The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

Book #351 of 2021:

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

I enjoy the protagonist’s magic here, which is limited to spells about baking and eventually gets put to creative use in defending the city from an invading army. I also approve of the dark and creepily realistic portrayal of a growing extremist movement in this fantasy kingdom, stirring public sentiment against perceived outsiders — wizards, in this case — and undermining loyalties to attempt a political coup. I just don’t know that those two ideas fit naturally together; it’s a little like the shift from whimsy to grit over the course of the Harry Potter series, only back and forth and in far fewer pages. There’s an element of tonal whiplash in the text that never really gets resolved, fun as it is to see a carnivorous sourdough starter attacking one of the traitors.

I have some additional nitpicking, too. The minimal worldbuilding is okay for a generic fairy tale vibe, but characterizing the sole foreign ethnic group as a uniform barbarian mob who eat dogs and people and are apparently dedicated to razing civilization to the ground is a pretty obnoxious writing choice, especially in a plot that is nominally opposing bigotry. It’s bizarre too for the heroine to mention that she’s fourteen years old literally twenty separate times (I counted!) in such a short book. Standards are often lower for a self-published work like this, yet these are issues that a good editor should have been able to catch and fix regardless. As is, the final product is a decent standalone adventure, but one that’s definitely hindered from ever living up to its full potential or seeming like more than the sum of its parts.

[Content warning for a very gross scene involving climbing up through a dirty toilet pipe.]

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: Doctor Who: Flux

TV #86 of 2021:

Doctor Who: Flux

Doctor Who is a franchise that thrives on change, and so I have to credit soon-to-be-former showrunner Chris Chibnall for structuring this season as basically one single six-episode story, an experiment in serialization the likes of which the show hasn’t attempted since maybe Trial of a Time Lord back in 1986. It doesn’t always work, and in fact, I found the first hour woefully overstuffed and chaotic, at least on an initial viewing. (Perhaps it will fare better on a rewatch when I already know the shape of the larger plot and don’t have to wait a week in between installments.) But the rest is a degree stronger, and the ambition throughout is fantastic to see. Although it’s hit or miss overall, there are moments in this abbreviated run that absolutely deliver on all its potential.

Granted, it’s a little disappointing for offering one of those premises that goes so big you understand well before the end that it won’t have any lasting continuity impact — future writers aren’t going to accept that almost all the universe has been destroyed when they can undo that with a line or two of technobabble or simply ignore the development altogether — but I’m glad it follows up somewhat on the previous momentous reveals about the Doctor’s early incarnations, instead of leaving that explosive topic dormant. It’s the Division stuff that seems likely to stand out when we look back on this period later, rather than the Flux itself or the skull-faced baddies with their vague mission and nebulous talk of time.

Whenever the program slows down and remembers that it can be about people with real legible emotions and not just cool-sounding yet empty sci-fi buzzwords, the narrative soars. That’s what makes Karvanista’s and Yaz’s respective last scenes with the Doctor so touching, but the companions’ easy dismissal of being stranded on earth for a few years (!) fall flat. It’s why Vinder and Bel light up the screen each time we see them searching through ruins for one another, while none of the exposition about reality’s fate in general ever registers as particularly significant. I don’t even care that much that the Flux devastation lingers on, except to idly wonder whether the three specials next year will pick up that train before the Doctor’s regeneration and Russell T. Davies’s triumphant return.

As a whole this has still probably been my favorite of the Jodie Whittaker series, and that star actress remains a charmingly dorky delight in her line readings and other acting choices. But the unevenness in plot and tone is keeping me from embracing it quite as fully as its higher aims ought to deserve.

[Content warning for genocide and gore.]

★★★☆☆

TV Review: ReBoot, season 3

TV #85 of 2021:

ReBoot, season 3

An absolute delight, all the way through to that daft but earned Penzance recap number that closes everything out. This run starts right where the last one left off (although a year and a half had passed for viewers), and it continues the strong streak of serialized plot and character stakes that had begun around 2×7 “Nullzilla.” The original series hero is gone, and the cliffhanger resolution honors that without an immediate walkback, but rather a focused look at how it impacts the remaining cast dynamics.

