The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Firestorm by John Peel

Book #137 of 2025:

Firestorm by John Peel (2099 #6)

After a couple weaker entries that passed without much action, the final volume of this middle-grade sci-fi series thankfully delivers with a bang. Everyone is scrambling to defeat the villain Devon’s terrorist threat to end all life on Earth (via a crashing ship full of radioactive material), his additional scheme to do the same to the moon (by blowing up the colony’s power supply), his former bosses’ attempt to evade capture by fleeing to Mars, and the fascist uprising that their other underling already has underway out there. Phew! With such a diffuse plot, the storyline is understandably a bit scattered, but it’s all exciting enough to result in a propulsive pageturner nonetheless.

I do have a few minor quibbles. I don’t love how the politician who keeps inappropriately asking out his subordinate gets rewarded by her now seeming to welcome his advances, and I miss the creative worldbuilding that fueled these novels early on. The setting of this last adventure feels like more of a generic future, which makes it harder to overlook the inherent silliness of the idea that the three teenage clones were specifically bred for their resulting skill at computer hacking alone. In addition, a certain character who hasn’t really had anything meaningful to contribute for several books in a row is again largely left out, which raises the obvious question of why they’re still around at this point.

But ultimately, this is good fun. The Tristan/Genia romance angle even pays off, and Jame’s side of the story finally connects more fully with the others. I don’t know that I’ll ever feel the need to reread this sequence again, but I can see why it stuck in my head for twenty-five years, and this title marks a satisfying conclusion to the affair.

[Content warning for suicide, gun violence, and violence against children.]

This volume: ★★★★☆

Overall series: ★★★★☆

Volumes ranked: 2 > 1 > 3 > 6 > 4 > 5

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Book Review: Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth by Simon R. Green

Book #136 of 2025:

Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth by Simon R. Green (Nightside #6)

A satisfying enough conclusion to the initial arc of this early 2000s urban fantasy series. The protagonist’s mother has been built up as the big bad of the Nightside over all the previous volumes, and here her threat is finally faced head-on and resolved. In the process we also see the end of the Authorities, which means that their agent Walker will have to keep all the unruly denizens in line by himself going forward — a decent writing choice, as his now-former bosses were always a vague shadowy lot while he’s an actual character with a personality and history with our hero. Meanwhile, that supernatural detective is still adjusting to the romance that developed with his friend Suzie in the last installment.

It’s all fine, but not as creative as author Simon R. Green at his best, and the action largely amounts to repeated scenes of slaughter and flight as the good guys scramble to find a way to defeat their all-powerful enemy. (Somewhat hilariously, the novel has a few copyright-winking references to Doctor Who that are matched by a further unintentional one with a mention of weeping angel statues in a graveyard. That’s either timey-wimey or sheer coincidence, since this book came out over a year before the episode Blink.) Ultimately of course they manage to save the day, and the setting survives the ordeal even if not all the named characters do.

So the plot doesn’t overstay its welcome, but it’s not exactly a high point, either. A midrange 3-star rating seems fair.

[Content warning for gun violence and gore.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene

Book #135 of 2025:

The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene

[Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with one of the editors.]

Stephen King’s 1978 novel The Stand is a massive post-apocalyptic classic — over 1100 pages in its revised 1990 edition — that now has a hefty companion tome of its own: this new collection of stories set in the same continuity, written by an impressive roster of King’s fellow horror authors. Those 34 tales amount to an additional 800 pages, thrusting us back into his modern American epic of a deadly pandemic and its supernatural aftermath.

One of the neater aspects of the original book was always its implied scope, which is recreated nicely here. With a plague killing off all but a fraction of the Earth’s population, it just makes sense that there would be other struggles we didn’t get to see before, and this crop of writers has risen admirably to the challenge, generally managing to spin out their versions of the Captain Trips apocalypse in miniature that don’t contradict one another or ever feel repetitive. I especially appreciate those that showcase how circumstances outside the U.S. reacted to the disease and subsequent societal breakdown, like Usman T. Malik’s “The Mosque at the End of the World” (set in Pakistan) or Tim Lebbon’s “Grace” (aboard a crashing space shuttle). Other contributors likewise find interesting distinctive takes on the material, like the nonhuman perspective in Catriona Ward’s “The African Painted Dog,” while plenty offer more straightforward but no less gripping small-scale survival quests.

