Book Review: Thud! by Terry Pratchett

Book #264 of 2020:

Thud! by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #34)

Maybe it’s due to the inevitable comedown from the thoroughly excellent Night Watch, but I haven’t enjoyed this next City Watch novel nearly as much as I expected to. There’s a great worldbuilding revelation at the end, yet this is one of those Discworld books that seems to consist primarily of Commander Sam Vimes looking askance at various fantasy ethnic groups that he considers backwards and inscrutable. As is often the case, his prejudice keeps him from picking up on certain clues as quickly as he otherwise might, and although he learns better eventually, it raises the question of just how many times that particular cycle needs to repeat for the protagonist or his readers to finally get the point.

This volume contains a fair bit of misogyny too, and while I believe it passes the Bechdel test, it still sometimes feels as though Terry Pratchett, writing in 2005, finds women to be as alien as his hero sees vampires, dwarves, and trolls. These elements don’t quite sink the narrative, which offers plenty of the author’s typical droll wit, but they also stop it coming anywhere near the series at its best.

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: The Good Fight, season 1

TV #48 of 2020:

The Good Fight, season 1

So far this streaming spinoff sequel isn’t quite hitting the heights of its network forebear, but at least it picks the franchise back up after the dull plotting and inconsistent character work that plagued the end of The Good Wife. My biggest complaint about this first year of The Good Fight — other than new actress Rose Leslie’s somewhat breathily artificial American accent — is probably that it doesn’t have enough of its own voice figured out just yet, and plays instead as almost a season 8 of the original series. A lot of the fun, in fact, lies in spotting all the familiar guest-starring lawyers, judges, and clients who have been able to make the transition over to CBS All Access for this.

But a similarity to The Good Wife in its prime is not necessarily a bad thing, and there’s further potential here too, especially in the switch to a mostly-black law firm and in how the writers are consciously pitching their project as a show for the Trump era, with governmental corruption that already feels a step beyond the established ethos for this universe. (And this ten-episode run was released soon after the inauguration in 2017, so I’m assuming that aspect will only grow increasingly prominent over time.) Lucca Quinn seems much more fleshed-out as a believable person now that she has a function besides Alicia’s sounding board, and Marissa Gold takes on the larger role that she has always deserved, as well.

I put off watching this program for a long while, partly because I didn’t want to pay for another service and partly since I felt so burned-out by how Diane and everyone else’s story ended before and didn’t particularly relish reopening that seam to see what happened next. But as it turns out, there’s a pretty compelling turn of events waiting in the wings, so I’m glad I’m finally getting around to it now.

[Content warning for rape threats, death threats, suicide attempt, racism, sexism, homophobia, and antisemitism.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland

Book #263 of 2020:

A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland (A Conspiracy of Truths #1)

It’s a definite testament to author Alexandra Rowland’s talent that their 2018 debut novel is so utterly engrossing despite being set almost entirely within the confines of a cramped jail cell. On trial for espionage in a strange land, the old itinerant storyteller who narrates this tale does what he does best: spin out an enchanting succession of myth, rumor, history, and the occasional falsehood to sway his captors and earn his release (and maybe even tear down an unjust and oppressive system or two, while he’s at it). I love Chant’s irascible yet wry personality, the nested stories which he relates Scheherazade-like, and his / the narrative’s ultimate belief in the power of words to champion humanity and freedom.

I’m also delighted that, for all the intrigue which builds up at our antihero’s instigation, he doesn’t turn out to actually be a spy on some secret mission that he’s hiding from the reader. That’s a common genre twist, but in this case, the narrator really has just been arrested on a trumped-up charge that he’s fighting the only way he knows how. Coupled with lovely cultural worldbuilding that normalizes queer and polyamorous relations and includes meaningful disability representation as well, it’s a marvelously fresh fantasy adventure that feels far more action-packed than I suppose it literally is.

★★★★★

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Book Review: A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

Book #262 of 2020:

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro (Charlotte Holmes #1)

I like how this Arthur Conan Doyle modernization isn’t a straight retelling of one of the classic stories, but instead a YA ‘next generation’ approach of the teenage descendants of Holmes and Watson teaming up at boarding school to see if they can solve a mystery like their forebears, whose traits they have largely inherited. There are still plenty of nods to the canon, but in context these play out as homages everyone’s aware of, rather than cutesy updates and reinterpretations.

On the other hand, I really don’t care for the Nice Guy entitlement with which Jamie views Charlotte — seeing red and attacking a guy who brags about sleeping with her, considering himself in something of a friend zone, etc. — nor how the series narrative seems to be trending towards rewarding him with an eventual relationship.