Structurally, this era of the program is divided into four 4-episode blocks, each with a distinct narrative throughline and opening credits narration. First, new guardian Enzo and his friends must try to defend against Megabyte and the games in Bob’s absence. After another shocking loss, we cut to a grown “Matrix” and AndrAIa wandering from system to system seeking their former home, culminating in a surprise reencounter with the Crimson Binome from way back in season one. The next stage follows the pirate crew’s journey across the murky Web, and then the battle to restore Mainframe once they finally make it there.

Not every individual episode necessarily moves the story forward, but overall they’re a propulsive bunch that go by almost regrettably fast. The writers are just burning through ideas at this point, practically showing off compared to the static status quo of most animated features of the era. It’s easy to imagine — and want! — an entire expanded season of each quarter here, not to mention additional tales spanning the time jump between 3×4 “Game Over” and 3×5 “Icons.” But the creative team keeps us hungry instead, opting for sixteen installments of genuine quality over the potentially weaker adventures that would be needed to fill out a longer stretch. It’s a bold gambit, but as with so much in this epoch of the series, it ends up working like a charm.

The continued expansion of the worldbuilding beyond the scope of the initial premise is impressive, and the characters go through so many changes that, again, simply were not being seen in comparable children’s programming. The humor and cultural references have always been great, but they seem to have leveled up further here, to my intense enjoyment especially of all the Star Trek nods I didn’t pick up on as a kid. I’d even venture to call this a family show, with a darkness that’s never quite too bleak for the younger audience amid all the action-adventure excitement but offers plenty of realistic emotions and thematic complexities for us older folks as well. Not every title that stood out in my youth has been nearly so rewarding to revisit.

[Content warning for animated gore and gun violence.]

★★★★★

Book Review: Cytonic by Brandon Sanderson

Book #350 of 2021:

Cytonic by Brandon Sanderson (Skyward #3)

[Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.]

I love author Brandon Sanderson’s work in general, and I’ve been enjoying this YA space opera, but I have to admit to finding this latest volume a bit perfunctory. There are big worldbuilding reveals of the kind the writer likes to spring on us, and even though they reduce to his typical pattern of ‘legendary thing X is actually commonplace thing Y’ I do appreciate the greater context to the series that they provide. (We even get a flashback cameo appearance from Jason Write of the original 2008 Defending Elysium prequel story!) Unfortunately, however, there’s not much of an actual plot here in the lead-up, just our returning protagonist wandering the barren landscapes of matter on the outskirts of the Nowhere dimension, searching for those answers and trying to retain her memories as the void eats away at them. While this is not a Cosmere title, there’s a definite Shadesmar / Cognitive Realm vibe to the affair, which is another disappointing trope to see repeated.

This is also the second Skyward novel in a row that has suddenly flung its heroine into a brand-new situation far from most of the previously-established characters, and I don’t think its lightweight pirate romp succeeds on the level of Starsight‘s interesting alien species and galactic politics. Although Spensa meets new allies in her time outside our universe, everything feels very removed from the main stakes of the conflict with the Superiority, and it’s getting harder to remember why those prior relationships matter the longer she stays away. Even more than the recent Sunreach and ReDawn novellas, this book seems designed primarily to deliver exposition — which it accomplishes effectively and with a few fun action scenes, but doesn’t ever meaningfully transcend.

★★★☆☆

Book Review: The First Journey by K. A. Applegate

Book #349 of 2021:

The First Journey by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs Alternamorphs #1)

I went into my adult reread of this choose-your-own-adventure Animorphs title with pretty low expectations, and yet it somehow still managed to disappoint. Who exactly is the audience here? The tone is more juvenile than the main novels, with lots of exclamation marks and a focus on the surface-level action rather than any deeper themes of sacrifice or the toll of trauma on child guerilla soldiers. The heroes are flat too, not to mention remarkably out-of-character throughout. (Ax’s dialogue alone is a travesty.) And Yeerk Controllers can suddenly be confused by earth customs and detected just by watching to see who’s acting strangely, despite how they’ve always had complete access to their host minds and blended in seamlessly to the environment before.

That all suggests a project that maybe wasn’t designed for the fans, but the story takes so many unexplained leaps that I can’t imagine a newcomer being able to follow along instead. The plot holes and contradictions like that nonsensical sario rip are weird even if you have a general sense of how the continuity “should” go, and lacking that context would surely make everything worse. Perhaps the as-yet-anonymous ghostwriter was likewise unfamiliar with the series, although that doesn’t explain why credited author K. A. Applegate or her editors let the resulting text go to print in such a flawed state. In any event, it’s a missed opportunity both to reward long-time readers by truly immersing them in the world of this franchise and to offer a compelling alternate on-ramp for anyone drawn to check out this volume first.

