The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

Book #91 of 2021:

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert (The Hazel Wood #1)

Quite a lot in this YA portal fantasy doesn’t work for me, but I think it mostly comes down to the characters. Alice, our protagonist — yes, this is largely a riff on Alice in Wonderland — is just so angry and irrational throughout, and I never get the sense that anything is particularly justifying that authorial choice, even after we learn more about her origins and her mysterious family history. There’s also a dweeby love interest who seems to like her better whenever she snaps at him, and a supporting cast of nonentities who generally exist to either lurk menacingly or babble ominous yet unhelpful riddles at the girl.

Plotwise, she spends over half the book simply trying to enter the strange land from her grandmother’s writing, and once there, she finds a hazy and generic fairytale kingdom that’s nowhere near as dark and twisted as its reputation would suggest. Indeed, the excerpts or retellings of those stories that Althea shared about the place are by far the most effective part of this novel, and there’s a frustrating disconnect when the heroine finally gets to witness them firsthand. I really struggle to stay invested in the stakes of her journey, which makes it harder to ignore the contrivances and inconsistencies that pepper the text as well.

Author Melissa Albert occasionally manages some distinctive flourishes around the edges of this project, but on the whole, I’m pretty underwhelmed.

[Content for racism, sexism, domestic abuse, and gore.]

★★☆☆☆

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Patreon Reminder

Taking a quick pause from my usual posting schedule — I’ve hit an average of one new book review per day for the first 90 days of this year! — to remind folks that I have a Patreon set up for anyone who’d like to support my reviews on a recurring monthly basis. There are reward tiers for more generous donors as well:

Bronze — $1 or more per month

Thank you for your support! I rely on my library for books whenever I can, but by donating at this level you’re helping to offset the cost of acquiring titles they don’t have.

Silver — $5 or more per month

Donate at this level to nominate books for me! Every month, I’ll take the current suggestions made by Silver donors and select one title to read and review.

Gold — $25 or more per month

Donate at this level and you can directly pick a book for me to read and review every single month!

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Thanks for following, reading, and commenting whether you can subscribe to the Patreon or not! If you’d like to join, you can click one of the links above or go straight to the Silver nominating page for April 2021 here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/49470689

Book Review: True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman

Book #90 of 2021:

True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman

Drawing on years of archive research and interviews with Stan Lee’s closest associates, this new biography is probably the definitive account of the Marvel Comics editor-turned-Hollywood cameo superstar. It also complicates if not contradicts a lot of our established ideas about the man, right down to the claim that he invented many of his company’s most famous and beloved properties. (Illustrators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko contend that their hands-off boss often had minimal input over his underlings’ creations, while Disney understandably favors the interpretation that all contracts stemming from his assertion of copyright are legitimate, but there isn’t much solid evidence on either side.)

Journalist Abraham Riesman does not flat-out conclude that the genesis of Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and the like owed little to Lee’s mind, but he presents reasonable arguments to that effect and a mountain of other circumstances where his subject clearly twisted the truth to suit his ends. Most previous biographers and chroniclers of comic history seem to have generally taken the legend at his word on everything, but Riesman is a diligent fact-checker who turns up case after case of verifiable falsehoods throughout the editor’s long career. He also stresses that these stories are important for understanding how Stan saw himself and wanted to be seen by others, and so should not be simply dismissed as lies. In many ways, the biggest fiction that he sold to mass audiences was the packaged character of Stan Lee.

Overall, this is a thorough and holistic piece of reporting, spanning from the Romanian Jewish roots of Lee’s family and how he came to reject that aspect of his life — a topic that does not appear to have attracted much serious attention before this work — all through the rising fame to a bitter end amid allegations of betrayal, fraud, and elder abuse. It’s perhaps not a great book for those who revere this giant of the industry, but it is certainly an eye-opening experience for anyone who doesn’t mind having their illusions shattered.

[Content warning for racism, sexism, and antisemitism including violence and slurs.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

Book #89 of 2021:

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn #3)

This closing volume to the original Mistborn trilogy is another outstanding adventure by the standards of the epic fantasy genre at large, but I think it’s perhaps just a minor step down from the first two books. The malevolent force called Ruin and his vampiric power of hemalurgy get a great showcase in the battle for the fate of the world, and it’s thrilling how the reader’s new knowledge of them recasts and lends greater depth to previous events as well — to say nothing of the clear connections with the wider cosmere canon. Yet at the same time, the novel spends a little too much energy on explaining all these revelations, which sometimes makes it feel more like a very interesting encyclopedia entry or writer Q&A than a specific plot we’re following in the moment. It doesn’t help that the big allomantic action sequences are starting to seem a bit rote by this point either, now that the protagonists are so skilled that they’re regularly ripping through entire armies with ease.