He also at one point brushes off a potential romance between the then-14-year-old detective and her 20-year-old tutor with a comment that “Anyone else would look at the age disparity there and think, Oh, that asshole took advantage of a young girl, but Charlotte Holmes wasn’t innocent.” Yikes! I don’t know if this is a view that author Brittany Cavallaro shares with her protagonist, but an underage person’s supposed worldliness is no excuse for what an adult chooses to do with them. And that’s not even getting into the problematic use of rape and drug abuse in the character’s backstory to explain her frigidity.

I’m torn between two and three stars for my rating here, because for the most part, this is a fun little genderbent-Sherlock novel with two interesting leads who admittedly develop some appealing chemistry together. But it just has too many elements that make me grit my teeth in frustration, and that inclines me to the lower score.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Tristan Strong Destroys The World by Kwame Mbalia

Book #261 of 2020:

Tristan Strong Destroys The World by Kwame Mbalia (Tristan Strong #2)

I still love the concept of a middle-grade fantasy series populated by African gods and black folk heroes, but I’m not quite as charmed by this sequel. I feel like it retreads a lot of the same material from the first novel, and the big new mysteries that it poses — the secret identities of both the Shambleman and Junior’s father — seem somewhat arbitrary in their eventual resolution. The element of Anansi writing knock-off smartphone apps to help navigate this storyland never really justifies itself beyond the initial ‘web developer’ pun, either. Chalk it up to middle volume syndrome of what’s now a planned trilogy, perhaps, but overall I don’t know if this is a wholly necessary leg of the young protagonist’s journey.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy by Talia Lavin

Book #260 of 2020:

Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy by Talia Lavin

Outspoken Jewish female journalist Talia Lavin has endured widespread attacks from members of the alt-right and related supremacist movements, including rape threats and death threats, both for being who she is and for daring to report on their organizing. In this book, she goes even further, presenting what she has learned by entering their online networks under pseudonym and observing as they talk amongst themselves. To some extent, the result is a wry portrait of the author catfishing people who claim to be the master race yet swiftly fall for the ruse of someone they consider inferior. But mostly, it’s an utterly horrifying look at the worst impulses of humanity, the writhing maggots of racism, sexism, and antisemitism that fester hidden beneath the stone of public propriety.

Intellectually, I’ve long known that such hatred is out there on the internet, but seeing it laid out like this is a far more visceral experience. Lavin also offers a valuable lesson on the dogwhistles, memes, and other jargon that these groups employ, making it easier for her readers to spot when their rhetoric encroaches on the mainstream. And it’s interesting to realize the factionalized nature of this ideological space, with incels, whites-only dating sites, nationalists, neo-pagans, Christian Nazis, mass-shooter devotees, and others all carving out overlapping yet distinct sections of a shared ecosystem of bile. (I’m surprised by the absence of the Qanon conspiracy theory in this coverage, as it seems to thrive in similar circles. But I suppose the writer makes no claims as to exhaustively detailing these subcultures.)

Although not a read for the faint of heart, it’s a great illustration of the violence that’s fomenting on under-regulated digital platforms — and of why antifa resistance to it is not the boogeyman that conservative media and politicians allege — as well as a practical example of how to confront such miscreants. Going undercover and leaking names and plans from the bigoted ‘dark web’ isn’t something that everyone will want to do, or anyone should need to do, but we can all be grateful that Lavin has been both bold and careful enough to do so safely herself.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: The Twilight Zone, season 2

TV #47 of 2020:

The Twilight Zone, season 2

Unlike the first year of this Jordan Peele anthology, which offered a fairly consistent assortment of promising concepts that regularly failed to stick the landing, this follow-up is all over the place. A few episodes are hands-down fantastic, but some are pretty awful and others somewhere in between, so I don’t know on balance if I can count it as an improvement or not. Luckily, as with the original version of the series, there are no real ties between installments outside of the occasional sly easter egg, so it would be possible to watch only the better hours and skip the rest.

My favorites, then: “Meet in the Middle,” in which a man forms a potential love connection with a woman across the country whose voice he starts hearing inside his head. “The Who of You,” in which a bank robber gains the ability to switch bodies with people, but every new victim ends up in his arrested original self, able to provide the decreasingly-skeptical cops with information on his movements. “Among the Untrodden,” in which high school girls dabble with wicked psychic powers. And “Try, Try,” a rare time-loop narrative from the perspective of someone not looping, which doubles as a terrifying commentary on male entitlement.

