The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis

Book #69 of 2021:

The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis

I don’t love this 1983 novel quite as much as its ritzy Netflix adaptation, but it remains the strong story of a (fictional) female chess prodigy growing from a shy orphan to a capable international contender, thrilling even for audiences who aren’t able to follow the particulars of gameplay. I’m surprised to discover how faithful that miniseries has been overall, and the few changes I’ve noticed are uniformly improvements, like the dropping of an unnecessary early book scene wherein the child protagonist’s friend Jolene sexually assaults her and gets called the n-word in return.

That aside, this volume is every bit the exciting sports saga and interesting bildungsroman I’ve expected after seeing the show. I wouldn’t go so far as to call Beth Harmon an antihero, but she’s fascinatingly unapologetic for her drug addiction and her small thefts from family and friends, and her complexities and insecurities make for a great character study. As with the actual tournament rounds and the mid-century setting — less of a period piece when author Walter Tevis was writing — these elements are probably more striking on-screen, but the heart of the narrative still captures a talented young woman overcoming personal challenges to reach the top of her field, and it’s easy to see why the title has endured.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: The Good Fight, season 4

TV #25 of 2021:

The Good Fight, season 4

I want to acknowledge up-front that this latest run of the streaming Good Wife spinoff had its production cut short by the coronavirus outbreak, losing the final few episodes the writers must surely have expected they’d be able to use to wrap up various plotlines. As released, everything simply ends with no particular closure, which is all the more galling given the subsequent announcements from original cast members Cush Jumbo and Delroy Lindo that they are leaving the show. Each actor hopes to return for a proper departure, schedules permitting, but these external issues all contribute to a feeling that the creative vision for this year has not been delivered faithfully.

Even setting aside the matter of completeness, however, this is a pretty rough exhibit of a series that has utterly lost its way. The main appeal of this title had always been its laser focus on (relatively comfortable, professional, middle-class) life in Trumpian America, and the generic ‘Memo 618’ conspiracy is bizarrely divorced both from that and from reality. The story of a secret society of powerful men forcing judges to drop cases against them plays out like a bad John Grisham thriller, simultaneously too hokey to take seriously — or believe that the characters would — and too unrelated to Trump’s specific brand of corruption to bear much thematic weight. It also relies at several points on an unintentionally hilarious misunderstanding of how computers work, which is a sad drift for a franchise that used to have its finger on the pulse of cutting-edge technology.

At its worst this program is still generally okay from scene to scene, although the episode where the protagonists knowingly adopt transphobic arguments to win a court case is despicable throughout. And there are occasional flashes of brilliance that suggest a revival isn’t impossible, especially since every season of The Good Fight seems to reinvent itself anyway. But overall, this is nowhere near the prestige drama that it or its forbear could once claim.

[Content warning for racism, pedophilia, suicide, and depiction of genitalia.]

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Star Wars: The High Republic: Into the Dark by Claudia Gray

Book #68 of 2021:

Star Wars: The High Republic: Into the Dark by Claudia Gray

I wouldn’t call this YA adventure a must-read for Star Wars fans, but it’s a big step up from Light of the Jedi, the first book in this new prequel era for the franchise, roughly two centuries before The Phantom Menace. These novels overlap in their timeframe, so that while Light goes into more detail about the great hyperspace disaster and the Jedi government’s interplanetary relief efforts, Dark focuses on one particular deep-space mission interrupted by the crash, resulting in the discovery of an ominous abandoned relay station. Author Claudia Gray nails the uneasy vibe of these travelers from the galactic core so far out from known civilization, and as usual for this writer, her characters feel fully-formed as distinctive personalities, making it easy to stay invested in their plot despite the objectively lower stakes. I especially like the ship’s crew that includes both a canonically asexual captain and a sentient telepathic boulder operating as navigator, and the moments when these inhabitants of the outer systems react with confusion to basic Jedi concepts are pretty fun, too.

I’m still not totally convinced by this whole High Republic thing, but I’m assuming some of these protagonists will go on feature in later volumes, given how one seems poised on the verge of falling to the dark side of the Force at the story’s end. Whether I continue or not, however, Gray’s work has certainly (as expected) put forth a better argument for the venture than that fairly bland debut.

[Content warning for slavery and torture.]

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Community, season 3

TV #24 of 2021:

Community, season 3

This stretch of Community is its most serialized yet (and possibly ever; I don’t recall the later stuff too clearly). That’s always impressive in a sitcom, and it adds a nice sense of momentum to the year as various arcs unfold. Of course, the downside is that fewer individual episodes pop out as all-time series best — although Remedial Chaos Theory and Regional Holiday Music should probably be on that list — and it’s a bit jarring when a production issue creates continuity errors by rearranging the airing schedule.

