The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Book #73 of 2025:

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games #2)

In certain ways, I think this dystopian YA sequel improves upon its predecessor. Whereas the series debut focused — understandably! — on the setting, the characters, and the inherent brutality of the premise, this volume is more able to expand on the worldbuilding and the larger plot beyond the protagonist’s immediate struggles. The Hunger Games could have been a self-contained story, but this title intentionally sets out to explore the question of what would logically come next for a heroine who defied the authoritarian government long enough to escape its machinations with her life (and that of a friend).

The answer here is crackdowns. The Capitol under President Snow — actually a character now, making terrifying personal threats instead of just lurking as a sinister background figure — restricts its subjugated population even further than before, while at the same time inadvertently fanning the rebellious spirit that Katniss has helped inspire. (It’s very Star Wars, how the repressive regime sows the seeds of its own defeat.) That movement of a popular uprising wasn’t really hinted at in the original installment with its narrow goal of survival, but it’s a reasonable consequence and an engaging development overall.

But then there’s the Quarter Quell. I don’t want to dismiss this concept entirely, because there’s an element here that works in the gamemakers changing the rules to force the survivors of the last Hunger Games back into the arena. On paper, that’s positioned as a way for the antagonists to both retaliate against the recent victors and try to crush widespread dissent, but in practice, it feels like author Suzanne Collins repeating herself. This novel is so much more interesting in its first half, as a Hunger Games book without the Games, than following that sudden twist. While I appreciate that it’s not deployed right away and the deadly competition only takes up about the last third of the text, it does make that ending into something of a rehash. It doesn’t help that the new tournament is less dramatic in its rigid clockwork hazards and its lack of enemy personalities, either.

The ultimate conclusion of the piece is rather underwhelming, too. It’s not quite unsupported, but it’s conveyed as a flat exposition dump, and it hinges structurally on the viewpoint narrator being kept out of the loop all along for no clear reason except to similarly hide things from the reader. That’s a disappointment at a stage where the work has already been losing steam, and it’s why (in addition to some hokey love triangle nonsense) I’ve gone with a three-star rating on this reread, despite the promising start.

[Content warning for gun violence, police brutality, torture, and gore.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Traitor by John Peel

Book #72 of 2025:

Traitor by John Peel (2099 #3)

Another quick but propulsive adventure, bringing us to the halfway point of this middle-grade sci-fi series from 1999-2000. Our main hero Tristan begins this installment in police custody (thanks to innocently sharing identical DNA to his terrorist clone twin), and after dodging an attack from his mysterious enemies, he swiftly finds himself put on trial and then sentenced to life imprisonment at the secure facility in Antarctica. There, of course, he meets up with Genia, and it isn’t long before the two teenage hackers have teamed up and managed to escape. Meanwhile, the cop who arrested him is looking into a mole in her organization — the titular traitor, I guess — and the various villains are up to their respective schemes. Tristan’s ex-girlfriend is also still convinced that he’s guilty, which leads to her linking up with a criminal underworld element intent on getting her revenge.

It all moves with a zippy confidence, and the action bounces nicely around the different viewpoint characters, who by now feel linked even when off pursuing their own separate affairs. The one exception is the new protagonist Jame, who was introduced for a short scene in the previous volume without much explanation beyond his presence on the Mars colony. He’s now revealed to be a third clone brother, further strengthening the proto-Orphan Black vibes, but because he hasn’t really interacted with anyone else we care about, his storyline doesn’t seem quite as relevant just yet, though it’s certainly horrifying to see him witness corrupt security officers opening fire on an unarmed crowd.

Although the novel doesn’t offer as many fun worldbuilding details of life a century hence, it advances the overall plot while never slowing down for a minute. That’s worth another four-star rating, in my opinion.

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Winter Prince by Elizabeth E. Wein

Book #71 of 2025:

The Winter Prince by Elizabeth E. Wein (The Lion Hunters #1)

This 1993 novel offers a limited yet engaging retelling of the Arthurian legend, centering on the king’s illegitimate son Medraut (or Mordred, as he’s known in other versions). The primary innovation, which I don’t believe I’ve encountered elsewhere, is that there is a legitimate heir to the throne as well, and the protagonist’s mix of jealousy and love for his sickly younger brother presents a complicated emotional fabric against which their tale is wrought. Another major element is the character’s twisted relationship with his mother, who is also his father’s sister, and how she abuses him physically, emotionally, and sexually in turn. These patterns of incest and assault understandably wreak havoc on his mental wellbeing, while likewise leading him to act in similar ways towards his own half-siblings.

