem works, despite the odd Tobias detail, is that David’s comeuppance is so horrible and the Animorphs so necessarily awful to plot it out and pull it off. After staging a conversation about a false plan when they know he’s listening in, they bait him into morphing a rat with Rachel, only for her to chew through her own tail and flee, with her demorphed friends there to catch David alone in a steel cage. Against his frantic psychic pleas, she sits and waits the two hours until he’s officially stuck in rat form forever. At which point they strand him on a desolate island where no people ever go, to ensure that he never does tell the Yeerks or anyone else their secrets. It’s arguably a fate worse than death, and Rachel is forced to consider the state of her soul as she grimly consigns him to it.

I don’t know if I can honestly call this the darkest title in the series, which has gone to terrible lengths in the past and will do so again before we’re finished. But it’s electrifying throughout and haunting at the end, and even though I’d maintain that the beginning of this experiment in heavier serialization is a bit weak, the payoff to all that setup here is a triumph.

[Content warning for gore.]

★★★★★

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Book Review: Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Book #288 of 2021:

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow #1)

This #ownvoices sci-fi / fantasy debut is going to appear on many best-of-2021 lists, my own very much included. Loosely based on the only female emperor in Chinese history, it’s the powerfully intimate tale of a girl raised in a society that oppresses her gender at every turn, from footbinding to sexual assault to draining their qi spirit force so that male copilots can power giant mecha in humanity’s ongoing war against the monsters rampaging across their world. These army concubines regularly end up dead, and the heroine’s initial aim in joining their ranks is to locate the boy who killed her sister, get close to him, and take his life in revenge.

And then she does! And it’s amazing. There’s none of the tedious internal conflict about getting to know one’s enemies as individuals which generally arises in this type of story, just a focused and righteously furious protagonist who accomplishes her (completely justified) goal pretty early in the plot. Of course, she soon discovers that that villain was merely symptomatic of a larger corrupt system, and that the military has further uses for her rather than the simple death penalty she expected. Before long, she is forced back into service to channel her strong energy levels with a young man who’s equally a prisoner, and with whom she gradually forms a tender understanding as the pair strives to endure each combat mission with both partners left alive.

I keep thinking of a Hunger Games parallel here, as Wu Zetian develops feelings for the companion sharing her mortal peril while also caring for a dear friend from her home province. There are Katniss vibes in how she comes to exploit the media’s desire for spectacle, too. One key difference, though? The affected characters openly discuss their emotions and realize that finding worth in one relationship doesn’t prevent them from maintaining another. Ultimately they join together in a polyamorous triad, as honestly more YA love triangles should. The guys even strike up their own individual romantic bond, with all three figures eventually revealed to be queer yet unable to voice or act on it until now.

But back to the action. I’m not terribly familiar with the kind of anime this book is drawing upon — author Xiran Jay Zhao has mentioned Neon Genesis Evangelion, Darling in the Franxx, Digimon, Attack on Titan, Gundam, and Dragon Ball Z as being among their inspirations — but I’ve enjoyed the fight scenes almost as much as the personal interactions and political maneuvering outside. One subtle element I particularly appreciate is the dawning realization that Zetian’s abilities don’t make her any sort of Chosen One; there have been previous ‘iron widows’ covered up by the government, and still others would exist if the technology behind their vehicles weren’t purposely designed to draw more from the person in the supporting seat. It’s a bleak and poignant bit of social commentary mixed into all the laser blasts and explosions, well befitting a title the publisher describes as “Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale.”

I could go on, but suffice to say that I am incredibly impressed and greatly looking forward to the forthcoming sequel.

[Content warning for torture, alcoholism, suicidal ideation, and domestic abuse.]