Perhaps inevitably, there are a few misfires. I personally hated Paul Tremblay’s novel The Pallbearers Club, so I wasn’t thrilled to discover that his submission “The Story I Tell Is the Story of Some of Us” is a sequel to that, which feels a bit egotistical and not in the spirit of the thing to me, connecting his work to King’s. (Even worse, his hero is directly told that he’s the most important person left alive, who can guarantee victory to either Flagg’s or Mother Abigail’s side if he casts his lot with them. In general I like how this book reveals further moves and countermoves that were playing out in their psychic war without us knowing, but to suggest that your own creation is the fulcrum of all that is really a bit much!) A few of the entries also stray too far from the established canon in my opinion, such as Poppy Z. Brite’s invention of a bizarre hypersexual mermaid creature in “Till Human Voices Wake Us, and We Drown.”

Mostly, though, this is a strong offering. I think you could even enjoy it without the context of having read The Stand first — although I don’t know why you’d want to, and there are loads of winking references to its characters and events that you’d surely miss. (Heck, I’m sure there’s some I didn’t pick up on myself, since it’s been over a decade since my last reread.) We even get links to other King sagas like The Dark Tower, as is only fitting, and the general vibe throughout is of fans who are loving a chance to play around in this particular sandbox. Truly a volume for Constant Readers, by Constant Readers.

[Content warning for gun violence, domestic abuse, animal cruelty, suicide, rape, racism, homophobia, and gore.]

★★★★☆

TV Review: The Sopranos, season 2

TV #44 of 2025:

The Sopranos, season 2

Even more so than in its debut, this second run of The Sopranos feels built around its quieter domestic scenes rather than the explosive moments of mob violence that periodically surface to puncture them. Richie Aprile, for example, is instantly recognizable as a certain character type: the dangerous antagonist introduced at the top of an arc who will come increasingly into conflict with the hero(es) as the story unfolds, like Kavanaugh on season 5 of The Shield, Vee on season 2 of Orange Is the New Black, or so forth. And yet he never quite becomes as central to the plot as that typical pattern would suggest, and just when he’s finally emerging as a serious threat, he’s dispatched from an altogether unexpected direction.

Instead this era gives greater prominence to the protagonist’s emotional adjustment to his new leadership role, along with the increasing strain from his criminal activities on the rest of his family. While one major subplot involves a friend snitching on him to the FBI, there’s less of the jostling power struggles of the year before, as though we’re primarily watching the downtime between such moves at this point.

The biggest letdown is the reduced focus on Tony’s elderly mother, which I assume was due to the actress’s failing health, as I know she died soon after this string of episodes had aired. She was such an important aspect of the show’s first season that she’s missed in her limited appearances here, although at least her antihero son has his hands full with the arrival of his estranged sister Janice, who’s initially set up as a free-spirited West Coast transplant but rapidly falls back into the Jersey version of herself she long thought she’d outgrown.

It’s still a solid drama, in other words, even if nobody’s fooled for an instant into believing Dr. Melfi has a place in the series if she doesn’t take her mafia patient back as a client again. There are a few too many dream sequences for my tastes, and the cameos from famous fans like Jon Favreau and Janeane Garofalo playing fictionalized versions of themselves don’t really work for me either, but these are minor quibbles overall. It’s for the most part a continued strong exploration of one particular angry and depressed man in turn-of-the-century America, who even with the help of therapy — and the comfortable lifestyle provided by his ill-gotten gains — can’t ever seem to turn his troubles around.

[Content warning for gun violence, suicide, alcohol abuse, racism including slurs, and gore.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: At the Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard

Book #134 of 2025:

At the Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard (Lays of the Hearth-Fire #2)

The Hands of the Emperor is my very favorite novel, which perhaps paradoxically is why I took my time in getting to this direct sequel. While Hands remains a great entry point for the wider Nine Worlds fantasy setting, author Victoria Goddard has by now written over 30 other titles that make up that loose Discworld-style tapestry, and since her works often contain sly allusions to one another, I decided to be a completionist before finally picking up this one.

(In truth, however, that level of homework isn’t strictly necessary. I do think a reader could go straight from the first Lays of the Hearth-Fire volume to here without feeling lost, with the understanding that the characters will occasionally reference events you could read firsthand in The Return of Fitzroy Angursell and The Redoutable Pali Avramapul in particular.)

So: our protagonist is once again Cliopher Mdang, who rose from a backwater island province to become the second-most powerful person in the former empire. Along the way he learned to be a better advocate for both himself and his home culture and forged a tentative friendship with the man he’d once called his Radiancy. At the end of the previous tale, that ruler had left the government in Kip’s trusted hands while he embarked on a personal quest to find his magical heir, reunite with some old friends from his pre-imperial days, and generally rediscover who he could be outside of the palace strictures.

When we pick back up with the stalwart viceroy, he is capably fulfilling his assigned duties, although also beginning to make arrangements to step back from power himself. In time, he too departs from the familiar bounds of Solaara to go traveling: sometimes on his own, sometimes with one or more companions, and eventually into the heightened mystical realm of his people’s mythology. In the process, he claims his place as an epic hero in his own right, as well as an equal partner for the man he’d long served with such tender fealty.