I also think Chang is well-placed here as a power-hungry security guard, splitting the difference between the strict teacher and the unhinged student that he’s been in the past. I don’t love how broad and cartoonish his part of the plot eventually grows, culminating in a literal fascistic takeover of the campus, but it’s an inspired use of a tricky character. Less successful for me is the show-within-a-show Inspector Spacetime, which never seems to justify itself beyond an obvious Doctor Who stand-in that’s weirdly uncommented-upon by someone as plugged into nerdy pop culture as Abed.

Behind the scenes, showrunner / creator Dan Harmon was failing to meet deadlines and publicly feuding with actor Chevy Chase, and it recently came out that he was sexually harassing and emotionally abusing the writers during his tenure as well. For some or all of those reasons, he was let go from the program for season four, but then brought back for five and six after fans complained and the ratings slid. Community was sort of perpetually on the bubble of potential cancellation, but from this point on, for better or worse, that slipped from subtext into the proper text of the series, with veiled dialogue about critical response and popularity and renewal campaigns and whatnot. If you know that background it’s difficult to ignore while watching, and there’s a definite feeling of entitled resentment percolating throughout this run.

As sometimes happens, writing this review has helped me work out my reaction to the season, and ultimately is going to lower the rating I was expecting to award. This is still a very funny title that I enjoy week to week, and a few gems like John Goodman’s air-conditioning repair school annex represent delightful new additions to the Greendale mythology. But overall this outing bites off way more than it can chew, and the result is messier both on-screen and off- than I had remembered.

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

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett

Book #67 of 2021:

Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #10)

A weaker effort from author Terry Pratchett, and a little too dependent on referential humor, where the entire joke is something like, “Wouldn’t a Discworld version of Gone with the Wind be hilarious?” I’m also still mostly familiar with this setting through the stories about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and the main characters here aren’t nearly as interesting. As I complained recently for a different title, these disposable protagonists utterly fail the basic tests of a] what do they want?, b] why?, and c] what are the stakes for not getting it? And although that might matter less if the novel were funnier, the satire is unfortunately so broad that it never really lands for me either.

The writing has its clever moments, as I suppose does the idea of Hollywood as a Lovecraftian entity / Platonic concept extending its influence into reality for mortals to instantiate, but overall the plot is more of a snooze than I expect from this series, and there’s just not enough else in the book to distract from it.

[Content warning for sexism, slavery, and torture.]

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Chance: Escape from the Holocaust by Uri Shulevitz

Book #66 of 2021:

Chance: Escape from the Holocaust by Uri Shulevitz

This 2020 title is a little unusual among Holocaust memoirs, both for its aim at a middle-grade audience and for its depicting a life more distantly touched by Nazi violence. Jewish author Uri Shulevitz and his family fled German-occupied Poland into the Soviet Union, where they continued to face antisemitic persecution and starvation-level poverty, but their struggles obviously do not reflect the full horror of the era. I wouldn’t want this to be the first / only book that a young reader encounters on the subject, but I’m also not sure how many will be interested enough to give it a try once they’ve already been introduced to the visceral evil of Hitler’s extermination program.

I struggle with the fundamental accuracy of the contents here too, as the 84-year-old writer looking back over the decades can’t possibly be remembering all the events he describes from age 4 to 12 — and indeed, he notes in an afterword that he’s relied on later conversations with relatives as well as his father’s written account to reconstruct this tale. I assume the broad strokes are fine, but the details may be shaky and the emotion sometimes feels artificial for the child perspective he’s relating.

As such, while this is still an important look at a historical refugee experience, I don’t think I can offer my unqualified recommendation.

[Content warning for cannibalism.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han

Book #65 of 2021:

Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han

There’s a deep sense of sorrow pervading the four members of this novel’s Chinese-American immigrant family, all of whom seem utterly alienated — from their new country, from their homeland, and especially from one another. That estrangement is achingly rendered, and I’m sure it draws upon the firsthand experiences of author Simon Han who comes from a similar background, but at the end of the day, this is just not a story I have particularly enjoyed reading or a cast of characters I find likeable. It doesn’t help that the plot hinges around an inciting event that only takes place more than halfway through the text, or that that false accusation of child molestation is so ugly in nature. I could see this 2020 title winning literary awards, but it is very much not my preferred sort of book.

[Content warning for racism, bullying, and suicide.]

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: WandaVision

TV #23 of 2021:

WandaVision

Brilliant in concept and nearly flawless in execution, I have very few critical notes for this miniseries, the debut television project under the immediate creative control of producer Kevin Feige at Marvel Studios and the premiere event in his Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Four. It’s a decade-by-decade journey across American sitcom history that blooms into a powerful exploration of trauma and grief, and it’s utterly unlike anything the MCU has tried before. (Indeed, I expect we’re all going to be a little disappointed if/when the upcoming The Falcon and the Winter Soldier turns out to be a straightforward buddy action title, no matter how competently it’s done.)