★★★★★

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Book Review: Scary Stories for Young Foxes by Christian McKay Heidicker

Book #287 of 2021:

Scary Stories for Young Foxes by Christian McKay Heidicker (Scary Stories for Young Foxes #1)

Middle-grade horror can be a tricky genre to pull off, with an atmosphere that’s spookily disquieting yet not full-on terrifying, but this Newbery-winning title from 2019 navigates that threshold nicely. Structured as a series of connected stories that an older fox is telling a litter of young ones in the framing device — with their numbers steadily dropping as each successive tale scares another kit into fleeing home to their mother — the book delivers scenarios quite capable of frightening its human readers as well.

Indeed, I think the quiet strength of this project, beyond the chilly autumnal setting, is how author Christian McKay Heidicker is able to root the described dangers in the experience and perspective of one species while offering subtle points of connection to his true audience of another. We can’t exactly relate to getting a paw stuck in a trap or encountering a rabid friend, but the writer excels at conveying the grounded emotions of his animal characters, with the impotent sorrow brought on by a bullying family standing out as particularly effective. I’ve been properly and enjoyably unsettled throughout.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: What If…?, season 1

TV #75 of 2021:

What If…?, season 1

The debut animated feature in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is fun, with a few key caveats. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a show for all fans, as these alternate versions of events do lean on audience familiarity with the proper timeline for their full effect, but the writers have definitely embraced the goofy looseness of the open canvas to showcase the unexpected reconfigurations of beloved characters and storylines. (My favorite is probably a young T’Challa getting abducted in place of Peter Quill, with his crew as Star-Lord including a reformed Thanos whom he was somehow able to talk down from any plans for universal genocide.) Identifying the various realities as corners of the multiverse recently established in the Loki series and not simply theoretical sketches is a smart move too, although it also introduces discrepancies that feel hard to reconcile.

I actually like this season better as an anthology of one-off premises than the finale’s attempt to cross everything over again, which maybe could have worked in theory but largely plays out as an incomprehensible sequence of personality-free laser blasts. That episode is the biggest dud for me, and possibly the first time when the MCU formula of assembling diverse heroes drawn from their respective standalone adventures hasn’t resulted in any meaningful clashes. (These people should have so much to banter about! They’re hanging out with strangers who look like friends and/or enemies from their own worlds!) Plus we lost one planned installment due to pandemic impacts on production, resulting in a Gamora that we don’t know at all joining the rest. But at least the visuals remain neat throughout, serving as a perpetual reminder for why this title couldn’t have been produced in live-action without a massively inflated budget.

The voice cast is weird, though. Disney has gone to great lengths to recruit most of the original actors to reprise their on-screen roles, with some surprisingly big names dropping by for just a line or two, but that only makes the exceptions far more glaring than they would be if every performer were different from the movies. On the other hand, I won’t argue with the touching sendoff for Chadwick Boseman, who was apparently able to record the dialogue before his passing last year.

In the end, as expected, this doesn’t seem to constitute a particularly essential entry in the Marvel canon, and I doubt whether any of these ‘Guardians’ or their Watcher will ever appear elsewhere. But it’s quality entertainment in general and a fantastic chance to incorporate certain wackier comic elements like zombies into this adaptation of the franchise, so I’m glad it’s been renewed for another go.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer

Book #286 of 2021:

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer (Riverworld #1)

This Hugo-winning tale from 1971 pitches an intriguing scenario: all humanoids who have ever lived on the earth — including neanderthals from the distant past and an alien who was visiting the planet in 2008 — are resurrected in the far future, in copies of their healthy 25-year-old bodies (or their age at death, if younger). They find themselves naked and hairless beside an impossibly long river boxed in by mountains, and eventually discover that if they are killed, they will again wake up at some random point along the millions of miles of shore.

There are three main avenues for this premise to develop, which achieve varying levels of effectiveness in my opinion. The initial big driving question is the matter of why all this has happened, but it isn’t answered satisfactorily in this first novel, or in the rest of the series to my recollection. This may be the precursor to later genre works like Battlestar Galactica and Lost, pitched on the basis of mysteries that the writers don’t have planned and frustratingly never figure out how to adequately resolve. So many bizarre details are thrown at us here — All the men are circumcised even if they weren’t in life! The daily teleported rations always include lipstick and cigars! — that a proper explanation becomes fairly important for understanding the full scope of the story. Yet unless I’m misremembering the sequels, no such accounting ever really arrives. It certainly doesn’t in this debut.

