The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

TV Review: Friday Night Lights, season 5

TV #14 of 2019:

Friday Night Lights, season 5

It’s hard to separate my feelings about that excellent finale from the rest of its season, but on reflection I think this last run of Friday Night Lights is maybe just a minor step down from the one before. I appreciate its focus on winning the right way and the lessons that both Vince and Coach Taylor learn in that regard, but I’m just never going to care about presumptive champions as much as underdogs.

And as ever, the rich history of this show is both a blessing and a curse: characters grow organically and believably before our eyes, but major thematic and plot concerns from one season suddenly vanish the next. The previous year’s football rivals are now barely an afterthought, and interpersonal complications that could have lingered are instead brushed aside to set up the new status quo.

I harp on these issues more for FNL than for other series that retool and refocus between seasons just because this show’s narrative is regularly positioned in conversation with its past, which adds nuance and poignancy but makes it harder to ignore the discrepancies. Taken on its own, this final season is another stellar look at what it means to live in a small town built around high school sports — but why would you ever want to take just one season of this show on its own?

This season: ★★★★☆

Overall series: ★★★★☆

Season ranking: 1 > 4 > 5 > 3 > 2

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Book Review: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

Book #94 of 2019:

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal (Lady Astronaut #1)

I really like this alternate history novel, in which a natural disaster in 1952 accelerates the timeline of space travel and a female pilot and mathematician struggles to break the glass ceiling of the new rocket program. The first quarter or so of the text deals primarily with the immediate aftermath of a meteorstrike near Washington, D.C. and reads like a classic doomsday survivalist tale, after which we jump ahead four years to follow the heroine and other scientists scrambling to devise a way off-world. The whole book is rooted in a richly-drawn character trying to prove her worth against the sexist notions of her time.

I also want to highlight author Mary Robinette Kowal’s treatment of her protagonist’s Judaism, which is more detailed and accurate than I can remember seeing from a non-Jewish writer in the past. I was actually surprised to learn that Kowal is not from a Jewish background herself, but she has been as respectful and methodical in her research there as she has been for the narrative’s other topics in which she can’t claim expertise. I loved being able to see myself in the character that way, much as I loved seeing the realistic depiction of her anxiety attacks and her growing realization of her respective privilege over the astronaut candidates who aren’t white.

In the end, this is a warm-hearted and triumphant — dare I say, “hopepunk” — story, although I would issue a content warning for the period-authentic sexism, racism, and antisemitism levied against the protagonist and her friends along the way.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Doctor Who: Scratchman by Tom Baker with James Goss

Book #93 of 2019:

Doctor Who: Scratchman by Tom Baker with James Goss

“Doctor Who Meets the Scratchman” was the working title of a movie script written by Tom Baker (who played the Fourth Doctor) and Ian Marter (who played his companion Harry Sullivan), during their time starring on Doctor Who back in the 1970s. The actors spent years trying futilely to get the film produced, and in 2019 Baker ultimately reworked the story into an official canonical novel with the help of writer James Goss.

And it’s honestly just such a delight. I was worried this would be a passion project more interesting as a footnote than as an actual enjoyable adventure, but Baker really has captured the spirit of his character and the tone of those classic episodes. Presenting the narrative mostly as first-person from the Doctor’s point-of-view is also a bold but effective choice, and there are many fantastically Doctorish turns of phrase that would be easy to hear in Baker’s voice even if you don’t listen to him actually narrate the audiobook. (But you should, because he turns in an understandably great performance at it.)

The plotline, which transitions from an early base-under-siege dynamic into a more surreal trip to another dimension, is quintessential Who, and although there are some fun continuity nods — including a touching cameo from Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor, the latest and first female incarnation of the hero — one doesn’t need to have much previous knowledge of the series to follow along. It’s overall a triumph, above and beyond the sheer joy of having the long-languishing effort finally see the light of day.

[Content warning for some slight body horror, about the same as you would get in the modern version of the TV program.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Book #92 of 2019:

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy #2)

This sequel is less laugh-out-loud funny than the original Hitchhiker’s novel, which makes it harder to look past the looseness of the plot (or the few snobby digs at the working class). There are still individual scenes and punchlines that rise to the occasion, and it’s definitely short enough to be worth the read, but the whole effort doesn’t quite hang together overall.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Fool’s Errand by Robin Hobb

Book #91 of 2019:

Fool’s Errand by Robin Hobb (The Tawny Man #1)

As expected for the seventh entry in her larger Elderlings saga, the world of Robin Hobb’s first Tawny Man novel feels quite well-developed and lived-in at this point. And it’s a real thrill to revisit the surviving characters from her initial Farseer trilogy and see how they’ve changed in the decade and a half since then. Slipping back into a story like this is both comfortable and exciting, and it’s a great opportunity for Hobb to spin out a new adventure and provide closure for our old friends.

But then… nothing happens! The book is ten chapters in, over a third of the way finished, before the returning hero even heeds the call and leaves his rustic cabin to rejoin civilization. That’s a long time to spend just catching up, especially when the main plot of this volume seems aimed primarily at establishing a new status quo for the rest of the trilogy. I’m beginning to remember why I’ve never before reread this part of the series, despite really enjoying the work overall.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Doctor Who: Regeneration by Philip Segal with Gary Russell

Book #90 of 2019:

Doctor Who: Regeneration by Philip Segal with Gary Russell

This oral history of the 1996 Doctor Who movie is unauthorized and poorly-edited, making it feel somewhat amateurish despite being written by one of the project’s executive producers and earliest champions. But it’s packed with inside information on the production, including some working ideas that seem pretty bizarre in hindsight. (A remake of The Gunfighters! Borusa traveling with the Doctor! Spider-Daleks! Eric Roberts in a leather jacket! Oh, wait…)

The film was made several years after the classic run of Doctor Who had been axed by the BBC, and it did not perform well enough to merit a new television series as the creators had hoped. And when this book was written in 2000, there was still no indication that the modern reboot would ever arrive. This frees the writers to be rather plainspoken about their opinions and frustrations with the creative process, resulting in an open — if likely biased — behind-the-scenes look at the state of the Whoniverse at that time.

