The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Book #71 of 2016:

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows #1)

I still don’t quite understand the title, but Six of Crows was a really fun fantasy heist novel, featuring a gang of criminals breaking into (and back out of) a high-security prison to rescue a captured scientist with the chemical formula to make super-powered magic-users. Of course, that plan goes south pretty much immediately, so a lot of the action ends up being clever people improvising their way out of a succession of tight spots.

There’s some heavy stuff like drug abuse, sex trafficking, and plague victims that all gets treated with the proper seriousness, but for the most part, the novel zips along on a lighter level and requires no previous knowledge of the ‘Grishaverse’ setting. It’s no Lies of Locke Lamora, but it was still a lot of fun.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Stiletto by Daniel O’Malley

Book #70 of 2016:

Stiletto by Daniel O’Malley (The Checquy Files #2)

Stiletto, the second book in Daniel O’Malley’s Checquy Files series, is that choicest of sequels that improves upon its predecessor in every way. That first novel, The Rook, had a lot to accomplish between the introduction of its unique setting and magical system and the amnesiac / secret traitor plot at its center. The second time around, O’Malley feels a lot more confident in his storytelling, and the result shines.

The plot here is tighter, the magic powers are weirder, and the characters (both new and returning) are much better drawn. There are some tense fight scenes, a few characters who hate one another but believably end up as friends, and a proposed merger so unpopular that it would give even Jon Snow pause. The Rook was a somewhat rocky entrance into the world of the Checquy, but Stiletto proves that it’s a world with plenty to offer.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan and Peter Sís

Book #69 of 2016:

The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan and Peter Sís

I rather liked this novel for junior readers about the boy who would grow up to be Pablo Neruda. It’s below the level that I usually read, but the magical realism of the boy’s daydreams mixing with reality certainly made it memorable. I don’t know enough about Neruda to judge how closely the book stuck to the actual biographical facts, but this was a neat way to tell some of his life story to new generations.

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: The West Wing, season 3

TV #40 of 2016:

The West Wing, season 3

My wife and I are still making our way through this show for her first time and my nth. The third season holds up pretty well, even though this was the one that began airing shortly after 9/11. There are definitely some plot decisions that I’m sure were not in the original plan for the show, and it’s got some growing pains to adjust to the new reality.. (On the other hand, though, what work of popular American fiction from the past 15 years hasn’t been affected by 9/11 in some way or another?)

Anyway, The West Wing’s pivot toward Middle Eastern terrorism isn’t handled all that terribly, and now we get to dive into the election episodes at the beginning of season 4. I don’t like this storyline as much as I do the election at the end of the show, but it’ll still be fun to watch as the actual US election draws closer.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Book #68 of 2016:

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (Time Quintet)

This is a book I’ve always felt weird for not liking more, since so many people seem to love it. But I do believe in second chances, so I read it again today for the first time in probably 20 years… and it still just left me cold. At its best the story reminds me of better children’s fantasy series that came both before and after it – C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and Diane Duane’s Young Wizards books come particularly to mind – and at its worst I just don’t find its characters believable or engaging. It’s by no means awful, but it also just isn’t anything special for me.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

Book #67 of 2016:

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie (Tommy and Tuppence #1)

The Secret Adversary was my first time reading about Tommy and Tuppence, Agatha Christie’s “young adventurers,” but I’m already looking forward to the next book in their series. It’s refreshing to get two investigators in a Christie book, especially when they’re more active than Poirot or Miss Marple and when they share such droll repartee. I would not be surprised if these two characters were part of the inspiration behind Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles or Frank and Sadie Doyle from the Thrilling Adventure Hour podcast, since they share those later couples’ qualities of being in the investigation business mostly for the fun and of caring for one another more than they do the case at hand.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirähk

Book #66 of 2016:

The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirähk

This Estonian bestseller is a weird and frequently sexist book, but it does a good job at conveying what it’s like to witness one’s native language and traditions dying out. In the end I’m not really sure I liked this novel — and I don’t know how much I should fault the translation or cultural differences with the author — but it feels like one I’ll be thinking about for quite some time to come.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Dodger by Terry Pratchett

Book #65 of 2016:

Dodger by Terry Pratchett

Dodger has its share of Terry Pratchett’s classic humor, but it’s missing the comic sensibility that his best books display throughout. Part of this is likely due to the setting, which replaces the author’s usual Discworld for the rather less fantastic Victorian London. (And we are supposed to understand this as being a story set in the real world, despite the presence of Sweeney Todd and the street-urchin protagonist’s unlikely friendship with Charles Dickens.) But whatever the reason, Dodger drags a bit and never really feels like it justifies its existence.

★★☆☆☆

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TV Review: Star Trek: The Animated Series, season 1

TV #39 of 2016:

Star Trek: The Animated Series, season 1

I was expecting this show to be a pretty shameless cash-grab (kind of like 1975′s awful Return to the Planet of the Apes cartoon), but it ended up being a pleasant surprise. Yes, the animators sometimes take shortcuts like having a character’s face take up the entire screen to limit what they had to draw, but the animated format also opens up storytelling avenues that the live-action Star Trek could never have managed – like the Enterprise crew shrinking down to the size of insects or losing the ship’s artificial gravity and floating around the bridge. There are also a lot more aliens looking a lot less human, which does further fleshes out the Star Trek universe. And of course, the episodes being only half an hour in length necessarily tightens up the storytelling, which was always one of the weaker elements in the live-action show. With the main TOS cast returning to do the voice-acting, TAS is definitely a great addition to the canon.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate

Book #64 of 2016:

Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate

This novel about a giant talking cat that only the protagonist can see really ended up being more about the boy’s family falling on hard times, and how his imaginary friend was something of a coping mechanism for that. It was honestly a very stressful read for someone who worries about money issues as much as I do, and I’m not sure I would have kept reading if it had been any longer of a book. Applegate paints a very scary picture of how easily a family can become homeless, and of how helpless a kid can feel over things completely outside their control. Well-written, but tough to read.

★★★☆☆

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