It’s ultimately only a partial iteration of the familiar King Arthur plot, missing many of the standard elements like Merlin or the Round Table and ending before matters have come to a head with the kingdom’s downfall. But that’s because it’s instead the story of a lonely young man who can’t help lashing out at the people he cares for, and how he struggles to be better than the woman who hurt him so deeply and confusingly. (The prose style emphasizes this dynamic by presenting the narrative in the first-person perspective from him, addressed towards his ‘godmother’ in the second-person: you did these things to me.) Betrayal has always been a theme of the Camelot mythos, but rarely have I seen it taken up in quite so directly a fashion.

It’s overall a great read with heavy Farseer vibes, and I’ll probably continue on with the Lion Hunters series, although I understand that the next volume involves a time jump and a different lead. But author Elizabeth E. Wein has earned my trust on the strength of this one, and certainly left me curious about what else she has in store.

★★★★☆

Book Review: Lyorn by Steven Brust

Book #70 of 2025:

Lyorn by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #17)

And just like that, I’m all caught up with Vlad Taltos (though not its sister series, the Khaavren Romances). This 2024 title is the latest to be released, with reportedly only two additional sequels left to go. It’s another perfectly pleasant adventure with the wily ex-Jhereg, and although I wouldn’t label it among his best, it’s certainly a far cry from the occasional clunkers at the opposite end of the spectrum.

The last two volumes were both prequels, but this one finally revisits the aftermath of #14 Hawk to explore what will happen to the protagonist next, now that the longstanding bounty on his head has been lifted. As it turns out, in clearing away that problem he made enough of an enemy out of the local sorceress guild that he’s on the run from them instead… which is a pretty frustrating development! We’ve swapped the identity of the specific villainous organization that’s after him, but the standard shape of the ensuing plot remains the same. It feels like this story of Vlad avoiding and outwitting his pursuers could have occurred ten novels earlier with minimal rewrites.

Here, the former assassin is hiding out from his current foes at a nearby theater company, because those all have protective spells he can shelter under, apparently. It’s a thin excuse for author Steven Brust to bounce the character off a few acting types, culminating in a scheme where he’s forced to take the stage himself for equally silly reasons. While it’s undeniably endearing to see this stone-cold killer get suddenly nervous about his upcoming performance, and the writer is plainly having a blast digging into that side of him, it all seems like an unnecessary diversion, especially this close to the looming finale. A few short scenes from outside the antihero’s perspective and extracts from the history text he’s reading strike me as a misstep too; they represent a noticeable divergence in style without clear payoff and probably could have been incorporated into the narrative in a smoother way.

Oh — and I’d like to lodge a complaint regarding the audiobook production, though that won’t be reflected in my rating of the book. The publisher switched narrators starting with the previous release, and while I don’t blame newcomer Kevin Stillwell for not sounding identical to the original Bernard Setaro Clark, it’s still jarring to hear some of the different accent and pronunciation choices following fifteen books with the first guy. Did no one care about maintaining the continuity there? This particular novel also starts each chapter with a musical theater song transparently / lovingly adapted from one in our world (“I am the very model of a Fourteenth Cycle dramaturge,” etc.), which ought to be a hoot — except that Stillwell’s producer makes the indefensible decision to have him declaim them all like epic poetry, with no sense of rhythm or proper tune. That renders the pieces tedious and often unrecognizable, when they properly should be one of the more entertaining elements of the work.

