The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Book #280 of 2020:

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (Legendborn #1)

A wicked smart fantasy from debut author Tracy Deonn, as much about the experience of a black girl entering college (or any other traditionally white and patriarchal space) as it is about the demon-hunting order of Arthurian knights she ends up joining there. The plot of a regular person stumbling upon a hidden world and proving herself capable of meeting its high standards isn’t exactly the most original idea ever — and the attempted memory wipes are practically straight out of Men in Black or Torchwood — but the familiar formula gains added poignance from the #ownvoices observations on race and gender that Deonn builds into the work.

The racism in particular that her protagonist faces manifests in both subtle and dramatic ways, and this definitely seems like the sort of book that will prove eye-opening to younger white readers who aren’t used to being in that position. The writer’s gift for evocative detail further extends to Bree’s haircare routine and even the Cheerwine and Bojangles meals that bring the North Carolina setting to life, resulting in an effect somewhat like Octavia Butler’s Fledgling crossed with Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle.

It’s YA through and through, from the fairly chaste physicality to the developing love triangle, and the secret society’s wizardry can’t help but feel a little tame after the brutality in Leigh Bardugo’s recent Ninth House. But it’s a really fun and thought-provoking read regardless, full of #blackgirlmagic and a confident launch to the series.

[Content warning for parental death, slavery, implied rape, gaslighting, and transphobia.]

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 1

TV #50 of 2020:

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 1

My standard rating for a season of Star Trek has been three-out-of-five stars, reflecting a franchise sensibility that can land as either clichéd or solidly unremarkable as often as it hits genuinely effective heights. Imagine my surprise, then, at how strong this first year of Deep Space Nine is, right out of the gate. Granted, it’s still not all fantastic, and there are a lot of episodes that feel as though they either began as scripts for sister series The Next Generation or could have become so with minimal rewrites. Yet the backwater setting is so much more interesting than any iteration of the wayfaring starship Enterprise, allowing for an organic sense of lived-in history and community with any number of possible story engines. The penultimate hour “Duet” alone justifies this entire experiment, and since it seems like the sort of narrative the writers have been wanting to tell all along, I’m so excited to see that as a model for the show going forward.

[Content warning for religious extremism, assassination, school bombing, and mention of rape, torture, and death camps.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Sign of the Unicorn by Roger Zelazny

Book #279 of 2020:

Sign of the Unicorn by Roger Zelazny (The Chronicles of Amber #3)

I appreciate that this third Amber volume makes time to revisit a few open questions from the first novel, and it’s as fun as ever to see the squabbling family of reality-hopping sorcerers and their swashbuckling antics. On the other hand, I still don’t feel as though we know most of them well enough for all the intrigue and backstabbing to land effectively, which is a real problem so deep into the series. When the narrative slows down for some character beats with the protagonist’s brother Random or his friend Bill back on earth, it’s pretty great! But too many of the rest of the players here register as little more than interchangeable names, to the detriment of the story author Roger Zelazny seems trying to tell.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History by Molly Caldwell Crosby

Book #278 of 2020:

The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History by Molly Caldwell Crosby

Informative but not necessarily interesting, this 2006 volume is mostly about Dr. Walter Reed and his associates in late-19th-century Cuba as they attempt to determine once and for all how the infectious pathogen behind Yellow Fever spreads from host to host. It’s a good reminder of how little was known about disease back then, yet not as compelling as the initial chapters documenting an earlier outbreak in Memphis. (My bias is likely skewed by the fact that I’m considering this text in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but I’d much rather learn how politicians and everyday people understood and reacted to the crisis than how the scientists tried one approach after another — especially since author Molly Caldwell Crosby rarely provides enough detail to follow the exact lines of inquiry.) This book is probably on the cusp between a two- and a three-star rating for me, but some clumsy writing/editing choices, including a bafflingly hyperbolic title, lead me towards the lower end of that range.

[Content warning for gore and casual references to slavery.]