Structurally, it’s not much of a gamebook either; there are a total of six points at which we’re invited to pick among two or three options of what animal to morph, and in every case, all but one choice leads to death within a few pages. Really great choosable-path fiction offers a branching narrative that develops multiple competing throughlines and would take significant dedication to map out entirely. This book has only one correct plot to it, and it’s not a particularly enjoyable one at that. At least the whole thing is non-canon, and thus can be safely dismissed as a simple low-quality cash grab.

[Content warning for body horror and gun violence.]

★☆☆☆☆

Book Review: Strange Dreams edited by Stephen R. Donaldson

Book #348 of 2021:

Strange Dreams edited by Stephen R. Donaldson

Rating each story in this 1993 collection individually, they average out to just three-out-of-five stars overall for me. It’s an uneven bunch, yet there are still some winners among the lot. (No fives, but 10 fours, along with 11 threes, 5 twos, and 2 ones.) I also like the idea behind the project: rather than a call for submissions to meet a particular prompt or theme, editor Stephen R. Donaldson has gathered together an assortment of tales he’d already read that have stuck with him over the years. It’s nearly all science-fiction and fantasy, as with his own work, with contributors ranging from Franz Kafka and Rudyard Kipling to more contemporary authors like Patricia A. McKillip and Nancy Kress. Excepting “Air Raid” by John Varley, every piece has been new to me, so I appreciate the exposure especially to those older titles.

Although I haven’t loved all the entries — and have actually hated a couple — in general, I would say the book is worth checking out for fans like me interested in seeing what kind of fiction has sparked a lasting impression on the genre stalwart. I can detect no clear lines of influence between anything here and Donaldson’s own Thomas Covenant or other writing, but I do feel there’s insight to be gained in exploring the material a favorite writer finds favorable to read in turn.

[Content warning for rape, gore, amputation, torture, incest, pedophilia, gun violence, racism, and domestic abuse.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby

Book #347 of 2021:

Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby

Between this novel and author S. A. Cosby’s later Razorblade Tears, I am fully ready to crown him the Elmore Leonard of the state of Virginia, demonstrating that late crime writer’s same flair for action scenes, local dialect, and colorful characters with particular codes of outlaw conduct. (In fact, I’ve found it practically impossible not to picture the hapless robber Ronnie Sessions in this title as Dewey Crowe from the Leonard TV adaptation Justified.) Here, a former getaway driver and all-around hard case is reluctantly brought back into the business for one last job, which of course goes south when his new partners don’t prove as reliably professional as he is. I admire how Cosby adopts almost a classic tragic structure for this tale, showing how the protagonist’s uber-competence is repeatedly derailed by the petty flaws of weaker men. It’s like Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, if Camelot were a criminal underworld in the dusty rural roads an hour outside Richmond.

A few coincidences in the plot seem artificially tidy, and it’s somewhat frustrating how several otherwise-smart torturers kill off their victims before even corroborating their information, when it’s fairly well-known that confessions made under duress aren’t always reliable. Or rather, it’s the fact that the narrative doesn’t ever punish or call out this assumption by having the intel turn out to be wrong that’s disappointing, I guess. But if you’re looking for a literary Fast and the Furious, a propulsive thriller that still finds time amid its heists and car chases to meditate on toxic masculinity and black fatherhood, this is absolutely the book for you.

[Content warning for gun violence including to a child, domestic abuse, gore, and racism including slurs.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: You Feel It Just Below the Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson

Book #346 of 2021:

You Feel It Just Below the Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson

This novel technically takes place in the dystopian setting of authors Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson’s “Within the Wires” podcast, but you don’t need to have listened to that first in order to enjoy it — all I’ve ever heard is the handful of sample episodes once shared on the “Welcome to Night Vale” feed, and even those don’t seem to hold any necessary continuity context or worldbuilding cues. I’m sure regular subscribers will pick up on references that I’ve missed, but overall, the volume stands fine on its own as a creepy alternate history and intimate character study of a woman whose research helped forge that society.