★★★☆☆

Book Review: Star Wars: The Mask of Fear by Alexander Freed

Book #69 of 2025:

Star Wars: The Mask of Fear by Alexander Freed (Reign of the Empire #1)

Just in time for the second season of Andor, here’s another recent Star Wars title that grapples seriously with the idea of life and resistance in an era of growing fascism. In this case, it’s the early days of the Galactic Empire, and Senators Mon Mothma and Bail Organa are struggling to find ways to wield their power productively to keep the new emperor in check. She’s making alliances and whipping votes on an upcoming bill that would outwardly formalize structures supporting the government but subtly guard against its abuses, while he’s following a trail to prove that certain evidence of Jedi treachery that was used to justify their massacre has been fabricated. Meanwhile, Saw Gerrera is taking the first steps that will lead him from anti-Separatist freedom fighter on his home planet — broadly allied with the Republic that preceded the Empire — to genuine terrorist in the rebellion against Palpatine’s order.

Not all of the plot threads herein are equally strong; we also spend a lot of time with some intelligence agents and an augmented assassin whose storylines I don’t personally find as interesting. But this is mostly a book about Mon, and her experiences feel sharply drawn and keenly relevant, in a real-world moment when due process and court orders are being ignored by the nativist faction in office and all traditional checks and balances seem to be failing. (Reality is obviously not science-fiction, and any such exact parallels would be reductionist to an absurd degree. But that atmosphere of a steady slide into authoritarianism strikes me as terrifyingly familiar, even more so than the explicit tyranny on Andor.)

Despite her privilege among the elected elite, our heroine feels powerless to stem the overreaches of the regime and its increasing restrictions on personal liberty. Her own safety is far from secure, as she’s investigated and even temporarily imprisoned by a police force that no longer recognizes her authority over them. This is ultimately the tale of her own radicalization as well, and the start of the circuitous path towards being a Rebel leader like Saw as she grows disillusioned with the notion that legislation alone can meaningfully curtail a tyrant who doesn’t agree to be bound by its terms. I look forward to seeing where the remainder of this trilogy takes that story next.

[Content warning for gun violence, torture, and gore.]

★★★★☆

TV Review: Bosch: Legacy, season 3

TV #19 of 2025:

Bosch: Legacy, season 3

Bosch isn’t exactly a great TV show, but it goes out about as solidly competent a mid-tier crime drama as ever. Technically, of course, this isn’t even Bosch but its successor program Bosch: Legacy, although the distinction between the two has never been as clear-cut as I’d like. It’s not quite the end for the long-running Amazon Prime franchise, either — the final episode functions as a backdoor pilot by introducing the character of Renée Ballard, who has her own spinoff launching this summer. The trailers have confirmed that Harry Bosch will make at least a cameo appearance in that, though the two characters probably won’t collaborate as closely as they do in the relevant Michael Connelly novels.

Here and now it’s a sendoff for Harry and his supporting team, assuming they won’t pop up on Ballard as well. The season starts with the former detective under investigation for arranging the murder of a certain inmate, and he’s operated in legal gray areas for so long that it’s an open question whether he did it or not. That’s by far the most interesting story of the year, but it’s bolstered by the typical assortment of subplots, this time drawn in part from the books The Black Ice and Desert Star (concerning the Mexican drug trade and the mysterious disappearance of an entire family, respectively). In terms of new material for the screen, we also get Maddie investigating a string of armed robberies that winds up having a personal connection with her partner, and Honey Chandler running for District Attorney and then dealing with the subsequent fallout after the election.

In the end, Harry catches his perps as usual, even teaming up with Renée to solve a cold case that’s lingered under his skin since sometime on the original series. It’s a feel-good conclusion for the main hero, but no one else in the cast gets much in the way of any such resolution. In fact, there are a few threads that I imagine will seem unsatisfyingly open if they don’t get picked up in the next title, in particular Chandler looking into the matter of a corrupt city councilman. But overall, this is as reasonable a place as any to leave everyone, I guess. It’s just a shame they couldn’t get the rights for a proper crossover with Netflix’s Lincoln Laywer, whose lead is Bosch’s half-brother in the books.

[Content warning for gun violence, drug abuse, violence against children, suicide, and gore.]

