The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

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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Book Review: The Invasion by K. A. Applegate

Book #145 of 2021:

The Invasion by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #1)

At the start of this long-overdue series reread, I am struck by how well the first Animorphs book holds up decades on, both from the perspective of a now-older reader and as a cultural artifact removed from its original pre-9/11 context. (The last title was released in May 2001 when I was 13, after five years and 60+ installments.) The debut volume is compact but efficient, introducing the characters and core premise — five young teens are granted the ability to shapeshift into animals to fight the body-snatching aliens secretly infiltrating the earth — with a skill that most TV pilots would envy. It also sends the gang off on their initial adventure, and builds to a key development that reinforces the grave stakes they’re up against.

A few details ring oddly to me in light of remembered later reveals — like the eventual backstory between Elfangor and Visser Three, which author K. A. Applegate doesn’t seem to have invented yet — but on its own terms, it’s hard to imagine a better launch to the franchise. Jake is a fine leading hero to introduce us to this world, brave but struggling with the mantle of responsibility, and although I think cycling through the team for narrators in each sequel is a smart creative decision, he’s a good headliner given his function as a hub for the group’s existing connections and the personal angle of his brother Tom’s involvement with the Yeerks.

The larger plot ends up going down some weird rabbit holes, but for now it’s a tight story of these friends, who already feel well-defined and distinctive even without the additional depth they’ll acquire as they become battle-hardened and forced to deal with the hurt and loss ahead. (I’m kind of amazed these books were marketed to / so popular with children, but there will be time to dig into that in further reviews. The fun dynamic of kids turning into different species is undeniably entertaining, but it masks a lot of trauma that I’m not sure our parents truly understood about what we were reading. And I’m interested to find out how that sits with me now as an adult and father myself.)

My rating may be somewhat nostalgia-based, but I’ve had a blast re-engaging with this universe and am looking forward to seeing the rest of it again. It’s a great sci-fi tale all around, not just for the middle-grade Scholastic audience I used to be.

★★★★★

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Book Review: A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

Book #144 of 2021:

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (Teixcalaan #2)

This sci-fi sequel has a broader scope than its Hugo-winning predecessor, which is both a blessing and a curse. Additional viewpoint characters help flesh out the Aztec-inspired Teixcalaan culture beyond Mahit’s outsider perspective, and the court intrigue is joined by some delightful xenolinguistic fieldwork in a first contact situation with a strange species in the middle of a galactic war zone. We also get a more explicit queer romance between the ambassador and Three Seagrass, the woman who had previously been her guide around the imperial city-planet. (Plus, it’s just fun to read about their ally Twenty Cicada during a season when Brood X has emerged from its long hibernation to serenade my local countryside.)

On the other hand, I miss the cozier atmosphere of the original story, which seemed to use its big ideas in service to the heart of the narrative rather than the opposite here. I’ve also found the alien hivemind to be somewhat derivative of typical genre tropes compared to the last novel’s distinctive invention of an inherited memory device, and the new protagonist who’s a precocious eleven-year-old doesn’t prove his worth until near the end of the book — which together give echoes of Ender’s Game that I don’t feel this series particularly needed.

Overall, it’s still a compelling look at assimilation and empire from without and within, and I adore all the time spent with our returning heroine and the long-dead voices in her head. But on balance, I do think I prefer the previous volume.

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

[Content warning for body horror / gore.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Book #143 of 2021:

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

This 1963 title has long been on my radar as a foundational text of antiracism, and you can definitely see a throughline from its essay “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation” to Ta-Nehisi Coates writing Between the World and Me to his own son another half-century later. Like that successor piece, it’s a challenging and prescient read on white fragility, the occasional bleakness of minority existence in a racist society, and the difficult road ahead for true racial equality.

Most of this collection, however, is given over to “Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind,” in which author James Baldwin muses on his Christian upbringing and the factors that are drawing so many of his contemporaries to leave the church for the Nation of Islam. This part is interesting historically, but it feels less urgently relevant today, particularly for a reader outside either faith tradition. There’s also some slight antisemitism in how the writer discusses Judaism and Jewish people, although his claim that white Americans were more shocked than black Americans to learn that white Germans could carry out the atrocities of the Holocaust is worth sitting with.

As a whole, though, I don’t know that the book resonates enough to still be considered essential in our modern era.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Red Glove by Holly Black

Book #142 of 2021:

Red Glove by Holly Black (The Curse Workers #2)

I’m still not comfortable with the ethical implications of the memory and emotion manipulation magic in the Curse Workers setting, but I like how this sequel finds the hero himself grappling with the problematic nature of his family’s abilities as well. At the end of the previous novel — spoiler alert! — the girl he had unrequited feelings for was forced to love him back, and his internal conflict to not take advantage of that situation and try to wait out the spell makes for great drama with thematic resonance to real issues of, say, fending off an inebriated partner’s advances.

Our protagonist is less of a dupe in the new main plot too, and is given more opportunity to show off his con artist skills. I had a hard time in the first book accepting how such a purportedly slick operator could be so easily led astray, so it’s a nice change of pace to see him on top of his game here, yet simultaneously more honest with his own friends. And the characters whose personalities I particularly disliked before are either substantially changed (Lila) or largely absent (Grandpa).

