Book Review: Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

Book #154 of 2021:

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #14)

This 1936 novel sends Hercule Poirot to the site of an archaeological dig in Iraq, where a member of the expedition has just been murdered. (The action actually starts a bit earlier, as the story is narrated by a different character already at the scene — more on her below.) What ensues is a fairly standard case for the little Belgian detective, with two critical caveats.

First, the ultimate solution to the mystery is one of author Agatha Christie’s most outlandish yet. Despite spotting the culprit early on, I didn’t come anywhere near figuring out the whole extended motive. Yet I don’t feel bad, because it really is supremely ridiculous. It’s an instance too of the investigator making deductions that seem like interpretive guesswork instead of reasoned entailments of particular clues on the ground. Does the answer fit the available facts? Sure, more or less. But it’s hardly the only possible explanation that would, which renders the offered certainty of the affair pretty unsatisfying.

Moreover, the entire text is incredibly racist, even by the standards of this writer and her era. I’ve read over two dozen Christie books by now, and this one is the worst offender I’ve seen. There’s the expected exoticizing of the setting and its local population, but also plenty of slurs and casually derogatory remarks about dark-skinned and non-English-speaking people in general. The tale is voiced by a new one-off protagonist who sees Poirot himself as more bumbling and inarticulate than usual, so if we were to be very charitable, perhaps the bigotry is an intentional piece of characterization for her and not a full reflection of the Queen of Crime’s own feelings. Nevertheless, it’s a nasty business to witness and serves no apparent purpose in the narrative.

The shape of the plot is decent enough to grant this title two-out-of-five stars, but the flaws throughout are a major disappointment.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: White Gold Wielder by Stephen R. Donaldson

Book #153 of 2021:

White Gold Wielder by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #3)

A satisfying conclusion to this second trilogy in the Land, that mystic realm that can be understood as either a real place to which denizens of our world are magically summoned or an internal dreamscape in which they can work through their various psychological crises. From the former perspective, this era’s band of champions are returning from their disastrous sea voyage and seeking a new way to challenge the wicked Clave and their master the Despiser, who have been twisting the beauty of the natural environment to foul ends. From the latter viewpoint, stalwart antihero Thomas Covenant is desperately resisting the forces that are increasing his destructive power and striving to prove to himself that nonviolence can be an effective and meaningful response in the face of evil.

This book is also a changing-of-the-guard moment from the Unbeliever to his companion Linden Avery, who will henceforth be our main protagonist in the wider saga (although author Stephen R. Donaldson wouldn’t return to write her further travels in the Last Chronicles for another 21 years, breaking from the roughly annual schedule he’d maintained since 1977 over these first six releases). For the good doctor, her present conflict stems from a difficulty in trusting both her own impulses and those of her friends — believing that she sees truly when others caution against her instincts, and learning to accept that her allies may in turn have insights she lacks that should not be abrogated by her will and her newfound ability to possess people. In essence, she and the ur-Lord alike are working on restraint: him not to lash out in anger and her not to overrule the self-determination of anyone else.

As ever, the story works as a pure genre adventure as well, with thrilling combat scenes, wondrous wizardry, and pleasantly surprising reveals to a few outstanding mysteries. The characters are lovely, and while I’m not a huge fan of the Sunbane setting in general, this is a solid sendoff to its particular horrors. I’m so glad that we eventually got additional sequels, but this tale really could have functioned as a finale to the entire franchise, as I suppose it initially did.

[Content warning for sexual assault, suicide, and gore.]

