The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Jhegaala by Steven Brust

Book #4 of 2025:

Jhegaala by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #11)

There’s always been a noir element in the DNA of this fantasy sequence, but it’s rarely as overt as it is in this installment, which finds the ex-assassin Vladimir Taltos traveling in the East, far from the familiar Draegaran Empire. (For those reading his adventures in release order, we’ve gone back to the time in between #5 Phoenix and #6 Athyra, when he was still new to the fugitive lifestyle and the giant bounty on his head.)

He’s come to a small town there to track down some of his dead mother’s relatives that he never knew, out of idle curiosity and the need to lay low somewhere that his enemies wouldn’t think to look for him, but like any classic investigator, he soon find intrigues and murky allegiances he doesn’t have the necessary context to understand. No one believes that his innocent questions are just that, and their assumptions of his ulterior motives ignite the simmering local tensions in a few disastrous ways.

Over the course of the ensuing plot, our antihero gets bloodied, certain bystanders pay dearly, and the townsfolk eventually learn why Vlad was such a dangerous operator for his former employers. It’s a different sort of read for the series — the only entry not to feature even a single ‘elf’ on the page, for instance, though the reformed hitman interestingly feels as ill at ease among his own people as he ever did as a member of the diaspora back home — and it admittedly can seem somewhat aimless early on, before the protagonist has a greater purpose beyond investigating his family roots. But once that streak of stubborn justice is introduced to the story, he’s a man on a mission as the rural setting grows steadily more sinister around him. Overall it’s a nice character study of the figure at this stage of his life, and a great first look at his ancestral homeland.

[Content warning for child murder, torture, fatphobia, and gore.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: House of Odysseus by Claire North

Book #3 of 2025:

House of Odysseus by Claire North (The Songs of Penelope #2)

Unfortunately not as gripping as the first book in the series, though just as committed to its feminist reclamation of Penelope’s traditional narrative. The problem here is that the previous volume already established her basic status quo keeping the suitors at bay near the end of her husband’s wanderings, and this sequel doesn’t have much additional story to tell within that space. Instead, we see a return from the queen’s cousins Orestes and Electra, the former now driven mad following his execution of their mother Clytemnestra. This version of their tale finds them again on Ithaca’s shores, this time pursued by their uncle Menelaus, who’s seeking confirmation of the rumors that his nephew is unfit to remain king.

That plot is largely author Claire North’s own invention, as is the precise way it unfolds. While Orestes is both wracked with guilt and afflicted by the usual divine Furies for his sin of spilling familial blood, his infirmity actually has a more proximate mortal cause: a poison that someone in his household has somehow been administering to him in secret. Thus the novel turns into a bit of a mystery affair, especially after one of the enslaved women serving the family is murdered as well.

The genre mashup is admirable, but it doesn’t wholly work for me. Nor does the substitution of the goddess Hera, our narrator before, with her rival and daughter-in-law Aphrodite. She’s a flightier character than the holy matriarch, and doesn’t seem to have as strong a conviction or stake in how events should play out on earth. As a result, her perspective feels less vital to the text, as though she were any generic omniscient storyteller rather than a specific figure with certain viewpoints and desires. The overall effect is a more muted production, although I’m interested enough in this take on the saga that I’ll still check out the next installment where the absent Odysseus finally returns home.

[Content warning for suicide, domestic abuse, rape, and child sexual abuse.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: The Saint of the Bookstore by Victoria Goddard

Book #2 of 2025:

The Saint of the Bookstore by Victoria Goddard

A lovely midwinter interlude in the Greenwing & Dart series, taking place soon after #6 Plum Duff and following up on a certain momentous development from #4 Blackcurrant Fool. The protagonist is a new character, a sister from a religious order, who’s been sent to the rural village of Ragnor Bella to investigate and determine whether that earlier incident was a genuine miracle, an act of magic instead, or simply an elaborate hoax. There’s no real tension here — it would be a strange and spoilery book for someone to start with, and returning readers already know what the woman will discover — and either by coincidence or providence, she quickly meets up with Jemis Greenwing to make her inquiries.

