The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

TV Review: The Good Fight, season 2

TV #2 of 2021:

The Good Fight, season 2

Although still not hitting the dramatic heights of its parent series, especially in terms of personal stakes for the protagonist(s), this second year of The Good Fight remains quite riveting. It’s been the tale of high-powered liberal attorneys in the Trump era all along, but the scripts in the first season were largely guessing at what that would be like — and may even have begun altogether differently, depending on when the spinoff got greenlit. This time around, however, the writers definitely see what the country is going through, and they bring that to life more vividly than any other fictional TV show that I can recall. From unqualified judicial appointees to frantic Democratic efforts to pursue impeachment to stochastic terrorism and the sheer horror and confusion of a Trumpian news cycle, these episodes ring true to everything I’ve experienced since the last presidential inauguration. Part of me wishes I had started watching earlier, but the rest of me is glad that I’m only doing so now on the cusp of the Biden administration; this might all have been too much to simultaneously live and watch as entertainment.

Outside of politics, the new subplots like Diane’s microdosing don’t always click for me, but I appreciate that the played-out Rindell scandal isn’t as prominent a focus anymore and I think the casting change behind Liz Reddick’s introduction into the firm is handled about as smoothly as possible. I’m not thrilled with the vigilante attacks on lawyers all season — it feels appropriative of the vitriol that’s actually being thrown at reporters, and the gun violence is a pale retread of Will Gardner’s story on The Good Wife — but it’s an effective throughline for a turbulent period.

The deep bench of characters also continues to amuse, in callbacks to the original program as well as in new actors recently persuaded aboard. Diane Lockhart has now romanced both of Jed Bartlet‘s Vice-Presidents, for instance, and the writing is too cheekily self-aware for that not to have been intentional. I don’t really know where the larger plot goes next, as the finale doesn’t leave many threads conspicuously open, but I trust the strong voice of this production team to maintain their current momentum of quality.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Book #4 of 2021:

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

A surprisingly lovely story about a woman who tries to kill herself only to appear in an unearthly library, an afterlife halfway-house full of books describing the parallel lives she might have led. Reading from these volumes takes her into those realities, where she sees how different choices may have turned out and gradually learns to let go of her regrets. It’s a humanistic and affirming novel somewhat akin to the finale of The Good Place, and I think it works better for me than similar projects like Jane, Unlimited or Life After Life because we get to see the protagonist’s growth as she maintains her memory from one experience to the next. (Although I wish author Matt Haig would consider how Nora violates the autonomy of her other selves by taking over their existence and interrupting whatever plans they’ve had.)

This won’t satisfy every sort of reader — it’s not a very dynamic plot, and I keep thinking of that Stephen R. Donaldson quote that the only thing that actually happens in his first Thomas Covenant trilogy is that the titular antihero “gets knocked out a few times and wakes up willing to go on living.” That’s roughly true here as well, and I know the tension I enjoy in the ambiguity of whether such fantasies are imagined or not can instead be frustrating for some. But I’ve found it to be a wonderful conception of the hereafter, and I’m glad I returned to this writer even after not really caring for his earlier title How to Stop Time.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

Book #3 of 2021:

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline (Ready Player One #2)

I liked the first Ready Player One novel more than I know a lot of people did, for although I’m sympathetic to the criticisms of gatekeeping and mansplaining, the earnestness of its nerdy passions and fun VR action sequences were enough to win me over as a reader. And it seems like that should situate me as the ideal audience for this sequel, but I’m instead flummoxed by how poorly thought-out it all feels. Those complaints that author Ernest Cline equates personal worth with a mastery of 80s trivia are neither addressed nor improved upon, yet even if you set that aspect of the franchise aside, what’s left of the new premise is half strained repetition of the original — the late OASIS creator somehow arranged another digital treasure hunt that hasn’t deployed before! — and half bizarre exposition that’s begging in vain to be unpacked.

