The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

Book #108:

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

This debut novel from author Sarah Gailey goes far on its concept of a non-magical detective investigating a murder at a school for young mages, but the worldbuilding is nothing special — more The Magicians than Harry Potter — and the procedural elements could have been a lot sharper. There are clues that are literally stumbled across and some fairly obvious conclusions that take the heroine forever to realize for herself. I like Gailey’s sense of character voice enough to check out some of their shorter published works, but this book isn’t quite enchanting as a whole.

[Content warning for gore and abortion.]

★★★☆☆

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Movie Review: Friday Night Lights (2004)

Movie #8 of 2019:

Friday Night Lights (2004)

Having now seen and enjoyed all five seasons of the fictionalized Friday Night Lights TV program, I wanted to check out this earlier film, which purports to tell a true story about an underdog high school football team. And maybe it’s not wholly fair to compare the two, but I just found the movie so unfathomably boring, stripped of all the heart and character insight that the show seemed to spin out effortlessly. I get no sense from watching this version of events why these particular teenage athletes — or their coach or their hometown — should be considered more deserving than any other.

I also found the coach’s aggressive and belittling manner toward his players incredibly distasteful, and nothing like the stoic yet nurturing form of masculinity modeled by his television counterpart. FNL the series made me care about football for the first time in my life; these two hours reminded me of everything I hate about sports culture in general.

I had planned to read the original nonfiction book next, but at this point I’m not even sure if I should bother.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Defy the Worlds by Claudia Gray

Book #107 of 2019:

Defy the Worlds by Claudia Gray (Constellation #2)

I’m enjoying the blandly-titled Constellation series overall, but this sequel is nowhere near as fun as the YA space opera’s propulsive debut. The second novel is more than half over before its two protagonists are reunited, and the new stakes don’t seem particularly organic to the story thus far. I also feel like the enemies-to-friends-to-lovers narrative of the first volume allows for some great moral shading, whereas the villains in this piece are more ghoulishly one-note. I trust author Claudia Gray enough to file these issues under middle book syndrome, and I still think the trilogy could have a satisfying ending, but this title has been a bit of a letdown.

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: Veep, season 4

TV #24 of 2019:

Veep, season 4

As always, Veep is a funny show that frustrates me with its petty vision of American politics and doesn’t really provide anyone or anything worth rooting for. I’ve given previous years 3-star ratings for that reason, but this one has such an uneven approach to its central campaign storyline and such a weird handling of a character getting sexually assaulted that I’m docking it another point.

This season aired in spring 2015, and was the last one created under original showrunner Armando Iannucci. I’m morbidly curious how the show has changed after his departure and in the era of Trump, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being the last season I watch in full.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Book #106 of 2019:

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle #4)

There’s some interesting philosophizing in this 1969 sci-fi novel (which author Ursula K. Le Guin herself refers to as a ‘thought experiment’ in the Introduction), but the plot is scattered and a lot of its weighty, groundbreaking ideas about gender feel somewhat dated a half-century on. The protagonist struggles with feelings of love for an alien who sometimes presents as male, sometimes as female, and mostly as neither, and it’s hard for a modern reader not to feel he’s the weird one for making such a fuss.

Was this book revolutionary and influential within the genre? Absolutely. But it lacks both the focus and the heart that I’ve found in other of Le Guin’s works, ultimately leaving me as cold as its ice planet setting. Others may feel differently, but I’d say this one is only worth reading as a historical artifact, rather than as an enjoyable story in its own right.

[Content warning for torture, incest, and misgendering]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Gameshouse by Claire North

Book #105 of 2019:

The Gameshouse by Claire North

This book collects three novellas from author Claire North, previously published independently in 2015. Together they tell of a secret society who play wide-ranging games of skill and chance for fantastical stakes of extended life, memory theft, and more. North utilizes an omniscient first-person plural perspective that can be alienating at first (“We watch as…'”), but I’ve ultimately rather enjoyed these tales of spycraft adventure, which resemble the somewhat cerebral politicking of The Traitor Baru Cormorant crossed with the exciting cat-and-mouse hunts of The Running Man. I have a lot of unanswered questions about the basic premise and wouldn’t mind a more focused sequel, but overall this is a fun read.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Arrested Development, season 5

TV #23 of 2019:

Arrested Development, season 5

The first three seasons of this show were so good and so perpetually rewarding of a rewatch that it’s little surprise it caught on as a cult classic after its untimely cancellation in 2006. The initial Netflix revival in 2013 was a noticeable step down, but it still just about worked as a curiosity with some ambition behind its twisting timelines.