This season: ★★★☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Seasons ranked: 2 > 3 > 1

Movie Review: Babylon 5: Thirdspace (1998)

Movie #3 of 2025:

Babylon 5: Thirdspace (1998)

This TV movie aired during the middle of Babylon 5‘s fifth/final season, but I’ve chosen to watch it where it apparently falls in continuity, which is immediately after episode 4×8 “The Illusion of Truth.” I’m satisfied with that decision, but in all honesty, this is such a standalone story that it probably could be taken up anytime following the end of the Vorlon/Shadow War. It’s so self-contained, in fact, that I think it would work even for franchise newcomers, so long as they don’t mind a few minor spoilers that would be conveyed in passing.

And overall, I like it! I’ve had mixed feelings about the effectiveness of the main series (and the original TV film pilot The Gathering), but this feels like the production firing on all cylinders for what’s basically a feature-length episode. The regular cast isn’t all present, but the absences are generally unremarkable, especially since individual characters do often sit out for a week here and there regardless. I saw other reviews complaining that the climax is just a big action spectacle — in contrast to the more cerebral character-driven drama of the show, I guess — but sometimes, that’s what you need to get the job done. It’s no worse than what the TNG movies did with Picard, really.

As for the plot, it’s a lot of fun. This is a mode of sci-fi horror that I tend to enjoy, where some strange alien artifact is encountered that starts driving everybody crazy. In this case, it’s an ancient device which seems intended to access the alternate dimension of the title, a theoretical realm that could allow even faster travel than hyperspace (the already discovered “secondspace” alongside our own normal reality). Unfortunately, it turns out that that area is populated by an inscrutable but hostile intelligence that soon sends out its malign influence onto the people of the Babylon 5 station, with telepaths like Lyta proving the first to fall susceptible.

If you know the subgenre or have seen examples like Event Horizon, the beats that follow shouldn’t be too surprising. Everyone gets a bit manic, and the heroes struggle to hold onto their sanity amid the ensuing mayhem and sabotage before ultimately finding a way to shut the door on the Lovecraftian nightmare. But it’s all well-deployed, with the right amount left to our imaginations rather than attempted with the available budget. Will it be funny when these events are never mentioned again in episode 4×9 and beyond? Perhaps a little, yeah. But that’s the nature of the beast with quasi-serialized television anyway.

★★★★☆

TV Review: Matlock, season 1

TV #18 of 2025:

Matlock, season 1

Look, was there any pressing need for a modern reboot of Matlock, that 80s/90s procedural about the elderly lawyer perpetually underestimated for his age and folksy ways? Of course not. But if you’re a CBS executive who’s going to greenlight that project anyway, you could do worse than making it a gender-swapped version starring Kathy Bates and turning it over to showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman, creator of Jane the Virgin. In her hands, the premise gains an additional twist revealed at the end of its first episode: the protagonist is not just an old attorney coming out of retirement at a new law firm, but — spoiler alert! — a woman on a mission to uncover a specific act of malfeasance from decades ago that she holds responsible for a death in the family. Her employers used to represent an opioid manufacturer, you see, and someone on the team apparently hid evidence that would have taken the products off the market well before her daughter ever got addicted and overdosed.

It’s a somber background, but what ensues is a fun cat-and-mouse game as Matty snoops around the office building looking for clues and trying not to get caught in the steadily-mounting lies surrounding her cover identity. That aspect plays nicely against the episodic case-of-the-week plot structure, adding a serialized momentum to enliven those proceedings that might otherwise feel a bit pat. (To its detriment, the show does engage in a lot of audience hand-holding in terms of its big dramatic reveals and explanatory flashbacks. It’s the one element I hope gets workshopped and scaled down going forward.)

By the time the credits roll on the finale, our heroine has identified her culprit(s), but the question of how to use what she knows and what the future will look like after all the secrets have come to light is still pretty far from certain. Good thing the series has already been renewed for season 2!

★★★★☆

Book Review: Till Human Voices Wake Us by Victoria Goddard

Book #68 of 2025:

Till Human Voices Wake Us by Victoria Goddard

Published back in 2014, this was author Victoria Goddard’s debut novel — and unfortunately, it shows. There are a few neat ideas with interesting implications for the writer’s wider Nine Worlds saga, like how the empire of Astandalas originally fell, but it’s an odd piece overall that only hints at her eventual talents. I do think existing fans should seek it out at some point, but I know that if I had started my journey through her work here, I likely would have never continued any further.