In this volume, the returning protagonist is now a billionaire celebrity tech CEO, and he describes in unrepentant detail how he abuses that power to violate the privacy of friends and strangers alike, spying on their intimate moments, looking up their confidential identities, and deleting their accounts in a fit of pique. He’s sometimes called out for this behavior but never really made to answer for it, and the result is pretty unpleasant to read, especially from a writer who has likewise become richer and more famous since the previous book was published. There’s no comeuppance for Wade’s arrogance, and while I won’t spoil a closing plot development, I’m astonished that it’s framed as categorically positive when I’ve literally seen the same move from the villains in other stories. (I can’t suspend my disbelief that the character who objects to certain early actions by the hero is totally fine with it, either.)

In and around the mess, there are some cool set pieces that I’m sure have been written with the next film adaptation in mind but are still neat to watch unfold. Cline has a good sense of how this sort of technology would likely be (mis)used, even if he drastically underestimates how difficult and time-consuming it would be for one person to code everything. The tasks may be easier and more fortuitously aligned with the team’s existing knowledge than the comparable challenges of RPO, but fans of those virtual puzzles will probably enjoy the 2.0 versions as well. There’s also an admirable if clunky effort to embrace diversity of race, gender, and sexuality too. These features don’t redeem the overall work, but they at least pull it up from a complete loss.

[Content warning for ableism and mention of rape.]

★★☆☆☆

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TV Review: Kim’s Convenience, season 1

TV #1 of 2021:

Kim’s Convenience, season 1

I like the distinctive perspective of centering a sitcom around a Korean-Canadian family running a convenience store, but I could do without all the stubborn bigotry of patriarch Mr. Kim. While it never feels as though we’re meant to side with his racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., too many jokes seem to involve his relatives simply rolling their eyes at the latest instance of close-mindedness. Is this how older audiences felt watching Archie Bunker? The show humanizes its lead and ascribes a lot of what he says to cultural or generational differences, but I hope future seasons adopt the Michael Scott approach of softening his rough edges as well.

Structurally, it’s interesting how the son Jung is on the outs with his dad, creating two separate social universes that occasionally glance off one another but seldom meaningfully intersect. Finding more ways to organically bring those stories together would also benefit the series, in my opinion. Over on his side of the plot, I’m not a big fan of the boss’s inappropriate flirtations either, although the situation gets better once it’s established that he has some sort of feelings for her in return.

Overall, these first thirteen episodes represent a flawed but fun debut, and I haven’t even said anything about the two female leads and how they help puncture the bravado of their husband/father. The biggest sense I’m getting right now is one of untapped potential, and I’m eager to see if the writers manage to channel that into a stronger whole going forward.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny

Book #2 of 2021:

The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny (The Chronicles of Amber #4)

These novels are short enough that it’s never a major investment to continue on with the series, but that also means each volume has limited space to really wow a reader. In this fourth book, a lot of that valuable real estate is squandered on our protagonist needlessly recapping previous events to either us or another character, and the remaining balance is shifted too far towards the latest backstabbing family drama and away from the neat multiverse weirdness inherent in the setting. (Why does Corwin still trust any of his siblings, honestly? And why does author Roger Zelazny expect us to care about each soapy betrayal as though it were shattering any actual sense of established loyalty and not simply the latest unmotivated heel turn?)

I’ve heard the next title brings the initial storyline to a close, but at this point it’s an open question whether I’ll then bother with the second arc or not.

[Content warning for incest and sexism including slurs.]

★★☆☆☆

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Movie Review: Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks (2021)

Movie #1 of 2021:

Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks (2021)

Although there are definitely worse Doctor Who specials, this new one doesn’t do much to distinguish itself either. Captain Jack’s long-awaited reunion with the Doctor seems almost like an afterthought, and the overall episode is so focused on explaining plot logistics that it seldom makes room for those characters who should be at its heart — especially the two companions who end up departing the show at the end. (That’s more of a spoiler than I’d usually mention in a review, but it was heavily publicized in advance and is probably the most meaningful development of the hour, so I feel it’s fair game to discuss critically.)

