The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Book #92 of 2018:

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (Wayfarers #1)

A gloriously uplifting space opera, featuring a diverse crew of interstellar travelers who are fascinatingly drawn and who all care deeply for one another. The setting is sort of like Firefly amid a Star Trek or Mass Effect-like coalition of species, and author Becky Chambers excels at finding the human (well, sapient) heart at the core of everyone in this found family. It’s a bold character-driven drama that fiercely tackles prejudices of all kinds and affirms the essential goodness of the universe. I really just loved it ever so much.

★★★★★

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TV Review: ReBoot: The Guardian Code, season 1

TV #22 of 2018:

ReBoot: The Guardian Code, season 1

I have so many mixed feelings about this — apologies in advance — reboot. I loved the original show and have been longing for a revival ever since it went off the air back in 2001, but this new version is pretty different… and pretty bad. In fact, I think the pilot episode might be hands-down the worst episode of anything I’ve ever seen. (It’s also the s1 episode that’s least like the older show, which is just a baffling writing decision. That should be a changing-of-the-guard moment, to ease returning fans into the new paradigm while reassuring new viewers they won’t be lost. Instead we’re offered practically nothing recognizable to justify the name of the show.)

Thankfully the series does get better and more ReBoot-like in the nine episodes that follow. It’s still not great, but at its strongest it comes off as something like ReBoot season one crossed with The Sarah Jane Adventures. The way the show handles cyberspace feels like an organic extension of the computer systems from the earlier series, and the returning character of Megabyte seems basically just like his old self (with the caveat of some major plot gaps from where we left him seventeen years ago). And some of the new stuff absolutely works; the living AI character Vera is a particularly delightful surprise.

Most of the live-action scenes are awfully hokey, though, especially everything to do with the villainous hacker the Sourcerer. The worldbuilding in the original series had a certain lived-in dignity to it, but this guy is simply too cartoonish to take seriously. He’s emblematic of everything wrong with this new version of ReBoot, and there’s ultimately way more of that than anything good.

★★☆☆☆

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TV Review: Bosch, season 4

TV #21 of 2018:

Bosch, season 4

Of all the shows I watch, Bosch is usually the one I have the least feels about. The first season was a little hokey, and after that it’s generally been this quietly competent urban crime drama that I mostly watch so that I can talk about it with my dad. This season was a major step up, though, with resonant character arcs, clever twists, and really satisfying detective work. (The focus on a major case of police corruption also helps the show from slipping into its ‘copaganda’ mode.) Heck, I’m even feeling tempted to read some of the source books, which I’ve never really been interested in before. I don’t know if this season will end up as a one-off fluke or as a genuine shift for the show, but for now, Bosch is firing on all cylinders.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce

Book #91 of 2018:

Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce (Protector of the Small #4)

A solid but kind of unremarkable Tortall adventure. The Protector of the Small series is generally marketed as a quartet, but it honestly feels more like a cohesive trilogy followed by this somewhat vestigial afterthought. I’m not trying to be too negative here, because there isn’t anything particularly bad about this novel, and it even offers the sort of dramatic stakes that I’ve often found wanting in its predecessors. But the major plot arcs and themes of this series come to a natural conclusion at the end of the third book, and it never quite feels as though this final volume is motivated by anything new to say about its main character or any lingering narrative concerns. At this point in author Tamora Pierce’s larger ongoing Tortall series, I need more than just paint-by-numbers sword and sorcery.

This book: ★★★☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Book ranking: 3 > 2 > 1 > 4

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TV Review: Orange Is the New Black, season 5

TV #20 of 2018:

Orange Is the New Black, season 5

The latest chapter of Netflix’s flagship dramedy is somewhat experimental, spending the entire season on what turns out to be a three-day prison riot. For the most part, the experiment works: it shakes up the show’s usual storytelling rhythms and offers one of the most coherent pictures yet of the sprawling cast connected in a single ecosystem. Creating a no man’s land where the inmates are literally running the asylum also allows for some glorious funhouse mirror takes on the usual status quo. On the downside the plot doesn’t always move as quickly as I’d like, nor does every character get the sort of arc that the longer periods of time in earlier seasons have enabled. I’m really glad that the whole show isn’t structured this way, but as a one-off break from convention, this season was neat.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Warcross by Marie Lu