This volume: ★★★★☆

Overall series: ★★★★☆

Volumes ranked: 2 > 3 > 1

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Book Review: The Lost Shtetl by Max Gross

Book #152 of 2021:

The Lost Shtetl by Max Gross

I expected to like this 2020 novel better from its premise, which is that an old Jewish town nestled in Poland’s forests somehow fell out of contact with the outside world, escaping the pogroms and the Nazi purge to remain undetected until the modern day. (Think Fiddler on the Roof crossed with M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village, roughly.) There’s an inherent poignancy in that idea of a pocket of Jews surviving the antisemitic horrors around them, as well as the patent potential for culture-clash comedy once the shtetl is rediscovered. Yet as it plays out here, there’s too much of a farce about the proceedings, and too much time spent chasing after threads of subplots that never really amount to anything. The tonal whiplash is a problem too, as when author Max Gross veers into heavily graphic details of the Holocaust when the residents finally learn about those atrocities. If this book could be trimmed down to its sharpest components, I think it would be a real winner. But as written, the effect is far more muted.

And it may be a smaller issue, but I also feel the glossary needs work — it’s very intrusive in the ebook version of the text, and many of the terms defined are either relatively clear from context or fairly basic concepts like Torah or challah that anyone even vaguely aware of Judaism should probably already know. This is an #ownvoices story from a particular perspective, and the unnecessary hand-holding to ensure gentile audiences understand every last Yiddishism leaves a further bad taste in my mouth.

Overall, I give the title three-out-of-five stars, reflecting a project with certain individual parts I’ve enjoyed well beyond their composite whole.

[Content warning for rape, slut-shaming, and racial slurs.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Visitor by K. A. Applegate

Book #151 of 2021:

The Visitor by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #2)

This first Animorphs sequel continues the thrilling fun of the debut, while simultaneously deepening the darker themes of the series. Turning into an animal and back is now described in a way that emphasizes the unnatural body horror of the experience, and the danger of succumbing to a morph’s instincts is even worse. In shrew form, Rachel is overwhelmed with the fear of a prey creature and fixated on its desire to eat maggots. That evening, she has a nightmare that wakes her in a cold sweat and sends her rushing to the toilet to hurl. Meanwhile, her friend Melissa is dealing with the crushing despair of not understanding why her parents don’t seem to love her anymore, unaware that they’ve been taken over by alien operatives. The previous volume wasn’t exactly a walk in the park either, setting up the stakes of the invasion that the kids are fighting against, but the ratio of wacky antics to existential terror is skewed further here.

It’s not a perfect story. Although the book takes a clever path to send the larger plot moving and show the group congealing into the trusting squad they’ll need to be, it also introduces one of my least favorite elements, the pointless rehashing of the premise as if readers can’t be trusted to pick up the novels in order and retain basic information across them. And I get it — the publisher wants to keep things accessible for folks who do assume they can just start anywhere and follow along. Harry Potter, another Scholastic project of the era, exhibits the same behavior. But I remember finding that frustratingly insulting during the initial monthly release schedule for this franchise, and it feels like it’s going to be maddening as I reread everything in quick succession as an adult.

The current adventure includes a bit of tedious 90s sexism too. I give credit to author K. A. Applegate for including the scene where the young teen protagonist is subjected to a pickup attempt by a catcalling “high school or college” aged driver as she walks home one day, and for letting her fend him off with her newfound abilities, but I groaned aloud when her teammates later blame her for being in that situation as though she’s the one who’s done anything wrong. Marco’s jokes at the heroine’s expense can likewise come off as a bit cruel. It’s hardly the most problematic piece of fiction for its time, but I hope these issues are merely a sign of everyone still settling into their long-term characterization.

On the worldbuilding front, we learn that the Yeerks are governed by a Council of Thirteen to whom the villainous Visser Three reports, and that his harshness towards his underlings is somewhat passed on from above. It’s an early look at the enemy factions and internal politics that will prove far more complicated than was apparent before. (I was expecting to detect Stargate SG-1 parallels in the parasitic infiltrators, but I’m starting to feel some Star Trek: Deep Space Nine vibes as well!) He also provides us with that indelible phrase “Andalite bandits” — reflecting the assumption that his opponents are fellow nonhumans instead of local resistance fighters — which will recur with surprising frequency from here on out.

All in all, this isn’t the slam dunk of its predecessor, but it’s a strong demonstration of how the narrative could continue to unfold in a serialized fashion that’s worth investing in.