These stories are classic Twilight Zone, with interesting premises presented in distinctive ways and generally building to one clever final twist. If the rest of the season had only lived up to that, I would be thrilled.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

Book #259 of 2020:

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia #2)

I’m approaching this reread of the Narnia series in publication order rather than internal chronology, which I don’t believe I’ve actually ever done before. So that means starting here, with young Lucy Pevensie stumbling into a magical snowy landscape that readers will discover alongside her. The worldbuilding is evocative yet archetypally simple, even if, as a Jew and a critic, I chafe a little at the “always winter and never Christmas” shorthand of the evil witch’s dominion. I loved these books when I was younger, but what they present as universal is not necessarily designed to include people like me.

Truth be told, however, the Christian elements in this first volume are not as blatant as I had remembered (give or take the literal appearance of Santa Claus). Aslan the talking lion is definitely a sacrificial Jesus figure, yet the allegory is not so heavy-handed as author C. S. Lewis will eventually make it in the sequels. For now, a reader of any age or spiritual leaning can likely sit back and enjoy the story on its own terms.

And it is a great tale, full of warm humor and a grand spirit of adventure that help paper over the occasional under-explained plot detail. The character of Edmund is more interestingly nuanced than most figures in this sort of literature, and the siblings all prickle with believable personalities even before they cross through the wardrobe. The whole venture holds up pretty well seventy years after the fact, although there’s some regrettable sexism when the girls are denied swords to match their brothers — another element that grows more egregious as the franchise continues.

It’s always so hard to determine whether a media property from one’s childhood is truly quality or just a font of fuzzy nostalgia, but I do think this work is a classic for a reason. With iconic scenes and concepts that have been hugely influential in the fantasy genre, it’s a somewhat problematic fave that’s still worth revisiting today.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: The Office, season 5

TV #46 of 2020:

The Office, season 5

Sitcoms have a tendency to grow stale and repetitive the longer they air, but the better ones find ways to gradually tweak their storytelling dynamics over time. This era of The Office is an excellent example of that, regularly spooling out developments that shake up the status quo and add significant complications into the characters’ personal histories, rather than being immediately forgotten and reset. At the beginning of the year, Michael is flirting with Holly, Andy is engaged to Angela, Phyllis has blackmailed her way into chairing the Party Planning Committee, and Pam is away at art school in New York. Those situations all shift and grow over the following episodes, which are enjoyable as individual half-hours of entertainment yet also demonstrate the care for unfolding plotlines that some of the writers and producers would later bring to projects like The Good Place, Parks and Recreation, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

One major arc late in the season is probably about as serialized as this program ever gets, and it’s honestly so strong that I almost wish the show had fully embraced that as a model going forward. It may make it harder for casual viewers to miss an episode here and there (or catch a random one out of sequence) and still enjoy everything, but in an age of easy streaming and bingeing, watching the series build on itself over the course of this run is a uniquely electrifying experience.

★★★★★

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Book Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

Book #258 of 2020:

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

I was a little hesitant to pick up this book, both because I’ve had mixed feelings about the previous titles I’ve read from author V. E. Schwab and because the general concept of a heroine who can’t be remembered once she’s out of sight seemed too similar to Claire North’s supernatural spy thriller The Sudden Appearance of Hope, which I really loved. But this one turns out quite strong in its own right, and its genre is more of the romantic brooding immortals variety better associated with Anne Rice (or, uh, Claire North for that matter).

In the early eighteenth century, our protagonist strikes up a Faustian bargain with a force of darkness in the French countryside, granting her everlasting youth but cursing her to be forgotten by everyone she knows or will ever meet. Addie cannot form relationships or amass any property, and the nonlinear narrative bounces mainly between her long backstory and her modern life in 2014 New York as it explores the particulars of that lonely existence. A chance meeting with the first person to seem immune to her condition redirects us into a love story, which remains poignant through their difficulties in building any kind of future together.

On the whole it’s a rather bittersweet tale, and I particularly enjoy the recurring presence of the tempter figure who ostensibly wants Addie’s soul in exchange for ending her torment but winds up in a sort of codependent dynamic with the only other being to live on through centuries like him. I know the low-stakes character-driven plot won’t be to every reader’s tastes, but I’ve felt caught up in the epic sweep of Schwab’s imagination and very glad that I gave her another try.

[Content warning for rape, suicide, depression, and anxiety.]

★★★★☆

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