Book #90 of 2018:

Warcross by Marie Lu (Warcross #1)

There’s a lot of Ready Player One in the DNA of this sci-fi adventure about a poor teenage orphan who becomes a sudden celebrity after finding something strange in a wildly popular VR game. But instead of an intentional easter egg, Emika Chen discovers a programming vulnerability, and is promptly hired by the game’s reclusive billionaire developer to find the hacker that’s been targeting his systems. In the process she is placed in the upcoming esports championship and (of course) starts developing feelings for her handsome patron.

The plot that follows is good sweet fun, although the action scenes could have been better described — the titular game seems sort of like Harry Potter‘s Quidditch crossed with the battle room from Ender’s Game, but author Marie Lu never quite gets around to sharing all the rules with us, which sometimes makes it hard to visualize just what’s going on. But the cast of characters is great and diverse, and the ending delivers a terrific setup for the forthcoming sequel. I liked this book a lot, and I’m really excited to see where the story goes from here.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

Book #89 of 2018:

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer (Southern Reach #2)

I liked but didn’t love Jeff VanderMeer’s novel Annihilation, and I was hopeful that this sequel, set outside the mysterious Area X that clouds everyone’s thinking, would offer a more straightforward story. Unfortunately, it does not. Instead there’s the same creeping horror and hypnosis-fueled confusion, just transplanted to an office setting where the deadly threat is a little less immediate. Readers who loved the atmosphere in Annihilation and/or are determined to learn the answers to Area X’s mysteries will probably enjoy this follow-up, but I have to admit that I got even less out of it than I did the first book. I’m still not particularly interested in what’s going on in this trilogy, so I don’t think I’ll bother reading the final volume to see how (if?) it all wraps up.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

Book #88 of 2018:

This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Starbound #2)

The first novel in the Starbound series took a while to draw me in, but this sequel improves upon its predecessor by offering two new central characters whose starcrossed Romeo and Juliet plot of soldiers on opposite sides of a war is compelling right from the start. I especially appreciate that the heroine is a dark-skinned woman with a Chinese mother, since people from minority backgrounds seldom get to see themselves as the romantic leads in genre fiction. The worldbuilding is also more complete, and although I still have questions about the larger society where the series is set, this particular planet feels fleshed-out and lived-in.

Granted, I could have done without the flashback-y dream sequences that occur in between every single chapter, which feel extraneous even after they’re finally explained in the last tenth of the book. And I would have liked a closer tie to the previous story, since this one is more than half over before being firmly cemented as a sequel. But if you like the sci-fi romance of These Broken Stars, this follow-up is well worth the read.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Archer: Dreamland

TV #19 of 2018:

Archer: Dreamland

I don’t usually care for extended dream sequences or retcons, because writers playing fast and loose with what’s been previously established makes it harder for me to invest in the new status quo. But with that being said, I think the reboot at the start of this eighth season of Archer was a good call. The continuity is entirely reset and the characters themselves are a little scrambled, and although I miss what had been built up over the previous seasons, the shakeup definitely keeps the show from growing stale. (Plus there are enough new jokes to keep me from missing all the callbacks too badly.) This won’t go down as my favorite Archer season, but it’s effective on its own terms and would be a good place for new viewers to jump in.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Star Wars: Beware the Power of the Dark Side! by Tom Angleberger

Book #87 of 2018:

Star Wars: Beware the Power of the Dark Side! by Tom Angleberger

A fun junior novelization of the third movie from the original Star Wars trilogy. Stylistically it’s the least daring of the books in this semi-series, but it’s still a capable retelling of the film’s story with a few cool added moments. (A late heart-to-heart conversation between Princess Leia and Rebel leader Mon Mothma is particularly moving.) Author Tom Angleberger adopts a jaunty, conversational tone that’s a good fit for a children’s novel, aptly recapturing the magic of Return of the Jedi for a whole new medium.

★★★☆☆

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