The other two narrative threads fare a little better. One concerns the worldbuilding of the new civilization that gradually develops in this place, as cultures clash from throughout history and everyone struggles to find purpose in the strange corporeal afterlife. And the second is the personal level of individual character interactions, for now primarily concerning protagonist Richard Francis Burton and his quest to reach the headwaters where the all-powerful beings who devised this arrangement reputedly dwell. That nineteenth-century adventurer is among several real historical figures that author Philip José Farmer features in the plot, for no reason I can detect beyond his own amusement and perhaps a ‘Great man’ theory of social change. Thus our hero encounters people like Alice Liddell and Hermann Göring, not to mention a self-insert writer with the same initials as Farmer.

Overall it’s a mixed bag, and the resolution to this particular title isn’t terribly exciting. But the ideas are worth exploring, and on revisiting the text today, I can understand why parts of it have stayed lodged in my imagination for decades now. I hope I’m remembering correctly that the following volume with Mark Twain is stronger, though.

[Content warning for torture, slavery, suicide, sexism, racism including slurs, antisemitism, pedophilia, and rape.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Sunreach by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson

Book #285 of 2021:

Sunreach by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson (Skyward Flight #1)

I wasn’t sure what to expect of this first spinoff novella from author Brandon Sanderson’s main Skyward series, especially after not caring for his previous attempt at YA co-writing, Lux: A Texas Reckoners Novel. Luckily, I’ve enjoyed this one a lot more, although I couldn’t say whether that’s because of the different partner involved, the different franchise, or a different division of labor behind the scenes. But whatever the reason, this is a pretty fun adventure that feels recognizably Sandersonian, despite covering an interstitial period before the forthcoming third novel that’s presumably not going to confuse anyone who skips over it.

In this story we follow Freyja — callsign FM — one of the young pilots who flies with the regular protagonist Spensa, as she deals with the immediate aftermath of book two (and an unexpected romance with another returning ally). It’s neat to see this side character fleshed out a bit further, as well as a few smaller worldbuilding details that haven’t previously been explored and a cameo appearance from the nonbinary alien Cuna. I like the heroine’s internal conflict over the treatment of certain creatures that her people are exploiting, and the ultimate resolution that they respond better to kindness is expected but sweet. It may not move the larger plot too much, but the spaceship dogfights are as thrilling as ever, and it’s great to see the setting through someone else’s eyes. I look forward to the next such release, and will have to check out Janci Patterson’s other work at some point too.

[Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with Sanderson.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Godbody by Theodore Sturgeon

Book #284 of 2021:

Godbody by Theodore Sturgeon

I’ll be charitable and say that this strikes me as a novel that really requires readers to get on its particular wavelength, which I was unable to do. It’s graphically sexual, albeit with the occasional giggle-inducing word like “dong,” and deeply rooted in a religious tradition that’s not my own. The basic plot here is that a messianic Christ figure — likely but not definitely Jesus himself, speaking contemporary English and going by the name Godbody — has arrived in a small New England town, where he awakens anyone he touches to the revelation that nudity and sex are higher ways of worshiping the divine. Every chapter follows a different character as they experience his gospel, death, and resurrection, and it all builds to a literal sermon about how modern Christianity has drifted from the church of the apostles’ time.

Perhaps I’m too removed from author Theodore Sturgeon’s faith practice, or maybe I’ve just read too much Stephen King, but I feel like this text has the unwitting structure of a horror story, as protagonists get picked off one by one to join the psychic cult. And that could be the interesting basis of a tale, but it’s clear that the writer expects us to share in the rapture of his creations, glorying to the message and mourning when the messenger is (temporarily) killed. He also wants us to accept a serial rapist’s immediate repentance and redemption, which might be easier to swallow if the true villain of the piece, the bitter woman who writes the local gossip column, were allowed some of that same dignity and chance for growth.