And now half a decade later there’s this latest batch of episodes, which is both another step down in quality and devoid of any similar redeeming structure. It’s just an increasingly tired cast of characters repeating their increasingly tired patterns, with callbacks to the better stuff awkwardly shoehorned in. The editing is also a problem, with lots of cross-talk played for laughs but actually just frustratingly hard to hear. I never thought I’d say this thirteen years ago, but I really hope they don’t make any more Arrested Development after this.

★★☆☆☆

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TV Review: Good Omens

TV #22 of 2019:

Good Omens

A flawed yet funny adaptation of one of my favorite books, this miniseries is paradoxically strongest when it deviates the most from its source text. Whether showrunner and original co-author Neil Gaiman couldn’t bring himself to fully ‘kill his darlings’ or whether he was reluctant to alter parts written by the late Terry Pratchett, there are several passages lifted straight from the novel that translate rather creakily to the screen. Much as I love Gaiman, a writer with more distance — and more TV experience — may have been better suited to this project.

But it’s a lot of fun when the script loosens up and plays around with the general concept, and even at the weaker moments, the two lead actors really carry this show to deliver both heart and laughs. (Jon Hamm is also a continual delight in the new role of the archangel Gabriel, and no one is too far from how I pictured them for all these years.) I could nitpick over some of the production choices, but it’s a bit of a marvel that this project finally saw the light of day at all and wasn’t a complete flop upon arrival.

★★★★☆

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Movie Review: Captain Marvel (2019)

Movie #7 of 2019:

Captain Marvel (2019)

I love so much about this alien superhero movie: from the confidence of its sci-fi start without audience hand-holding, to the well-crafted plot beats that are satisfying even when guessed ahead of time (or spoiled, presumably), to the sheer heart of its titular heroine. Neither the throwback 90s setting nor the digital de-aging of costar Samuel L. Jackson are as hokey as I had feared, and I appreciate that the humor is in a gentler key than the snarky wisecracking on display in most of this series.

The film also hits that sweet spot for me, where there are plenty of fun continuity nods to the web of other stories in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but nothing [before the end credits] that keeps it from being an entirely self-contained adventure. This twenty-first (!) MCU movie would work quite fine as someone’s introduction to the franchise, which feels like an increasingly difficult feat to pull off.

Mostly, though, I’ve just reacted to this narrative with pure visceral joy, thrilling as its protagonist comes into her power and proves her worth. It’s feminist in a way too few of these comic-book properties have been, and I love that we’re getting such a role model no matter how shamefully late. I’m already looking forward to spotting all the little kids in Carol Danvers costumes this Halloween.

★★★★★

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TV Review: Black Mirror, season 5

TV #21 of 2019:

Black Mirror, season 5

I’ve always found the ubiquitous complaint that Black Mirror is a show about “what if phones, but too much” to be funny but facile, a reductive punchline for a series that interrogates human frailty through the lens of emerging technology as much as it critiques our devices themselves. And this latest season is no exception, offering a nice variety of morality plays that mostly shy away from easy bugbears about tech.

The weakest episode is probably the Miley Cyrus one, and the biggest issue there (beyond the stunt-casting that I actually kinda like) is having too many ideas and not enough focus or runtime to properly develop them all — a problem that many creators would love to face! The other two hours hold more thoughtful explorations of their given subjects: from cyberspace as a playground for experimenting with identity and sexuality in Striking Vipers to the dangers of operating with both too little and too much information in Smithereens. It’s another solid outing for the show, and a welcome bounce back after the disappointment of its Bandersnatch special.

★★★★☆

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