WandaVision takes its time revealing exactly who and what is driving the larger plot, but the initial conceit is that each episode shifts to a new era, such that one week feels akin to The Dick Van Dyke Show and the next is more like Bewitched, all the way up through recent offerings a la Modern Family. These changes include everything from story beats to costume and set designs to camera angles, dialogue rhythms, laugh tracks, and beyond. It’s a bold break from the typical superhero formula, enjoyable as both a sequence of stylistic homages and a mind-bending mystery to solve, not to mention an unsettling, almost Lynchian deconstruction of the happy TV household.

It also stands fairly well on its own, although Wanda and Vision’s arcs continue from the Avengers movies Age of Ultron, Infinity War, and Endgame, and a few supporting characters are brought in from Ant-Man and the Wasp, the first two Thor films, and Captain Marvel. But you shouldn’t be too lost without having seen those earlier adventures, and Disney+ has released a couple short video summaries as Marvel Studios: Legends to help get viewers up to speed.

I do wish that this franchise would finally acknowledge the Maximoffs’ Jewish and Romani heritage from the comics — the closest we get here is a tasteless line about a Sokovian fortune-teller — and I’m a tad frustrated that a casting choice which seemed aimed at bringing the X-Men back into the fold now that Disney has reacquired their rights instead functions as merely a winking Easter egg with no wider significance to the canon. But overall the program is a triumph that gives actress Elizabeth Olsen and her Scarlet Witch a showcase the big screen has never quite found room for, and while I can’t really imagine a second season based on how this one ends (in an installment literally called “The Series Finale”), I know I’d happily tune in again for it.

★★★★★

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Book Review: Stormsong by C. L. Polk

Book #64 of 2021:

Stormsong by C. L. Polk (The Kingston Cycle #2)

This sequel is a decent follow-up to Witchmark, and I continue to enjoy the fantasy setting for its quasi-Edwardian trappings as well as its utter lack of homophobia and slut-shaming. Everyone maturely accepts adult relationships; the drama in this case stems from a political operative dating the reporter investigating her family’s crimes, not the fact that they’re both women or that they end up spending the night together. Their society appears to readily accommodate people in wheelchairs and those who suffer from migraines or post-traumatic stress disorder too, a bit of disability-friendly worldbuilding that’s often absent from genre fiction.

At the same time, however, there’s just not a lot of urgency to this storyline, and I don’t find our new heroine to be quite as engaging a voice as her brother, the protagonist from the previous novel. It’s also fairly late in the text before the romance seems built on anything beyond mutual physical attraction, which tends to keep me at a distance as a reader. Certain elements here feel as though they should be exciting, like a murder mystery and a cataclysmic weather event on the horizon, but it’s all buried under so much bloodless court intrigue that I’ve struggled to remain invested throughout. For all the talk of witches unjustly locked away in asylums, the main characters are too removed from that threat to experience it as viscerally as the plot really needs.

I’ll probably still check out the final volume in the trilogy — which looks to change our POV figure again — at some point, but after this one, I don’t know that it’s going to be a priority.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

Book #63 of 2021:

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn #1)

This first Mistborn novel is every bit the modern classic that I remember, although it does have a few gender issues that author Brandon Sanderson improves upon in his later works. (Nothing too egregious, but except for our teenage heroine, this is a very male-heavy narrative that barely passes the Bechdel Test, and the threat of sexual violence looms over her and the rest of the skaa underclass, especially in the early chapters. On the other hand, I really appreciate how the second main viewpoint character, a man roughly twice her age, is firmly established as Vin’s mentor and father figure rather than a romantic prospect.)

On pretty much any level, the book is a roaring success. The worldbuilding is intricately detailed yet presented naturally without overbearing exposition, and the magic is as interesting for its systematic rules as for the fun ways that the writer devises to showcase them. The action scenes in which allomancers fight by attracting and repelling pieces of metal are downright cinematic, and Sanderson does a great job of gradually exploring how the basic principles give rise to surprising yet logical exploits. The protagonists grow steadily in competence and confidence too, and the plot of a gang of con artists attempting to overthrow their oppressive government allows for some terrific fantasy heist moments a la The Lies of Locke Lamora or Six of Crows. (So long as I’m comparing this to other genre stories I love, Vin infiltrating the corrupt nobility only to discover decent people among the ranks has strong Red Rising vibes as well.)

It’s hard to discuss and avoid spoilers, but The Final Empire also ends up interrogating and subverting the traditional trope of the prophesied Chosen One, and the author is already signaling an interest in how legends build into accepted truths over time, a theme he’ll return to throughout his career. And that’s a good metaphor for this trilogy itself, which continues to escalate its stakes and its scope across the next two volumes. This introduction feels complete on its own, but it’s merely the core of what the tale will eventually encompass, even setting aside any subsequent sequels and implied connections to the wider cosmere multiverse.

The heart, the combat, the twists, the setting, the cast, the storytelling — everything here just works for me, and I’m so excited to reencounter the further excitement ahead.

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

★★★★★

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