Anyway, this is a book that has largely glanced off me, and I can imagine other people enjoying it better, especially as a posthumous work channeling themes that apparently interested Sturgeon throughout his career. But I’m not altogether surprised it’s faded to obscurity in the decades since.

[Content warning for gun violence.]

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: The Threat by K. A. Applegate

Book #283 of 2021:

The Threat by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #21)

So it turns out, most of what I’d remembered from this story arc about the new kid David joining the Animorphs actually takes place in the next / final book of that unofficial trilogy. Luckily, this middle volume is a lot stronger than the first, with clearer pacing to its twin rising threats: the challenge of infiltrating the nearby political summit to stop the Yeerks from infesting world leaders (and maybe even reveal the truth of the alien invasion to them) and the growing signs of instability in the latest team member. We’d seen red flags in David’s behavior already, but they become steadily more flagrant here until finally reaching a crisis point in the form of a violent break from the rest of the group.

The chilling thing about this character is his unpredictability, coupled with an apparent lack of conventional morality. When he wonders aloud if his lion morph could best Jake’s tiger in a fight, there’s a real frisson of tension from the sense that that’s not idle speculation or banter. When he seems receptive to Visser Three’s offer to betray his allies, only to switch sides again when the tide of battle shifts, it’s nearly impossible to believe his claims that it was all a ruse. That slim margin of plausible deniability is key, however — it maintains an edge of uncertainty throughout, and stops the others from leaping to respond to the danger as they ordinarily would. David has an instinct for the tactics of an abuser, which contributes to the uneasy dynamic around him well before he reveals his nature for certain.

I like the occasional glimpse of what he might see as his provocations, too. I’m in no way defending the guy or suggesting that anyone else bears responsibility for his actions, but author K. A. Applegate is smart to include scenes where his fellow Animorphs make tough choices that unfortunately hurt him in passing. In my last review I mentioned how their initial carelessness has led to his current untenable situation, with his parents taken as Controllers and his name and face known to the enemy, and that characterization is strengthened here by their earnestness contributing to his unhappiness as well. Mostly, everyone is simply including him in the same sacrifices they’ve all had time to accept for themselves, yet it’s clear this chafes against him as somehow unjust. While a whole novel from that sort of perspective probably wouldn’t work, our understanding of it helps deepen him as an emerging antagonist for our familiar heroes.

(Applegate fudges a bit here too, making the teens particularly sanctimonious as they lecture David not to steal or use his morphing powers frivolously. They espouse previously-unmentioned rules that they’ve all broken in the past and that would be ludicrous for members of a small band of resistance fighters to adhere to, presumably just to further the brewing conflict. It’s effective but a little cheap on the writer’s part, much like a certain death we learn about in the cliffhanger that’s later walked back in the sequel.)

Ultimately I think this David sequence feels closer to a single adventure split into somewhat-artificial sections than a typical serialized narrative, and I wonder if it would have been better combined into one of the special longer side releases like Megamorphs or Visser. Placing it in the main series is an interesting experiment that pays off fine as it goes along, but it’s not quite the slam-dunk classic that it could have been.

[Content warning for body horror, claustrophobia, and gore.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie

Book #282 of 2021:

Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #24)

This mystery novel has a few solid twists to it, mostly via the inclusion of false testimony from a guilty party or two. Author Agatha Christie, several decades into her writing career by this point, has grown rather adept at that trick, keeping readers scouring the evidence for weak links that often nevertheless pass us by. On the other hand, she’s still too reliant on bizarre psychoanalysis and gender stereotypes, here resulting in her detective Hercule Poirot concluding that a strangled murder victim must have been killed by a man (because a woman would have used poison) who knew her (because the expression on her face would have been different if seeing a stranger). That sort of hogwash hasn’t stood the test of time nearly so well, and it cuts against the overall effectiveness of the plotting.

[Content warning for racism and suicide.]

★★★☆☆

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