A subplot in the novella concerns a lost little girl who stumbles into Jemis’s bookshop in the middle of a snowstorm, and how he warms and comforts her as the nun observes the pair. The stakes aren’t especially high, but given how the genre of the extended Nine Worlds saga leans towards cozy fantasy, that’s perhaps to be expected. Jemis soothes the child while author Victoria Goddard works a similar wonder on us, summoning that drowsy feeling of being snuggled safely inside on a cold winter’s night. It’s a neat effect and a rare chance to see the young hero from an outsider’s perspective, not to mention when he’s not in the midst of one of his typical madcap adventures with his friends. We even learn something that has implications for the regular ensemble dynamics going forward / on a reread, marking this title as rather more than just the random bonus feature it might appear to be.

Overall, a delight.

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Art of ReBoot by David Roberts and Gavin Blair

Book #1 of 2025:

The Art of ReBoot by David Roberts and Gavin Blair

Inspired by the recent ReBoot: ReWind documentary, I decided to check out this art book from 2007 (via InterLibrary Loan — I had an eBay alert set up for a little while, but I never saw any used copies going for under $100). As promised, it’s a look back at the design work for ReBoot, the world’s first all-CGI television show, which originally ran from 1994 to 2001. This title has a few retrospective blurbs from the creators throughout, together with some totally unnecessary character summaries, but the main appeal for any fan would be the early concept drawings, especially those from the imaginative comic artist Brendan McCarthy.

At the same time, it’s far from an exhaustive collection — the documentarians in 2024 dug up quite a few pieces that aren’t included — and the tone is off-putting for material aimed partially at children: two instances of Mouse being called sexy, for instance, and an outdated racial term used to describe the inspiration behind Phong. Still, it’s been neat enough to read through these hundred pages to revisit the series this way at least once, even if I won’t be seeking out a copy for my own shelves.

★★★☆☆

Book Review: Deep Black by Miles Cameron

Book #188 of 2024:

Deep Black by Miles Cameron (Arcana Imperii #2)

A competent military sci-fi / space opera that unfortunately shies away from the interpersonal drama that I found so appealing in the first book of this series. Our protagonist is no longer new to the service, her lies about her past have come out and been accepted by her friends and superiors, and while there may yet be shadowy forces back home angling to take her down, we see no further sign of them in this volume and the attacks against her ship as a whole are now out in the open, rather than conducted through secret traitors and sabotage. Even her friendship with her roommate feels curiously muted, although at least her romantic interest is still around.

Mostly this sequel explores the culture and factional intrigues of the two alien species and the artificial intelligence programs in the setting, which are all more complicated than previously indicated. We also get a weird retcon about the heroine’s family and her origins, which makes some of the last novel seem less plausible in hindsight (to no appreciable benefit, I must say). And as usual, there are lots and lots of intricate spaceflight maneuvers and combat tactics.

It’s fine, really! Not my cup of tea overall, which probably means I shouldn’t bother with any subsequent installments, but I could imagine readers who had other favorite parts of the original title enjoying this one better. For me, I’ll give it a simple three-star rating and find something else more to my liking.

[Content warning for gun violence.]

★★★☆☆

TV Review: The Umbrella Academy, season 4

TV #53 of 2024:

The Umbrella Academy, season 4

Even for a messy series that’s always coasted on vibes and fun personal interactions at the expense of any legible story elements, this farewell season is a bit of a rough time. The shortened episode count doesn’t help, nor does the fact that the writers have run out of comic book issues to adapt, but the fundamental problem here is the same one the show has had all along: an inability to articulate the exact parameters of the latest dawning apocalypse, or anyone’s specific goals in either furthering or stopping it.

Writing out all the plot holes introduced in this final year — or remaining unresolved from earlier — is only going to sour my mood, so I’ll stick with one big spoilery example from the finale to illustrate the matter: the reveal that the Hargreeves siblings have to feed themselves to a giant raging monster thing in order to collapse the branching timelines back down into one. Set aside how much of the exposition there is really one character making an unfounded assumption and everyone else agreeing that it sounds right. We’re still left with the unfortunate detail that when this last arc started, those heroes didn’t have any marigold powers in them! They got their abilities again by drinking what was apparently the lone source in the entire universe, found conveniently bottled in the back of some random car, which the villains who wanted to bring about “the Cleanse” could presumably have just snagged and given to Jennifer on their own.

Now, is the protagonists’ noble sacrifice a nice moment? Sure. That particular scene is written and acted pretty well. But it all falls apart the longer you think about it, in a genre that’s meant to be built on such ideas. The foundations leading to the climax are so compromised here that hardly anything lands with the impact it should. One antagonist kills and replaces another at one point, and because neither side has motivations that make any sense whatsoever to the audience, it elicits nothing from me beyond a confused shrug.

