The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Warp by Lev Grossman

Book #28 of 2018:

Warp by Lev Grossman

It turns out this short first novel by The Magicians author Lev Grossman went out of print for a reason, and the success of that later work doesn’t really justify this new edition. You can almost see the origins of Magicians hero Quentin Coldwater in its aimless protagonist if you squint, but the book is mostly just self-indulgent angst and an interior monologue of sporadic pop culture quotes. It’s like the worst parts of The Catcher in the Rye and Ready Player One combined, and if it had been any longer I don’t think I would have bothered finishing it.

★☆☆☆☆

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Book Review: Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo

Book #27 of 2018:

Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo

What a great read! And one that, I’m happy to report, doesn’t require a reader to know anything about Wonder Woman or the greater DC Comics canon to enjoy. This is an alternate version of the heroine’s origin story, where a teenaged Diana leaves her island home to enter our modern world on a quest. There are fierce female friendships, a diverse cast whose different backgrounds inform their characters nicely, and some quality action and adventure. It’s the start of a new line of DC superhero novels, and author Leigh Bardugo launches the series on a perfect note.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

Book #26 of 2018:

Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

I find that I often react to novellas by wishing they were longer, and this recent Stephen King collaboration is no exception. (If nothing else, expanding the book would help to distinguish it from the classic Richard Matheson short story / movie / Twilight Zone episode about a similar deadly button.) I do like the wrinkle here that the young heroine is a fundamentally decent person who safeguards a power she knows other people would abuse, but that power itself and the overall moral thrust of the story are left somewhat murky by the authors. There are some good ideas here — like a certain black-clad man with the initials R. F. lurking around Castle Rock — but it all feels a little under-developed in the end.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction by Neil Gaiman

Book #25 of 2018:

The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction by Neil Gaiman

This is a collection of essays, speeches, and other writings from author Neil Gaiman, pulled from across the span of his career. They contain some interesting reflections on his own works, literature in general, and writers like Douglas Adams and Diana Wynne Jones that Gaiman has admired over the years. The selection could have been curated better — I don’t fault the author for sometimes using the same anecdote in two pieces written years apart, but there’s no need to then include both items here — and it probably helps for a reader to already be a Gaiman fan before picking up this book. But if you like his work (and that of the other artists he discusses) and don’t mind a little repetition, this is a neat look into a creative mind.

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: Game of Thrones, season 6

TV #9 of 2018:

Game of Thrones, season 6

Thrones is well past its prime at this point, but it’s still a powerhouse, and there are moments this season (especially that elegiac finale) that are absolutely breathtaking. Unfortunately, the narrative shortcuts are getting more obvious, and although we can partly blame the source material for not having covered this far, it’s a definite letdown after the early greatness that launches the show. At least it’s not as goofy as the season that follows, where the plot armor, insta-travel, and bad character logic really run amok.

My original review from 2016:

This series has definitely entered its endgame, and it is an absolute thrill to watch all these far-flung characters and plots finally converge, even if the story logic isn’t always as sound as it appeared before. I think the writers have also been somewhat receptive to complaints about gratuitous nudity and sexual violence, as this season features more female empowerment than any previous one. But the biggest change is that they finally had no choice but to barrel forward into material that George R. R. Martin has not yet published — for both better and worse. The writing of the past few seasons has featured some feet-dragging to avoid overtaking the books, and the story is now officially free of all that. The result doesn’t always land like Martin’s own work, but the increased momentum is certainly fun.

★★★☆☆

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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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