Ten months have apparently passed since the fam last saw the Doc, but the script offers no real indication of what they’ve been doing or how their lives have changed in the meantime. And with no signs of friends or relations, returning or otherwise, it’s hard to process everyone’s ultimate decision to stay or not to any concrete degree. That missing level of personal detail has always been a weakness of the Chibnall era, and I hope that a less-crowded TARDIS going forward will yield opportunities to dig deeper into the remaining traveler. As is, Jack’s offhand and off-screen comment that he’s sticking around on earth to meet up with his old Torchwood pal Gwen Cooper is more engaging than nearly anything else in this excursion, drawing as it does on the kind of lived-in dynamic which the writers have never taken the time to establish for the newer cast.

An interesting story could have alleviated or distracted from these concerns, but instead we’re facing merely the latest alien invasion, a fairly rote adventure with few of the unique flourishes advanced by 2019’s Resolution. (One rare exception: that cool effects shot of a stream of Daleks flying into a hovering policebox.) The return of Chris Noth as antagonist Jack Robertson isn’t especially memorable — we don’t even get any fun lines about the two Jacks running around — and there are the usual continuity problems of no one recognizing the pepperpot baddies and all the Doctor’s former allies picking this week to utterly ignore the news. We’ll need to wait longer to learn how the COVID-19 pandemic is manifesting in the Whonverse too, since filming was completed in early 2020 before any global lockdowns.

This isn’t by any means a significantly-flawed installment of Doctor Who, and the series is a dependable sort of comfort food particularly in this typically low-stakes holiday form. But at its best the franchise can push brilliantly in exciting new directions, and it’s disappointing that the first televised outing after the revelations of season 12 turns out to be so staid.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: All Flesh is Grass by Una McCormack

Book #1 of 2021:

Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: All Flesh is Grass by Una McCormack

The second and final Time Lord Victorious novel offers a generally satisfying resolution to this sprawling Doctor Who multimedia experiment, although there are still a few open areas that will likely be shaded in by future releases of some sort or another. The project ultimately boils down to the Tenth Doctor journeying back to the dawn of time after the events of The Waters of Mars and trying to stop the beings who introduced life expectancy into the universe, and here’s where he’s finally thwarted by two of his previous incarnations and an assortment of unlikely allies.

Truth be told, I feel as though this book could have delivered even more crossover, pulling from all of the different comics and audio dramas and everything for a suitably epic finale, but instead we mostly just get vampires and Daleks — and the erstwhile Ood assassin Brian — going into a battle that plays out largely as a steady sequence of spaceships exploding. All three of the Doctors seem too callous toward the high body count, and author Una McCormack’s choice to officially describe them in text by number (Eighth Doctor, etc.) is odd for the franchise albeit understandable to prevent reader confusion.

Like usual for this type of story, the scenes when various regenerations of the same Time Lord draw together to banter or exchange grim knowing glances are definitely worthwhile, and the concluding chapters in particular do a good job of illustrating each one’s respective moment along their shared character history. As an overall narrative venture, the Time Lord Victorious arc has consistently struggled to come across as more than a cash-grab curiosity, and I can’t imagine any critics having their minds changed by the present volume. Nevertheless, it represents a reasonably solid ending that I do think I’d recommend for anyone who’s been following the twisting adventure throughout.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson

Book #303 of 2020:

Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson (The Stormlight Archive #4)

And so my 2020 comes to a close with another 1000+ page tome, the newest release in author Brandon Sanderson’s massive Stormlight Archive, which is increasingly inseparable from his even larger super-series linking together everything in the multiverse Cosmere setting. (Earlier stories like Elantris or the original Mistborn trilogy continue to stand fine on their own, but I can’t imagine anyone completely following and enjoying the Stormlight books at this point without having read those ones first. On the other hand, it turns out that the recent Dawnshard novella set in this world isn’t particularly relevant to any major developments in Rhythm of War, although it’s highly enjoyable in its own right and will presumably impact the main sequence eventually.)