The season isn’t a total wash. The reset to a new reality allows for a few interesting variations on the usual cast dynamics, and the six-year time jump is a boon for both Aidan Gallagher’s age and Elliot Page’s gender transition seeming more plausible with the elapsed time on-screen. There’s also a running joke involving that ubiquitous “Baby Shark” song that’s hilarious every time, in a fitting sendoff to the program’s typical great soundtrack choices. But it’s nowhere near enough to save the rest, in the end.

This is, sadly, perhaps the best conclusion that The Umbrella Academy could ever have achieved. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

[Content warning for gun violence, body horror, drug abuse, sexual assault and slavery, live burial, claustrophobia, and gore.]

This season: ★★☆☆☆

Overall series: ★★☆☆☆

Seasons ranked: 2 > 3 > 1 > 4

TV Review: What If…?, season 3

TV #52 of 2024:

What If…?, season 3

This once-promising Marvel cartoon continues to deliver diminishing returns, and since this third season is apparently intended to be its last, it’s hard not to feel a sense of good riddance at this point (and to ponder the wasted potential left on the table, truly the biggest ‘what if’ of them all). While it remains impressive just how many actors were willing to reprise their movie roles for this animated series, I can’t help but think that it must have been the paycheck alone that’s still bringing them back, rather than the opportunity to dig more into a beloved character. A particular shoutout to Clark Gregg there, star of seven seasons of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., who returns to the MCU as Agent Phil Coulson in order to… function as a generic stooge trying to secure Howard the Duck and Darcy Lewis’s egg offspring. At least Tom Hiddleston’s Loki gets a few laughs out of the experience.

When this show began, the premise seemed to be: let’s consider the familiar events of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and explore how they could have gone differently. Certain changes were small and others were large, but the writers generally took the assignment seriously and showed off some interesting hypothetical ramifications to these twists on the normal continuity. But somewhere along the line, that approach was reduced to a jamming together of heroes like action figures under the lazy philosophy that in a multiverse, anything is possible. We can simply say that Storm and Captain Carter are friends now, and not go into how they met or how their dynamic alters the conventional timelines. Or to take another example from this year, Red Guardian can intervene to stop the Winter Soldier from killing Tony Stark’s parents, but the episode is going to revolve around their offbeat buddy comedy — pursued by Goliath of all people — and totally ignore the more appealing question of how the new trajectory of Tony’s life would have progressed instead.

The ending as usual tries to gin up some larger reality-spanning conflict with the Watcher, which has always felt like a miscalculation to me. (You don’t need to bring Rod Serling into the plot to give The Twilight Zone higher stakes!) I won’t say it’s any worse than the previous finales, but it plays out as the same meaningless exchange of colorful laser blasts devoid of any specific character work. Natasha Lyonne is fun as the aforementioned bird-human hybrid, now grown to adulthood, but she’s again presented to us as a fait accompli, a static figure with no development shown on-screen or challenges overcome on her path to the superheroics. It’s ultimately a boring use of her and the rest of the talented cast, in a franchise that used to put more care into its origin stories and even such noncanonical spinoffs.

[Content warning for gun violence.]

This season: ★★☆☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Seasons ranked: 1 > 2 > 3

Book Review: The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter

Book #187 of 2024:

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter

A cute winter mystery story, in which a famous elderly writer of detective fiction has invited several younger peers to her mansion for the holiday, along with her seemingly ungrateful relatives. Soon after the guests arrive, their hostess vanishes amid evidence of a murder attempt, leaving the other authors to solve the real-life whodunnit and somehow survive the ordeal (including being snowed-in by blizzard conditions, of course). With the farcical plotting and the inclusion of secret passages throughout the building, it feels more than a bit like a novel version of the movie Clue, which is a definite selling point.

The romance is an off-note for me, unfortunately, and too major of an element to set aside. The love interest is written as a smug jerk early on — repeatedly getting the heroine’s name wrong, among other red flags — and even after that’s cleared up as an apparent misunderstanding, he swings way too far towards the other extreme, calling her sweetheart and baby and declaring his love for this woman who he’s really only known professionally in passing until this weekend. It’s too much! He’s also boringly hyper-competent and brooding over a mysterious dark past, which further makes his connection with the protagonist seem driven by physical chemistry alone.

