TV Review: The Good Place, season 2

TV #8 of 2018:

The Good Place, season 2

I love this show, but it’s so hard to talk about without dropping spoilers! Suffice to say that it’s a sitcom about the afterlife, and that it’s probably the most serialized half-hour comedy you’ve ever seen. So much changes so fast that there’s no real status quo, and the episodes absolutely couldn’t be shown in any other order. That could be a problem for certain types of television watchers, but if you love TV for character growth and narrative arcs – which I absolutely do – it’s a complete blast.

The first season ends on the biggest twist yet, but this follow-up hits the ground running and is possibly even funnier. I love the characters and the writing, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store after this.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Lola by Melissa Scrivner Love

Book #24 of 2018:

Lola by Melissa Scrivner Love

I want to like this novel a lot more than I do. The premise of a Mexican-American woman leading an L.A. street gang is strong, and it’s great when Lola confronts the limitations that society puts on her gender and class. I also really like the parts with the protagonist’s unofficial foster daughter, and how she balances being a parent and a ruthless crime boss. We could use more antiheroines like that.

Unfortunately, a lot of the plot development is clunky, and Lola seems to get by largely on luck or on other people making bad decisions — which could be a fine narrative choice for this character’s arc, but not when the author continually frames her as such a stone-cold criminal mastermind. The result is a decent story that falls short of its potential. (Trigger warning for graphic gangland violence, as well as discussions of rape and child molestation.)

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Little Sisters of Eluria by Stephen King

Book #23 of 2018:

The Little Sisters of Eluria by Stephen King

I like this Dark Tower prequel novella, but it’s admittedly pretty extraneous to the regular series. The Mid-World setting makes it seem more primary, but it’s really closer in nature to a tangential Stephen King book like Black House than anything particularly essential to the main storyline.

Anyway, this early adventure of Roland’s is interesting, and definitely worth seeking out if you’re a Tower completionist. Just don’t be fooled into reading it before any of the novels — it may take place soon before the first one, but it was written after Wizard and Glass, and is best read after that for the proper context.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Sir Thursday by Garth Nix

Book #22 of 2018:

Sir Thursday by Garth Nix (The Keys to the Kingdom #4)

I flat-out love most of the other Garth Nix books that I’ve read, but for some reason this particular series has never clicked for me. The plots are a bit too formulaic, the setting a bit too generic, and the main character a bit too reactive for me to ever feel truly invested in what’s going on. Other readers could well feel differently — particularly those in the intended age group for the series who are less familiar with certain genre tropes — so if you or your children have enjoyed the first three books in the seven-part series, this middle volume is probably worth picking up as well. But there’s none of the growth that I’ve been expecting from Nix, and no particular evidence that the back half of the series will offer anything different. For me, the week ends here.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King

Book #21 of 2018:

Wizard and Glass by Stephen King (The Dark Tower #4)

This was always my favorite novel in Stephen King’s epic sprawling Dark Tower series, and although I’m a bit longer in the tooth now than when I first read it, I’m excited to see that the story is just as great as I remember. There’s admittedly little progress made on the central quest for the Tower, with almost all of this book devoted to an extended flashback to the days before the first novel, when Roland Deschain was a teenaged gunslinger in the twilight of Gilead. But that prequel sequence is one of the best things Stephen King has ever written, a tragedy of starcrossed lovers and dissolving kingdoms that we all know will end in heartbreak.

If you can’t accept that a journey can be sweeter than its destination, this may not be the series for you in the first place. But if you’re captivated by Roland’s world and how it has shaped him, this is easily its finest hour.

★★★★★

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Book Review: Harpist in the Wind by Patricia A. McKillip

Book #20 of 2018:

Harpist in the Wind by Patricia A. McKillip (Riddle-Master #3)

The Riddle-Master trilogy has always suffered from author Patricia A. McKillip keeping us at a distance from its world, and this concluding volume finally collapses under that weight. It isn’t a worldbuilding issue per se, since this reality has always felt fully formed to the characters who live in it. But so much of the internal logic of that reality remains unclear to readers that the revelations throughout this novel are dramatically inert. The text is full of things like one immortal character getting revealed to actually be another immortal character, with little explanation about how or why any of that matters. It’s a disappointing end to this series, especially after a superb middle novel that transcends those weaknesses so well.

This book: ★★☆☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Book ranking: 2 > 1 > 3

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TV Review: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, season 1

TV #7 of 2018:

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, season 1

This story of a 1958 housewife who becomes a stand-up comic after her husband leaves her was absolutely incredible. Hilarious, empowering, and so specific (and accurate!) in its portrayal of American Jewish life in a way I have NEVER before seen on television. I loved every single minute of it, and I can’t wait for the story to continue next season. It just won two Golden Globes (Best Musical or Comedy and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy), and the writing is everything you’d expect from the creators of Gilmore Girls. Go watch it on Amazon right now!

★★★★★

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TV Review: Marvel’s Luke Cage, season 1

TV #6 of 2018:

Marvel’s Luke Cage, season 1

This show starts off so strongly, following in Daredevil’s footsteps of presenting a superhero spin on urban crime dramas like The Wire. But the villain of the back half of the series is never very well established, and the season really suffers for it, especially in that nonsensical finale. Like most Marvel productions I can’t fault the casting or the acting, and the stylistic Blaxploitation touches are incredibly effective. But I really find myself struggling to defend any of the writing choices past the end of the Cottonmouth arc.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold

Book #19 of 2018:

Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan Saga #2)

I still feel like this is a series I could happily walk away from and not miss, but this Hugo-winning second novel — actually the seventh in publication order — is a definite improvement over the first. (I’m also told that the baby who gets born at the end of this story is the real main character of the series, so I suppose I’ll read at least one more to see if I finally get hooked.) Anyway, this was a fun enough swashbuckling sort of sci-fi adventure, mostly focused on fleshing out the militaristic low-tech culture of the title planet. It reads very much like a classic Ruritanian romance, and that’s not a bad thing at all.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Doctor Who: A History of Humankind by Justin Richards

Book #18 of 2018:

Doctor Who: A History of Humankind by Justin Richards

This is another in the line of licensed Doctor Who children’s books presented as annotated reference materials, but I like it a lot better than the earlier effort How to Be a Time Lord. Partly that’s because it has a better gimmick — a history textbook scrawled over by the Twelfth Doctor in his customary acerbic way — and partly because it’s quietly exhaustive, including details from practically every historical adventure in Doctor Who’s long history.

(It’s Doctor Who, so of course there’s room to quibble with that description, and I’m disappointed but not surprised by the lack of references to any Big Finish adventure or other spinoff materials. But I’m very impressed that author Justin Richards has managed to include elements from obscure classic serials like 1982’s Black Orchid. He even directly connects 1966’s The Smugglers with 2011’s The Curse of the Black Spot — which is more than the latter episode ever does itself, even though they concern the same pirate crew.)

At the end of the day, this is still a Doctor Who book for children, with nothing that they wouldn’t learn just by watching the referenced episodes themselves. And it’s a little frustrating that Richards hasn’t included episode titles anywhere, which could stymie readers wanting to seek out some of the older stories after first reading about them here. Nevertheless, the author has clearly gone above and beyond the call of duty in assembling this history of the Doctor’s time in Earth’s past.

★★★☆☆

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