Yes, this is a romance, albeit a pretty slow burn. I’d argue that was always/only a possible reading of the men’s dynamic in the last book, but this volume pushes it further into an explicit love story. Kip loves the ex-emperor — whose identity is more complicated than readers who skipped over the peripheral entries may realize — and will go to extraordinary lengths to prove himself worthy of him in return. Both figures, as it happens, are attempting to navigate that shift in their relationship, and a lot of the ensuing plot involves the two of them having a series of frank conversations tentatively feeling out one another and their respective traumas and misconceptions. One specific sticking point is that Cliopher is asexual, and the islander finds he has trouble articulating the sort of intimacy he’s looking for without hurting his would-be lover in rejecting his physical advances.

It’s thrilling to see them gradually emerge from those talks and establish themselves as a true romantic couple, and not only for the continued queernormativity of this cozy fantasy saga. (In so many ways, this is everything I wanted and never quite got from Robin Hobb’s Fitz and the Fool sequence. There are references to homophobia — and transphobia including deadnaming — but in the firm context of historical wrongs that have thankfully been set aside.) Their journeys together and apart read like a fairy tale filtered through the distinctive cultural lens of the Wide Sea Islanders, whose Polynesian-inspired traditions are even more prominent here than before. We get answers to a few longstanding mysteries, appearances from beloved favorites in all their domestic bliss, and of course significant promises of even further excitement ahead.

It’s a messy work of necessity, transitioning from the quiet political rhythms of the previous installment to this grand nautical adventure. Early on, the hero spends an extended interlude in a parallel reality where his past self made a different choice at some key juncture, which is a genre switch that’s mostly earned but can likewise seem a little jarring in the moment. As a result I don’t ultimately feel the novel is as strong or cohesive as its predecessor, but I’ve definitely still enjoyed it and am already looking forward to my next reread of that one with the knowledge of the closeness these two lonely souls will someday attain.

★★★★☆

TV Review: Classic Doctor Who, season 20

TV #43 of 2025:

Classic Doctor Who, season 20

Doctor Who’s 1983 season may not have any all-time classic stories, but overall it’s a fun watch that I would say is stronger than the sum of its parts. The big idea for the twentieth anniversary run was to feature returning villains in every serial, and while some of those are a bit silly for a landmark celebration — the Mara was introduced only the year before, which was also the last time we saw the Master — it is neat to get the Black Guardian and Omega again for the first time since 1979 and 1973, respectively. (The Daleks, likewise absent since 1979, were originally planned to appear here as well, before their adventure was delayed to the following year due to an electricians strike.) And although not a baddie, the Doctor’s old soldier friend the Brig makes a return visit too, after appearing regularly on the show from 1970 to 1975.

There’s also interesting movement on the companions front, starting with Tegan coming back just one serial after she had departed at the end of season 19. Nyssa then bows out midway through the year — sadly setting a probable record for the most under-utilized cast member ever — but she stays just long enough to meet her replacement humanoid alien, Turlough. He’s a character type we haven’t seen on the TARDIS before: both in the plot sense that he’s secretly working for a villain ordering him to betray and kill the Time Lord and in that he is very clearly (if problematically) queer-coded — an aesthete and cowardly schoolboy established leading a classmate astray, subsequently falling under the corrupting influence of another older male figure, and so on. I don’t know to what extent that characterization was intentional, but it’s not hard to read him through such a lens, especially given how the current series producer John Nathan-Turner was an out gay man himself.

Finally, the very last episode introduces another new companion / companion type in Kamelion the shapeshifting robot, although technical difficulties with the unit — they built an actual machine to walk around for some reason! — would considerably shortchange the character going forward.

In summary it’s an entertaining and ambitious outing for the venerable science-fiction program, and though the classic series ultimately wouldn’t make it to a full three decades, this is a nice way to mark the first two. Even better is the choice to more fully reflect on the show’s complete history that year with the upcoming anniversary special The Five Doctors, which I’ll be reviewing as a separate film.

Serials ranked from worst to best:

★★☆☆☆
ARC OF INFINITY (20×1 – 20×4)

★★★☆☆
TERMINUS (20×13 – 20×16)
SNAKEDANCE (20×5 – 20×8)

★★★★☆
THE KING’S DEMONS (20×21 – 20×22)
MAWDRYN UNDEAD (20×9 – 20×12)
ENLIGHTENMENT (20×17 – 20×20)

Overall rating for the season: ★★★★☆

Book Review: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Book #133 of 2025:

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

I haven’t loved this 1980 Italian classic as much as I expected to from the premise, which seems like it should be right up my alley: two fourteenth-century monks investigating a string of suspicious deaths at a secluded monastery. They aren’t called detectives, but their methods are plainly modeled off their literary forebears like Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie‘s various leads, and that genre mashup is initially pretty fun. It wears out its welcome well before the end, however, devolving instead into endless church politics and a proto-Da Vinci Code conclusion (which I’ve personally found to be too heavily telegraphed / guessable to land with any particular impact).