It’s part of the basic premise and so not a spoiler, but the biggest revelation is that the setting of Ysthar, one of the titular linked realms in this fictional universe, is actually contemporary Earth. The worldbuilding here is pretty bare-bones, resembling Sandman or the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen at best and a generic urban fantasy at worst, as the fantastical elements are restrained and unnoticed by all regular people. Although there are magical folks like the main characters, they’re a very small community whose membership mostly entails a preternaturally extended lifespan. Thus the protagonist’s friends include William Shakespeare and Scheherazade under modern pseudonyms, while he himself is later revealed to have been the mythical Orpheus. (He’s also an internationally famous movie star and the son of adventurers in the infamous Red Company, whose exploits are detailed elsewhere.)

A lot of these items represent impulses that Goddard has thankfully tempered as she’s matured in her writing, and they’re harder to swallow in the rough form herein. Too much is left oblique, especially concerning the centuries-long contest that the hero is locked into with his mortal foe Circe. We don’t really get a good sense of the game or its rules, which means we likewise don’t have the proper context for when those get broken. It sure feels as though the ramifications should be dire, but like many things about this story, that’s presented vaguely and ultimately kept unexplained. Meanwhile, in lieu of any thoughtfully-constructed cultural diversity, we’re given heavy Christian overtones in a divine messenger named Gabriel and an arch-enemy of God who used to be an angel called the Morning Star before he fell.

The emotional aspect is handled better. Raphael is a clear prototype of a sort of figure Goddard writes frequently: the soul suffering its traumas in lonely silence, yearning for the catharsis that estranged relations could provide but unable to muster the courage to ask them for it. Nobody in the mage’s life even knows that he’s secretly the grand Lord of Ysthar, responsible for keeping the world’s magic on track, and he’s withdrawn into himself so gradually that by the time they recognize it, no one seems able to bridge the divide. The surprise arrival of his long-lost brother helps kickstart a process to eventually fix that, and the back half of the text (after an anticlimactic apparent end to the deadly peril midway through) is all about him slowly learning to voice his problems and let them go.

It’s nice for the most part, and if you’re a reader who coasts on vibes, I imagine you might appreciate it more than I have. But having seen a similar atmosphere applied to a stronger plot framework and more distinctive / coherent fantasy trappings in works like The Hands of The Emperor, this title is a definite second fiddle.

★★★☆☆

TV Review: Abbott Elementary, season 4

TV #17 of 2025:

Abbott Elementary, season 4

As most sitcoms tend to do over time, this series has by now settled into a comfortable rhythm as a hangout watch. Viewers can tune in for a dose of the familiar characters and their banter, but not have to worry too much about any larger plot issues that will disrupt the status quo. The biggest change in this iteration is that the previous finale finally brought its central ‘will they / won’t they’ characters together, and this year quickly signals that although they’ll have their healthy share of disagreements, the program isn’t especially interested in any major drama that would break them up again. Like Jim and Pam (or Leslie and Ben, or Santiago and Peralta, etc.), Janine and Gregory feel instead like a permanent coupling that the usual episodic structure has to shift only slightly to accommodate. If this show runs for long enough, we’ll presumably see a marriage and kids in their future.

Other alterations are even more minor, like Melissa adopting a pet guinea pig, while the big running subplot is the construction of a golf course nearby, leading to some off-the-books donations of fancy new materials from its wealthy donors to placate their teacher neighbors (and subsequent hot water when the school district finds out about the so-called bribes). It’s fine, but fairly low stakes — even when Ava is ousted from her principal position, there’s no real sense that she won’t be right back there in a few episodes, fun as it is to see Gregory as her interim replacement. It’s like those times when Michael Scott stopped being the manager on The Office, but with even less follow-through.

These are nitpicks, to be clear. This is still a funny half-hour that I enjoy watching from week to week! The commitment to showcasing a majority-Black cast and an inner-city Philly location remains commendable, and the writers manage the tricky tonal match here of a crossover with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is a pretty different beast. I’d even say this season is a step up from the one before, which aimed for a more complicated split time arrangement with Janine at the district that it ultimately struggled to pull off. Nevertheless, it does seem as though the shine has come off Abbott at this point.

★★★☆☆