[Content warning for gaslighting, claustrophobia, and gore.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Red Threads of Fortune by Neon Yang

Book #150 of 2021:

The Red Threads of Fortune by Neon Yang (Tensorate #2)

A nice return to the fantasy setting of The Black Tides of Heaven, where children are raised gender-neutral and announce themselves as something else only if/when they’re ready. This spinoff sequel doesn’t really develop the worldbuilding or larger plot much further, but it picks up a dangling thread from the first volume and follows a side character who lost her young daughter to explore how grief and trauma continue to reshape her life and relationships. There’s a new romance with a nonbinary adult as well, which is particularly lovely to see from author Neon Yang, who is nonbinary themself.

Unlike the previous story, which spanned several decades via judicious time-skips, this one reads as a more contained adventure, with a little court intrigue and a whole lot of monster-hunting. I’m not even sure which approach I prefer, but I think staging them in this order is beneficial to each. There are a lot of questions I feel I would have about this novella if I had checked it out beforehand, despite how the writer has advertised the texts as standalone twins. But the existing foundation serves to set up the quieter focus that this book uses to good effect.

[Content warning for misgendering.]

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Justified, season 5

TV #48 of 2021:

Justified, season 5

A very meandering plot, especially after the intricate construction of the Drew Thompson case last season. The Crowes are more bumbling sideshow than credible threat to anyone, and too much screentime is dedicated to Ava’s stint in a women’s prison — a pretty blatant ripoff of Orange Is the New Black, which had just recently launched on Netflix. (I don’t even mind the shameless copying, but the storyline there never grows interesting enough to justify how often we check in on it.) Visits to Florida, Detroit, Canada, and Mexico don’t ultimately amount to a lot, either. And then Mary Steenburgen’s criminal mastermind figure pops in for a few episodes simply to generate some intrigue for the final year, without actually providing any payoff or concrete characterization in the here and now.

The writers also continue to treat white supremacy as a regrettable phase in Boyd and a harmless joke in Dewey, two equally dubious propositions. They want to position the former as a wily operator who wasn’t truly part of the cause and the latter as endearing comic relief in a hapless Fargo sort of way, but the stark horror of the ideology gets in the way of that, at least for this viewer. Honestly: why does the camera linger on their Nazi tattoos if we’re meant to root for these delinquents in any fashion? Why does Dewey answer a knock at his door saying he’s only interested if Hitler has risen from the grave? That type of nonsense was already irritating at the beginning of the show, and it’s beyond frustrating that we haven’t grown past it so near the end.

I know it can seem like I’m focusing primarily on the negatives in this kind of review, so here’s my standard boilerplate that Justified is, overall, a competently entertaining program with some fun Elmore Leonard-inspired Kentucky color in its dialogue. (That author of the original short story that begat this narrative passed away sometime after the previous finale, although he’s still credited as an executive producer throughout this run, so presumably he remained involved with its development.) The three-star rating indicates that I’ve liked this penultimate stretch more than I’ve disliked the thing, and I’m on-board to see how everything wraps up next. But with the talented cast and other components available, the setup for the endgame could have been a lot stronger, too.

[Content warning for gun violence, sexual assault, torture, gore, police misconduct, and racism.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don’t by Lane Moore

Book #149 of 2021:

How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don’t by Lane Moore

Somewhere between essay collection and memoir, this debut title from comedian Lane Moore covers a lot of ground with a few puzzling omissions. The author tells us her childhood dream was to write for The Onion, for instance, but then provides little exposition on what it’s like when she finally does work there. Or she describes the difficulty in adjusting after life in an abusive household, but neglects to mention any specifics about that particular environment she’s escaped. (Moore of course owes no one the details of her trauma, but the text is less effective for only glancing obliquely off the subject.)