Author Umberto Eco has done his homework, at least! The setting feels suitably immersive, and the characters have believable biases and focal interests for the era. I can admire the craft, despite finding it somewhat tiresome in actual practice.

[Content warning for sexism, racism, homophobia, and antisemitism.]

★★★☆☆

TV Review: Bob’s Burgers, season 15

TV #42 of 2025:

Bob’s Burgers, season 15

I’m rounding up a bit on the basis of the delightful (if sadly relatable) finale “InsomniBob,” which finds our hero growing increasingly unhinged as he sacrifices sleep for extra creativity time in his ‘night kitchen,’ but overall, this is another winning season from the Bob’s Burgers crew. The best episodes go to some dark places amid the comedy — “Boogie Days” involving certain characters’ near-drowning and “Dog Christmas Day After Afternoon” featuring the very real possibility of the titular animal dying when it runs away after eating chocolate — but it’s still a reliable source of laughs, too.

I don’t have much more to say about the animated sitcom that I haven’t written ad-nauseum before, and it’s not like this run represents any significant break from previous years, either. But Fox just renewed the show for an additional four seasons, so I guess I’ll be on this beat for a while yet regardless. Not that I’m complaining! It’s not structurally daring enough to ever be a serious favorite of mine, but it excels at delivering a comforable hangout watch that can occasionally push forward into true excellence. That’s worth a four-star rating, more or less.

★★★★☆

Book Review: Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley

Book #132 of 2025:

Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley

Reading almost like a cross between Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones & The Six and Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, this 2025 novel traces a tumultuous creative partnership throughout the first decade of the 21st century. (The title has a double meaning — not just obscure musical selections, but also the sort of sharp wounds that can only be inflicted by the people who know you best.) Sometimes songwriting collaborators, sometimes romantic partners, and sometimes not even speaking to one another, the two central characters repeatedly come together and apart again as they navigate their changing lives and the wider culture around them.

I honestly haven’t gotten very much out of the many actual songs that are name-dropped in the book, but I appreciate the more general touchstones: the transition from CDs to mp3s to YouTube, for instance, or the background Bush-era politics and eventual recession. I came of age in that era, and the nostalgia factor is a considerable part of this volume’s appeal. For readers who do love the music itself, there’s an official Spotify playlist collecting everything that gets mentioned herein: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ZN7YF1Kn24S2kaEGF5JOz

My strongest critique is that I want the story to be longer. I really enjoy the heroine in all her dysfunction, and I’m so curious to learn what happens next in her personal journey, either with or without the guy! I likewise think it might have been worthwhile to incorporate him into the text as a second narrator; as is, he occasionally disappears from the narrative for literal years on end, with minimal explanation of what he’s been doing in the meantime whenever the estranged lovers reconnect. We’re pretty immersively grounded in her perspective and the minutiae of her life, which makes him feel a lot less substantial by comparison.

But overall, I’d say that this is a delightful and impressive debut from author Holly Brickley, whose career I’ll be following with great interest.

[Content warning for sexual assault and drug abuse.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: Murdle: Volume 2 by G. T. Karber

Book #131 of 2025:

Murdle: Volume 2 by G. T. Karber

Roughly comparable to Volume 1, in that it’s a collection of bite-size murder mysteries in the form of 100 logic-grid puzzles of increasing difficulty, linked together into a loose ongoing storyline. Once again, half of the entries incorporate not only straightforward clues, but also witness statements where the secretly guilty suspect is always lying, which adds an extra wrinkle to deduce.

The challenge is fun enough and the comedic tone remains amusing, but I don’t think the underlying plot of the book is as strong as the last one, nor do I feel like author G. T. Karber has noticeably improved his game for this sequel. Instead, I was occasionally frustrated by reader-unfriendly design choices throughout, like very similar row or column icons used within the space of a single puzzle. And unless I’m mistaken, the penultimate item #99 is actually unsolvable as printed, so that’s obviously disappointing. (I haven’t seen any other reviews mentioning this, but I did find a Reddit thread with a few people complaining about the same thing, and no one rebutting them: https://www.reddit.com/r/murdle/comments/1fff1iu/volume_2_puzzle_99).

Three-out-of-five stars for a flawed but generally enjoyable experience seems fair. And since one of my kids has already gotten me a copy of the next installment, I suppose I’ll be continuing on with the series regardless.

★★★☆☆