Longtime Sanderson readers can expect to find his customary skill at fusing sharply-drawn character arcs with fascinating worldbuilding, high-octane action sequences, and intriguing revelations about the cosmere. I love how much space is devoted to cool new implications of the Rosharan magical system, like how a person’s control of gravity can be stored up and used to power elevators and flying ships, which seems to be where the latest Mistborn sequels have been trending too. Not every writer could bring their sword-and-sorcery fundamentals forward into the technology of a scientific era without missing a beat, but this one makes it look easy.

I also deeply appreciate how the current volume places a great deal of care on exploring aspects of mental health that are recognizable despite not being explicitly named, from depression to dissociative identity disorder to PTSD to nonverbal autism or trauma response to neurodivergence in general. That’s not entirely new for the decalogy, but it feels more focused and intentional here, and — as with the portrayal of disability in Dawnshard — suggests a lot of behind-the-scenes effort to get the representation right. I suspect many people will see reflections of themselves and their own struggles in these fantasy heroes, which is an outstanding accomplishment for the genre. Sanderson has truly been growing and listening over his past few books, and it’s wonderful to see him writing a more empathetic and inclusive fiction with no appreciable decline in storytelling talent or effectiveness.

The usual Stormlight critiques do still apply, like a fairly slow-moving plot and the brief check-in chapters that are essentially just setup for the future rather than anything satisfying in the present. As in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s difficult for an individual title to especially shine on its own terms when it’s tasked with servicing some sprawling continuity of connected projects as well. And although I enjoy uncovering various historical secrets along with the protagonists, it does seem as though we should know more of them already by the time we’re 40% through a planned ten-novel storyline — a size which represents a daunting investment even ignoring all the additional related works. Yet these quibbles are both minor and familiar, and the overall narrative remains immersive and distinctive enough to wholly justify coming back to Roshar again.

[Disclosure: I’m Facebook friends with this author.]

★★★★☆

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Movie Review: Soul (2020)

Movie #16 of 2020:

Soul (2020)

I’ve half-watched a lot of Disney movies this year — because of a certain pandemic and a certain toddler — but I haven’t paid close enough attention to most titles to feel as though I should count them or write a proper review. This new Pixar film is the rare exception, a visually gorgeous depiction of black life in New York City that abruptly detours into an afterlife of convoluted bureaucracy straight out of The Good Place. And if you couldn’t tell from the marketing, it’s the latest in an unfortunate trend of animated features that make their black protagonists spend the majority of screentime not actually looking like black people. Here, Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx) transforms first into a blue toothpaste-blob of a spirit, and then later into a cat when he misjudges his jailbreak return to earth and winds up in the wrong body. Meanwhile, the mentee soul accompanying him (Tina Fey) arrives as Joe, and proceeds to embarrass him by piloting his form around haphazardly while they scramble to get him back to himself.

It’s a pretty problematic plot development, and one which could have been remedied at least somewhat by casting another black performer in Fey’s role, a being who has literally not yet been born and nominally doesn’t have a race or gender but reads as a white woman in her performance. Still, we get to see a lot of our hero and his community from the outside, and particular scenes like the one set in a neighborhood barbershop crackle with lived-in authenticity. I also love the use of jazz music throughout, and I hope that the studio goes on to release further diverse stories in this vein. As their first project to feature a black lead, Soul isn’t flawless, and I don’t know if the existential crisis at the heart of its narrative is especially child-friendly (although I assume the talking animal will be a hit). As an adult viewer, I can’t help but pick at the inconsistencies in the rules of its cosmology and wish that the topic of race had been approached more carefully by the producers.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Forgotten Sisters by Shannon Hale

Book #302 of 2020:

The Forgotten Sisters by Shannon Hale (Princess Academy #3)

This final Princess Academy novel improves in its back half, but for too long it doesn’t really feel organically motivated as a continuation of the first two volumes. There aren’t any lingering plot threads that get picked up here, and the most interesting new developments can’t help but read like retcons of the setting’s history. Although still a solid early YA piece that delivers a great conclusion for the story at hand, it’s a little lacking in the wider impact one might expect for the apparent sendoff to these characters and their world.

This book: ★★★☆☆

Overall series: ★★★★☆

Individual titles ranked: 2 > 1 > 3

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