In and around these gaps, there’s some compelling material: on the tense dynamic of young friends who can’t quite admit they might be queer and into one another, on male romantic entitlement, on daily mental health struggles, on having no one close enough to trust as an emergency contact, and beyond. But there’s an abrasiveness also, as when the writer — whose parents are apparently hurtful, but very much alive! — complains about other people using the word “orphan” to describe their temporary situation. The emotion is raw, yet not always endearing.

In a more complete project, the bad could perhaps be tempered with the good, but as written, the overall effect is too scattershot to wholly land for me; the observational humor too lacking in a throughline to build up a coherent picture of the voice behind it all.

[Content warning for rape, incest, fatphobia, biphobia, and domestic abuse.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed

Book #148 of 2021:

On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed

In the conclusion to this book, author Annette Gordon-Reed describes it as a “brief sketch of the history of Texas told through vignettes of my family.” And that’s pretty accurate, I would say. Despite what the title suggests, it is mostly not about Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating when Texan slaves were finally freed (over two years after the Civil War had drawn to a close). Instead, it is a blend of historical account and memoir, painting a vivid picture of the state that is far more textured than the common cowboy stereotypes, as well as providing a glimpse of what it was like for the writer to grow up there during the Civil Rights era, the first black student to ever attend her elementary school. Gordon-Reed is a historian by trade, and so she brings to the text both a detailed knowledge of local events and a keen critical insight into how race and racism have shaped them. The resulting essay collection is short but impactful, even if not quite what I was expecting to find.

[Content warning for gun violence, rape, and lynching.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel José Older

Book #147 of 2021:

Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel José Older (Dactyl Hill Squad #1)

This is a fun little historical fantasy romp. Dinosaurs in the Civil War era! A mostly-POC cast including a protagonist who can control the animals with her mind! But as with many middle-grade projects, the characters don’t always feel like they have much depth to them, and the worldbuilding seems somewhat incomplete. (Surely if prehistoric beasts had survived into the 19th century alongside human domesticators, there would be some pretty noticeable differences from our own timeline.)

I’m also not sold by the decision to use modern language like “aw, man,” “super-secret,” and “butthurt,” which author Daniel José Older explains in an afterword is meant to keep the story accessible but only makes it harder for me to get into the spirit of things here. It’s still a solid adventure overall, and I suspect younger readers will like it better than I have, but I’m satisfied to walk away without following the larger plot into the sequels.

[Content warning for slavery and racism.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: True or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News by Cindy L. Otis

Book #146 of 2021:

True or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News by Cindy L. Otis

Despite the how-to title, this book is mostly a popular history of misinformation — and a spotty and jumbled one at that. Author Cindy L. Otis jumps from Jack the Ripper to Emperor Justinian to America’s Founding Fathers with no clear organizing argument, and she never quite gets around to presenting an operationalized definition of her subject either. (Is yellow journalism akin to the modern phenomenon of fake news? Perhaps. But it’s not immediately apparent why the War of the Worlds radio hoax, Nazi propaganda, and so forth should all fall under that umbrella as well.) She also, it probably goes without saying, says nothing at all about the CIA’s own sordid record of distorting the truth, instead limiting discussion on her employer to a few anodyne remarks about how she’s enjoyed working there and being trained to think critically.

The remainder of the text is not much better, offering common-sense principles of checking the source of what you’re reading, looking for outside confirmation, not believing or sharing an article from the headline alone, and so on. The writer makes a few tiresome conflations too: no, The Daily Show is not satire just because it offers humorous commentary on current events. No, it’s not automatically an issue that so many people report getting their information “from social media” when that ignores which users and pages they might consider trustworthy on there. And no, you can’t simply say that Thomas Jefferson “had children with Sally Hemings, a black woman he kept as a slave.” He raped her, and a 2020 publication shouldn’t downplay that.

I’m sympathetic to the fact that this volume seems to have been written for a younger audience and is coming from a noble motivation to help them sift through falsehoods in a complex digital ecosystem. But that’s no excuse for how poorly that intention has been executed throughout.

★★☆☆☆

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