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: The Captive Kingdom by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Book #277 of 2020:

The Captive Kingdom by Jennifer A. Nielsen (Ascendance #4)

I was intrigued by the news that author Jennifer A. Nielsen would be returning to the world of her middle-grade fantasy Ascendance trilogy, but this next volume never quite manages to justify itself, especially given the backstory retcon twist midway through. The protagonist still has a very fun presence, improvising audacious schemes as easily as he breathes, yet for that exact same reason, there’s not much tension or challenge in seeing him run rings around his latest captors. This series has largely been coasting since the original novel The False Prince, and although this sequel shows no particular dip in quality, I’m not convinced the plot and character stakes entirely merit further adventures either.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Book #276 of 2020:

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse (Between Earth and Sky #1)

An outstanding fantasy series debut, telling an interesting and distinctive story in a diverse world inspired by pre-Columbian indigenous civilizations. (Cacao as currency! I love it.) There’s a lot packed into this initial volume, from priestly power struggles to high-seas sorcery to a reluctant avatar for an ancient god and the uneasy peace between former enemies. One protagonist is canonically bisexual, another is blind, and multiple characters — including a romantic interest — use nonbinary pronouns. It’s also nice, in a genre that often leans YA, that everyone here is at least in their twenties and rather more capable than the standard plucky teens.

I would have liked a little greater convergence among a few of the viewpoints and plot strands, but events are certainly heading for a showdown in the sequels, and the path in this first novel has already taken a few turns that catch me by surprise. I’m really pleased with what author Rebecca Roanhorse has accomplished with this setting so far, and I look forward to seeing the narrative unroll further over the remainder of the trilogy.

★★★★★

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Book Review: The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

Book #275 of 2020:

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

I like the concept of a historical fantasy novel where the women’s suffrage movement is accompanied by a resurgent interest in witchcraft, and how author Alix E. Harrow uses that framework to offer some incisive feminist commentary on marginalized voices preserving knowledge outside of the mainstream. Unfortunately, however, I connect less with the actual story here, finding the stakes of the plot to be somewhat opaque and the three sister protagonists to be fairly reactive as characters. (I also have a hard time distinguishing among their perspectives in the beginning, although that improves as the book goes on.) It’s a very atmospheric read, but not as gripping as the writer’s earlier The Ten Thousand Doors of January — so while I don’t regret checking it out, I think I might have struggled to finish had I not been listening to the audiobook.

[Content warning for sexism, racism, transphobia, abortion, domestic abuse, and family separation.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

Book #274 of 2020:

Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

This is a fun comic-booky novel of a henchwoman / budding supervillain, but I think I have too many logistical questions about the worldbuilding — and too much squeamishness over the surprisingly heavy amount of gore — to properly enjoy it. (These criminals can be arrested and imprisoned, but they still have temp agencies and an organized labor union to handle their disputes?)

I do like the focus on the collateral damage inflicted by the nominal heroes, and how their purported nobility grows more openly fascistic as the plot unfolds, but the overall effect is a little muddled in its morality, with characters on both sides denouncing one another’s actions without ever thinking to apply the same standards to themselves. There’s material there for rich dramatic irony, but it never quite coalesces into feeling like a purposeful statement from debut author Natalie Zina Walschots. I also just appreciate the story more in its early pages, when it seems aimed as a satire on people working low-level jobs for companies they consider evil, and I lose a bit of interest after that concern gets dropped.

Three stars because the action is solidly entertaining, and the presence of disability and a casual diversity of race and sexuality is definitely appreciated. I suspect a lot of readers will get more out of this title than I have.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary

Book #273 of 2020:

Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary

Like that of many Americans, my formal education about world history has primarily focused on the threads that lead to modern ‘Western’ civilization, with minimal attention to the Muslim sphere of influence even in those eras when it was a more dominant power. This 2009 work by author Tamim Ansary is an important course-correction to that, laying out a comprehensive yet easy-to-follow narrative of Islam as a religio-political force in its own right, not just a minor chapter or subplot in the story of the past millennium and a half.

In some cases, the book presents detailed developments like the early caliphate dynasties that had been largely unknown to me; in others, it recenters familiar events like the Crusades to show how they would have been experienced by Islamic peoples rather than the West. Although the writer cautions that certain parts of this text are more reflective of an oral tradition than verified historical fact, it’s overall a great encapsulation of a different received wisdom on how we’ve arrived at the present.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey

Book #272 of 2020:

Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey

A short but disturbing read, focused partly on author Natasha Trethewey’s experiences growing up mixed-race in the segregated Deep South and partly on her abusive stepfather threatening, beating, stalking, and ultimately murdering her mother. It’s obviously a deeply personal account, but it’s also oddly bifurcated, with the writer’s presence seeming to dissipate as she relates the facts of the latter case, including police records and phone transcripts presented in their entirety with minimal commentary. It’s not at all my intention (or my place) to tell Trethewey how to grieve, but as a memoir this work would be stronger if she had elaborated more on the parts of the story that no one but her could tell.

[Content warning for gun violence and racism including slurs.]

★★★☆☆

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