When the characters emerge from the lore surprises and combat scenes, they’re as engaging as ever, and I particularly love both Spook’s heroic arc and the respect and care with which author Brandon Sanderson approaches Sazed’s depression. (He improves further on matters of mental health representation in his later series The Stormlight Archive, but I had forgotten or never realized the early appearance here.) And the worldbuilding remains an incredible achievement that adds an immersive lived-in quality to everything, even while the show-versus-tell balance of this element is growing somewhat skewed.

Finally, the text absolutely nails the apocalyptic atmosphere of this climactic showdown, gradually raising the stakes of the threat until we can truly believe that all life on Scadrial might be wiped out. And thanks to the skill that Sanderson has brought to establishing this setting and the fierce personalities who populate it, that’s a danger with real bite throughout. Although I may take issue with some of the pacing, it’s hard to argue against the overall effectiveness of this finale as a capstone and sendoff to the phenomenal story he’s been telling all along.

[Content warning for gore. And disclaimer: I’m Facebook friends with the author.]

This title: ★★★★☆

Overall series: ★★★★★

Volumes ranked: 1 > 2 > 3

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Book Review: The Electric Kingdom by David Arnold

Book #88 of 2021:

The Electric Kingdom by David Arnold

At some point, I’m going to have to learn to ignore promotional materials that compare the latest post-apocalyptic saga to Station Eleven. Generally, as in this case, that sort of comparison is rather overselling the wonder and humanity on display. The Electric Kingdom is not a bad story, but it’s spinning a fairly conventional dystopian apocalypse for most of its length, following a band of young people as they carefully dodge a variety of genre-standard dangers in their trek across the empty wasteland. And while it eventually grows more distinctive, for better or for worse, those moments are in turn the least like the beloved Emily St. John Mandel title.

This novel actually builds to a twist that’s difficult to discuss without spoilers, so I’ll just note that it involves certain sci-fi elements that I’d ordinarily welcome but feel supremely dissatisfied by here. Basic character motivations fall apart the longer you think about them in the light of the big reveal, and that would be frustrating even if it weren’t guessable well in advance. The issue isn’t major enough to ruin this tale for me, but it does nothing to elevate it either.

[Content warning for racism, rape, suicide, and gore.]

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: Community, season 6

TV #31 of 2021:

Community, season 6

The mantra for Community fans clamoring for renewal was always, “Six seasons and a movie!” after a hopeful throwaway Abed line about the ultimately short-lived series The Cape. The sitcom too fell shy of that goal — technically I suppose a revival film someday wouldn’t be so surprising, although the program has now officially been off the air for longer than it was on — but the first part of the slogan and the sentiment behind it helps explain why Yahoo! Screen picked up what turned out to be this final year when the title was canceled by NBC.

As with the past few seasons, this one is a mixed bag, as much a demonstration of why people loved the early era as a subtle but distinct failure to match it. And I feel for the writers, truly. The change to a new platform with different corporate expectations and runtimes, the departure of yet another original cast member as well as two other recent main characters, the decreased budget yielding fewer opportunities for the trademark big parody/homage episodes… all of these issues stack the deck against Greendale as never before, and at best, the Yahoo! version is just treading water.

Granted, Paget Brewster’s overwrought administrative consultant fits pretty seamlessly into the setting’s reality and the group dynamic, but the presence of her fellow newcomer Keith David feels far less justified, especially with no dialogue establishing what happened to Hickey or Duncan, whom he’s functionally replacing. Elroy gets some great comedic moments, but unlike Frankie, there’s no real heart or depth to why he’s around. As for the returning crowd, they’re similarly fine — still perfectly capable of delivering the necessary punchlines, but not exactly being pushed as protagonists at this point until the admittedly moving finale.

The thing is, this show really was something special in its prime, and if circumstances had been a little more stable, maybe that could have continued. As is, we get flashes of brilliance even this late, and the meta-comments are mean but fundamentally accurate to identify the ‘gas leak year’ without creator/showrunner Dan Harmon as the worst in the entire run. This closing stretch is better than that, but I doubt it’s what anyone has in mind when they think back on classic Community or call for that heralded #andamovie.