All things considered, I suspect this trilogy will never be one of my favorite series, but this middle volume is enough of an improvement over the debut for me to bump up my rating accordingly, making this the best work I’ve read from author Holly Black yet.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Killing Eve, season 3

TV #47 of 2021:

Killing Eve, season 3

After a strong opening stretch that set up a compelling queer romance amid its bleak comedy, this series has really plummeted in quality, with this latest run by far its weakest yet. The open questions about character loyalties that were once intriguing have never been satisfactorily answered, but the narrative has moved on instead of actually resolving them. The main cast members have such absurd levels of plot armor that nothing feels like a plausible threat even when they’re nominally working at cross-purposes and/or facing mortal peril. And fairly basic driving motivations have been ignored, to the point where it’s generally impossible these days to say why anyone on the program is doing anything, ever.

Killing Eve famously changes showrunner every season — an experiment that it now seems safe to conclude has not been especially successful — so here are a few rudimentary issues for the writing team to address in its upcoming fourth and final iteration. For each protagonist:

1) What exactly does this person want to achieve?

2) What actions are they taking towards that goal?

3) What obstacles are they encountering?

4) What steps are they pursuing to solve those problems?

At the best moments this year, I could confidently respond to maybe the first prompt for some portion of the show’s ensemble. And without that fundamental grounding, there’s no particular reason to get invested and care about any of the action that follows, no matter our residual affection for the title or how entertaining certain individual scenes may still be.

[Content warning for gore.]

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

Book #141 of 2021:

Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

This novella follows its protagonist from his birth during the Rodney King riots through childhood, falling in with the local gang, an eight-year prison sentence, and ultimately parole in a near-future still plagued with contemporary social problems, while also featuring periodic glances at his older sister’s developing control over her telepathic/telekinetic powers. There’s the core of a decent story here, but all the time-skips render it a pretty fragmentary affair, and the psychic element in particular feels far too under-explained. To the extent that the plot works regardless, it’s because author Tochi Onyebuchi leans on existing reader familiarity with such tropes to fill in the gaps on our own. But it’s hard to achieve much specificity in either the characters or their world with that approach.

[Content warning for racism including police brutality and slurs.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie

Book #140 of 2021:

The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #13)

A delightful change of pace for the clever Belgian detective, finding him matching wits with a serial killer who sends him taunting letters before each successive murder. It’s a surprisingly modern premise from author Agatha Christie, but unlike the similarly divergent The Big Four — which turns Poirot into a bona fide secret agent, to disastrous effect — it doesn’t strain the credibility of the overall franchise. This does still feel like a case the protagonist could plausibly get involved with, and it plays out in just enough of a new key to shake up reader preconceptions throughout the ensuing investigation. The ultimate solution is rather ingenious too, and even though it had been spoiled for me in outside discussions of the writer’s best twists, it’s a joy to see all the pieces falling into place for myself.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: The Americans, season 3

TV #46 of 2021:

The Americans, season 3

Another strong year of the deep-cover Cold War drama, albeit without as clear a throughline in thematic material or plot. Season one was largely focused on parallels between the Jennings marriage and its accompanying spy partnership, and the next one turned to the protagonists’ role as parents, but this third one feels a little less defined.

Things definitely happen! The oft-mentioned Gabriel arrives in the form of a machiavellian Frank Langella, the bug in Gaad’s office is discovered, and certain close associates finally learn they’ve been deceived by Philip and/or Elizabeth, a nice source of tension in both the lead-up and the fallout. But there doesn’t seem to be as much of a purposeful structure undergirding these developments, and I’m personally unconvinced that keeping Nina in the picture past her natural exit point in the previous finale is quite paying off yet.

Episode by episode, the espionage antics are still tautly tense and thrilling, but the larger movement appears more concerned with setting up future events than delivering too many of the fireworks now. It’s a throat-clearing stretch of the narrative, which is likely necessary for the eventual endgame and includes some fine quieter character moments, but hopefully portends greater excitement ahead.

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

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Saturday Night Live, season 46

TV #45 of 2021:

Saturday Night Live, season 46

I may be grading on a curve here, but the erstwhile sketch comedy series bounced back pretty strong from (or rather, during) COVID-19. Following the few “SNL at Home” episodes that closed out the past season, it was sort of a relief to see the gang return to the studio in the fall, and I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed the show feeling quite so topical outside of politics. The skits about masks and distancing and everything else from this pandemic may not age well, but they’ve been a definite balm for a troubled time. Retiring Alec Baldwin’s Trump caricature is also a nice change of pace, even if none of the various Bidens trotted out this run seems as aptly drawn just yet.

As far as the new cast members go, Andrew Dismukes has a bit of a Mulaney energy to him, especially coming in from the writers room like he has, although neither he nor the other two have left as big an impression as, say, the previous year’s additions of Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman. Granted, the ensemble is now fairly huge with no departures since the last finale, so I’m sure it’s a challenge to give everyone enough airtime. Anyway, it can be hard to approach this type of program critically, but it’s reliably made me laugh, and that counts for a lot.

★★★★☆

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