I think I would have liked the book a lot better overall if they had simply stayed prickly colleagues competing to see who could figure the case out first, instead of teaming up and getting together like that. But with the genre verging on rom-com and not quite enough Christmas spirit in the air, this title is settling firmly in the three-star rating tier for me.

[Content warning for gun violence, domestic abuse, and loss of a parent.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: Doctor Who: Death in the Stars by Bonnie Langford and Jacqueline Rayner

Book #186 of 2024:

Doctor Who: Death in the Stars by Bonnie Langford and Jacqueline Rayner

Overall a fairly average Doctor Who-adjacent volume of science-fiction, somewhat marred by a plot structure that’s more akin to a three-part serial than one cohesive full-length adventure. (The mystery teased on the cover, in which the heroine winds up as both investigator and suspect in an outer-space whodunnit, doesn’t even spring until the final third of the book.)

This is also a work that I judge for not living up to its potential in two key areas. First, it’s the latest release in this franchise which has been entrusted to the actor-turned-writer behind the central character, which generally feels like a significant occasion. Theoretically, nobody should know the Doctor’s companion Melanie Bush better than author Bonnie Langford, who played the role on television from 1986 to 1987 and then again starting in 2022, in addition to many Big Finish audio productions over the intervening years. And yet she demonstrates no particular insights into that figure in the way that, for instance, Sophie Aldred did for her own such project about Ace. Beyond a few sly references to other Langford performances outside of the Whoniverse, this could have easily been a title tackled by the actress’s uncredited co-writer Jacqueline Rayner alone.

The second (and related) missed opportunity here is that it shines no light on elements of the protagonist’s life that remain unknown to us. Mel originally left the TV show in the company of the roguish interstellar voyager Sabalom Glitz, and this tale picks up soon afterward with the two new business partners still traveling together. It does nothing to connect the dots to explain how she ends up back on contemporary Earth later on, which was kept pretty vague in the episode The Giggle. Nor do we learn anything more about her past, which has always been a bit of an enigma after the character was infamously introduced to the series already midway through her tenure with the Sixth Doctor. This novel sure seems like it could have been the perfect chance to finally fill in some of those gaps in the canon, but for whatever reason, it turns out to be not so nearly so momentous or informative.

Take it or leave it as a generic Whovian spinoff, I suppose, but it doesn’t live up to the hype of a Mel story written by the woman herself.

★★★☆☆

Movie Review: Doctor Who: Joy to the World (2024)

Movie #17 of 2024:

Doctor Who: Joy to the World (2024)

[Note: No, I don’t know why Disney’s marketing has pluralized the last word of the title on this poster. I assume it’s just a typo.]

Whether as showrunner himself or, as here, contributing a script to someone else’s editorial oversight, Steven Moffat tends to deliver a very particular sort of Doctor Who that’s heavy on the clever time-travel plotting and lighter on the legible human / Time Lord emotions. In this year’s Christmas special, for instance, it sure seems like Nicola Coughlan’s titular character Joy is meant to be the centerpiece of the action, but the episode never really manages to lock in on her, especially given how long she spends either under hypnotic influence or off the screen entirely. (The politics are a bit muddled, too — I’ve seen people online cheering the supposed anti-Tory messaging, but the 2020 lockdowns to keep loved ones out of Covid wards don’t strike me as particularly evil or even misguided. Those rules that Joy rails against saved lives!)

Another odd miss in my opinion is the story’s relation to the program’s past, which Moffat and producer Russell T. Davies should obviously be pretty tuned-into. The Doctor saying he isn’t married? Or that he’s never stayed in one place for a whole year before? Those are bizarre things to observe as a long-time fan of the show, as is a fairly direct parallel between Joy and a different blonde Yuletide costar: Kylie Minogue’s Astrid Peth from Voyage of the Damned.

On the bright side: the mechanics of the Time Hotel are fun, and that period where the Fifteenth Doctor is forced to slow down and live a regular life for a while, though not as unique as it’s made out to be, is certainly a rarity for the series (at the cost, as noted, of sidelining Joy). I don’t know if we’ll be seeing his friend Anita from that segment again, but I can only imagine what audio dramas Big Finish will someday devise for the era.

Holiday specials aren’t always deep or meaningful, and this one is acceptably charming on the surface. But for an hour that feels intended to build to a moment of catharsis and, well, joy for a certain somebody, it doesn’t quite come together enough for me in the end.

[Content warning for loss of a parent.]

★★★☆☆