It’s not a great read, but it’s full of glossy stills and interesting facts that I hadn’t heard anywhere else before. If you’re enough of a Whovian that you’ve already seen the movie in question, it’s probably worth tracking down a copy of this account.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Book #89 of 2019:

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I’ll admit I wasn’t immediately hooked by this oral history of a fictional 70s rock group, yet I found myself fairly riveted by the end. The ‘behind-the-music’ format is familiar for a documentary but pretty unusual for a novel, and author Taylor Jenkins Reid uses it to flesh out some fascinating personalities for the band in question. Their passions and jealousies feel quite true-to-life, and the developments on their way to fame and its aftermath come off as wholly earned. It’s a great character-driven drama that hardly seems like fiction at all, which is no easy feat for a writer to achieve.

I do have one small critique, however: although the interview subjects contradict each other at times, these statements are generally juxtaposed immediately next to one another to make the discrepancy plain, and it’s usually clear which ones we’re supposed to understand as false. I still enjoyed the story despite this, but I think Reid could have gotten more mileage out of the untrustworthy narrator conceit and created a more nuanced narrative by not calling such overt attention to it.

[Content warning for substance abuse, abortion, and brief mention of statutory rape.]

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Santa Clarita Diet, season 3

TV #13 of 2019:

Santa Clarita Diet, season 3

As always, I’ve laughed a lot this season at the twisted presentation of an oddly functional human-zombie marriage, but the plot doesn’t really surprise me as much as it has in the past. Instead the show just keeps falling back on its old common patterns, to predictably diminishing returns.

There are also some unfortunate issues with casting — Alan Tudyk in prosthetics replacing Nathan Fillion is probably the most noticeable (and amusing for Firefly fans!), but Natalie Morales also seems to have been written off sooner than intended due to her new show on NBC, leaving her arc here in a weird position. Her character starts this season forming a cult around Sheila, and the season literally ends with a finale called The Cult of Sheila about an entirely different group of people, the first cult having disbanded when Anne left. It’s not hard to imagine that the original plan for this year went somewhat differently.

So this is overall a weaker outing for the series, but I’m still bummed that Netflix has canceled it. At least the last episode works as a send-off for the program at large, with its cliffhanger reading more as ‘who knows what the future holds’ than ‘these issues remain unresolved.’ I’ve really enjoyed this take on the suburban undead, and I hope its talented young cast members Liv Hewson and Skyler Gisondo go on to find further success.

This season: ★★★☆☆

Overall series: ★★★★☆

Season ranking: 1 > 2 > 3

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Book Review: Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin

Book #88 of 2019:

Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin (A Targaryen History #1)

One of the main attractions of George R.R. Martin’s famous A Song of Ice and Fire series, as well as its HBO adaptation Game of Thrones, is the richly textured backstory that the author has built up for his fantasy realm. That’s on full display in this historical account of its ruling Targaryen family, which spans from the founding of that dynasty and uniting of the Seven Kingdoms through the following century and a half of rebellions and intrigues — roughly midway to the point where the proper series begins. (Martin is reportedly planning a follow-up to cover the remainder, even though pretty much everyone wishes he would just finish the original ASoIaF narrative instead.)

What this book lacks, however, is the deep characterization and interpersonal drama that animates the main novels and the TV show. There are enough bloody dragon battles that it’s not quite a dry encyclopedia, but it reads more like a plot summary of important events in the history of Westeros than an embodied look at them. The go-to comparison here would definitely be J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, which also maintains a certain authorial distance as it chronicles an extensive prologue to a better-known sequel.

If you’re a Thrones obsessive, I’d say this work is still worth a read — although, like me, you may have already seen previously-published portions in Martin’s earlier travelogue The World of Ice & Fire and the short story collections Dangerous Women, Rogues, and The Book of Swords. Just understand that it probably won’t sweep you away, and try to approach it as an assortment of worldbuilding details to enrich a setting you already enjoy, rather than a satisfying tale in its own right.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Man Who Risked His Partner by Stephen R. Donaldson

Book #87 of 2019:

The Man Who Risked His Partner by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Man Who #2)

Stephen R. Donaldson is primarily a fantasist, and his The Man Who detective series borrows heavily from that toolkit. I wouldn’t necessarily call it worldbuilding, but the setting of these books feels ever-so-slightly heightened and off-kilter from the reality we would expect in a typical crime thriller. And that matches the general theme illuminating Donaldson’s fantasy work, which is that external tokens — be they magic spells or bottles of mescal — should be in service to internal character dilemmas.

The strange southwestern town of these first two Man Who novels is a purgatory for Donaldson’s characters, who are seeking to make sense of their respective traumas as much as of the case in front of them. This sequel offers a more distinctive investigation on all fronts than the first time around, and although there aren’t many big surprises in the narrative — a compulsive liar of a client mostly just keeps compulsively lying — the heroes feel sharper and less inscrutable as they struggle towards answers.

As ever, Donaldson provides a claustrophobically haunting look at addiction through the eyes of his alcoholic protagonist, and the novel (first published under a pseudonym in 1984 before being revised and reissued in 2003 with the author’s name attached) showcases the same sort of torturous anguish perfected in his earlier and more famous Thomas Covenant series. I don’t know if I’d recommend the story to whodunnit readers who care about plot over atmosphere, but as a nice juicy noir, it’s even better on a reread than I remember.

★★★★☆

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