The book is presented as a found document, a memoir with added footnotes from its (fictitious) publisher. This format is rather clever, as it allows for multiple layers of unreliable narration when the two sources diverge. If the editor points out that some particular claim is contrary to the historical record — as occurs regularly throughout the text — it could be that the doctor is misremembering, that she is willfully obscuring the truth, that the official documentation of events is in error, or that someone else has intentionally suppressed the matter. Or even that the supposedly objective fact-checkers have their own fallibility and/or agenda, I suppose. There’s a delightfully tense ambiguity there, and readers may well suspect different possible interpretations at various junctures.

The story concerns the protagonist’s early life in the devastation of her version of World War I, which appears to have been even more cataclysmic than ours, followed by her subsequent career studying hypnosis and ways to break family ties as a way of dissolving ‘tribalism’ and thereby strengthening the state. That’s obviously horrific from our perspective, but I appreciate how the writers don’t go the easy route of making her a power-hungry mad scientist and antihero type. This is instead a tale of the banality of evil, where our viewpoint figure is a small cog in a vast machine who simply doesn’t fully realize how her findings are being used until it’s far too late to stop anything. It’s a nuanced portrait, no less gripping than the initial presentation of her childhood in the numbing day-to-day midst of a prolonged catastrophe.

Finally, the treatment of gender in this universe is subtle but noteworthy. Nearly all of the major players are women, including the heroine’s wife and other romantic partners, with no evidence for any strong discrimination. That’s never explicitly highlighted, but it helps to give the narrative a distinctive feel. And I just love the idea of an utterly noncontroversial mid-twentieth-century lesbian wedding, despite everything clearly wrong with the world around it by then.

[Content warning for medical experimentation, child abduction, death by trampling, gaslighting, and gore.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: Gods of Riverworld by Philip José Farmer

Book #345 of 2021:

Gods of Riverworld by Philip José Farmer (Riverworld #5)

This somewhat-vestigial sequel to the core Riverworld plot is actually an improvement over the past couple titles, although it’s still not great. Having finally reached the grand tower at the head of the river in the previous story, the remaining protagonists spend this one living amid its technological wealth, using its computers to view recorded memories, create android servants, resurrect their friends, and more. There are some interesting scenes here, and a general exploration of how godlike power corrupts whether you choose to share it or not, but the main problem is that everything seems so aimless, and so unconcerned with the developing civilization outside. The umpteenth retcon of the stakes and purpose of this world is rather frustrating, too.

The first quarter of the text at least deals with the threat of a stranger and/or secret traitor potentially stalking the group from hiding, but beyond that, we largely just get a sequence of disjointed episodes with no particular narrative momentum. In one chapter the characters are solving the Jack the Ripper case by raising the victims and prime suspects from the grave; in the next they’re being attacked by themed robots at an Alice in Wonderland tea party gone awry. These incidents are variably entertaining, but they don’t really connect to anything important or add up to much that would justify the book’s existence in the end.

[Content warning for sexism, fatphobia, homophobia, racism including slurs, rape, incest, pedophilia, and domestic abuse.]

This volume: ★★☆☆☆

Overall series: ★★☆☆☆

Volumes ranked: 2 > 1 > 5 > 3 > 4

Book Review: Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly

Book #344 of 2021:

Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch #14)

The Liam Neeson movie Taken came out in 2008, and it sure seems like author Michael Connelly was trying to ride its coattails for this Bosch novel the following year. The start of the story concerns a liquor store robbery-homicide that may have Triad connections, but when the detective starts looking into that, he receives a hostage video of his teenage daughter in Hong Kong, resulting in him hopping on the next available flight to track her down. She’s been moved to different sites within the city as her captors prepare to sell her for human trafficking and/or organ harvesting, but he’s able to use his police skills to retrace her steps (in an unofficial capacity, as the local authorities refuse to assist), leaving a huge casualty count in his wake.

Harry’s received this sort of action hero treatment before, but it never feels as grounded or interesting as his more methodical investigative work, and the whole book has some low-level xenophobia that further cuts against its effectiveness. The protagonist himself is called out at several points for racist assumptions and microaggressions, and although I guess it’s good that he’s learning, the narrative around him likewise relies on exoticizing the Asian element in L.A. and abroad and generally treating non-white bodies as disposable. The plot too involves a few frustrating coincidences and misconceptions, rather than the tighter mechanics this writer often provides. So overall I would say this is one of the weaker volumes of the series, even though it’s an important read for certain developments in the main character’s personal life.

[Content warning for gun violence and gore.]

★★☆☆☆