[Content warning for homophobia and ableism including slurs.]

This season: ★★★☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

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

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Book Review: Parker Pyne Investigates by Agatha Christie

Book #87 of 2021:

Parker Pyne Investigates by Agatha Christie

Honestly, a better name for this 1934 collection might be “Parker Pyne Instigates.” In less than half of these stories does that fellow do any real investigative work; the majority of the time he instead constructs elaborate confidence schemes to make his patrons feel happy again, like staging a fake robbery to be foiled by someone doubting their courage, or a romance to rekindle the attentions of a jealous spouse. Only in the last section of the book, presenting a loose series of incidents this strange hero encounters while traveling abroad, does author Agatha Christie reenter her usual wheelhouse to justify the actual title (or that of the American edition: Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective).

The change of pace is interesting, but a lot of the resolutions here are outlandishly baroque, and as ever with this writer, it’s not as fun when we’re not given the tools necessary to attempt to solve a mystery for ourselves. So although I’m glad her fame by this point was enabling more experimentation in structure, I can’t say I’m entirely satisfied by the latest result.

[Content warning for gaslighting, sexism, and racism including blackface and slurs.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Star Wars: Ahsoka by E. K. Johnston

Book #86 of 2021:

Star Wars: Ahsoka by E. K. Johnston

This Star Wars novel follows fan-favorite character Ahsoka Tano on her first real solo adventure, helping to fill in the gap between her appearances on the animated shows The Clone Wars and Rebels. (And because this franchise’s release schedule is all out of chronological order: it was written in 2016, halfway through the latter series and after the former had finished its initial run, but before it returned for a proper final season on Disney+. I honestly couldn’t even say what the most reasonable way to consume these stories is at this point.)

It’s a fun outing with a reliably engaging protagonist, not to mention an interesting look at the early Empire days for the galaxy, set about a year since the movie Revenge of the Sith. There seems to be a lot of setup for the Rebels cartoon in particular — some of which I likely missed, as I’ve only recently started watching that — but it’s overall a roaring good time that shades in the era nicely. And while author E. K. Johnson somewhat weakens the narrative as a standalone text by throwing in a few unnecessary scenes like Obi-Wan meditating that have zero thematic or plot connections with the main action, at least those moments should be understood just fine by the book’s presumably diehard audience.

[Content warning for torture.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly

Book #85 of 2021:

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly

It’s March 2021, and I’ve read quite a few titles over the past year looking at the global history of pandemics, the science behind their causes, and the strategies that led to their ultimate cures. This 2005 volume on the medieval ‘Black Death’ doesn’t deal too much with that second category, and the third is somewhat irrelevant, since the proposed solutions at the time were neither rigorous nor effective and the disease largely died out on its own.

However, as a deep dive into what it was like for people in Europe and Asia experiencing the catastrophe firsthand, this is a valuable and well-researched guide with the expected additional poignancy for a reader in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Author John Kelly goes into brutal detail about both the biological course of the infection and the socioeconomic ramifications of its spread, and if nothing else, that provides a good perspective on how our own situation could be so much worse. (Many lives continue to be lost to the novel coronavirus, yet nowhere near half the population of any given locale.)

Kelly writes not only of the emotional cost to such an unfathomable casualty count, but also of the immediate practical impact, from a spike in graphic antisemitic violence to the difficulties of adjudicating court cases, conducting trade, or really carrying out any other regular pre-plague activity. Drawing on primary records of the era, the writer wanders from city to city — mostly in the south and west — to paint a sorrowful and informative picture of how each area would have witnessed the calamity and its aftereffects.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer

Book #84 of 2021:

The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer

Dexter Palmer’s 2010 authorial debut is a dense and challenging read, loosely spinning an imaginative steampunk riff on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, but with the inclusion of multiple timelines, recursive stories within stories, and sometimes off-putting, stream-of-consciousness delving into character psyches. (The author’s bio mentions that he wrote his doctoral dissertation on James Joyce, William Gaddis, and Thomas Pynchon, and yeah, that feels about right.) There’s stuff to enjoy here like an absolutely chilling depiction of parental entitlement, but it seems a hard book to really love overall, and certainly a far cry from the warm heart in the writer’s later novel Version Control.

[Content warning for death of a dog, sexism, incest, medical experimentation, body horror, and rape.]

★★★☆☆

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