The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Goldenhand by Garth Nix

Book #90 of 2023:

Goldenhand by Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom #5)

My original review of this novel from shortly after its publication in 2016:

“A triumphant return to the Old Kingdom, finally resolving the fate of the lost Abhorsen, Clariel. (Note: Clariel’s early life is described in the prequel novel which bears her name, and which should definitely be read prior to this book.) So many old favorites return in this story, but author Garth Nix continues to deepen the worldbuilding of the series and introduce compelling new characters as well. I wish that the central villain had had more of a presence throughout the novel, but otherwise Goldenhand was an absolute delight. And it feels less like an epilogue than the earlier novel Abhorsen did, so hopefully there will be further Old Kingdom stories coming out from Nix in the years to come. Goldenhand demonstrates decisively that the setting still has plenty of tales left to tell.”

To that I would add on this 2023 series reread, with the earlier volumes fresh in my mind: in addition to Clariel (published in 2014), the beginning of this one draws heavily on the events of the 2005 novella “Nicholas Sayre and the Creature in the Case,” which makes the success of Goldenhand all the more remarkable for its writer coming back to those characters after so long away. Nick is much more compelling of a protagonist now than he was in Lirael (2001) / Abhorsen (2003), and his deepening romance with Lirael is probably the best love story Garth Nix has ever written — though that’s an admittedly low bar! I also really appreciate how she’s grown in competence and confidence since her introduction, as particularly underscored by a homecoming scene to the Clayr’s glacier and the confrontation it allows there with the outdated impression of the young woman some of her relatives still hold.

The ending of this novel cribs a little off The Return of the King, with a pair of heroes on a quest to destroy the latest magical macguffin, all whilst their friends make a bold stand with an outnumbered army, trying to hold the line until the distant mission can be accomplished and the enemy’s strength mystically shattered. But Nix is hardly the first fantasy author to borrow from Tolkien, and the plot device works fine even warmed-over like this. Overall I think this title succeeds better than Clariel, and would recommend its continuation of the saga for any readers who enjoyed the previous installments.

[Content warning for body horror, amputation, and gore.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Doctor Who: Classics Omnibus Volume 1 by Pat Mills, John Wagner, Dave Gibbons, Dez Skinn, Paul Neary, Steve Moore, Grant Morrison, John Ridgway, Bryan Hitch, and Steve Parkhouse

Book #89 of 2023:

Doctor Who: Classics Omnibus Volume 1 by Pat Mills, John Wagner, Dave Gibbons, Dez Skinn, Paul Neary, Steve Moore, Grant Morrison, John Ridgway, Bryan Hitch, and Steve Parkhouse

Three-and-a-half stars, rounded up. This 2010 anthology gathers 19 comic book stories by a variety of authors and artists, originally published in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine between 1979 and 1988. And while I wouldn’t necessarily call any of them essential for fans, they collectively represent a fascinating look at a somewhat obscure corner of the long-running sci-fi franchise. There’s the Doctor’s first canonical companion of color Sharon Davies, introduced 28 years before Martha Jones on TV. There’s the ultimate fate of Jamie McCrimmon, erstwhile companion to the Second Doctor, coupled with a surprising revelation about the origins of the villainous Cybermen. There are several plots that couldn’t have aired on the contemporary show, due to either budgetary considerations or the level of just plain weirdness possible on the written page with less direct BBC oversight (or both, in the case of fan-favorite companion Frobisher, a shapeshifting alien whose natural form looks like a regular earth penguin). And there’s The Star Beast, the storyline that introduces the infamously innocuous-looking furry megalomaniac and war criminal Beep the Meep, set to make his live-action debut later this year in either an adaptation or sequel to that tale. (The publicity remains unclear.)

It’s sort of an odd collection, and the criteria for inclusion are not particularly obvious. There are installments here with the Fourth, Sixth, and Seventh Doctors, along with their companions K-9 and Peri — plus those I’ve already mentioned — but not always in order and with plenty of remaining issues from the same eras left out. The quality is definitely variable from sequence to sequence too, as is the length, with some adventures spanning only a few pages and others representing the kind of serialized fiction that would have played out over many months in the original format. But I’ve enjoyed seeing this side of a series so dear to my heart, and would recommend it for any comic readers looking to explore the wider Whoniverse.

[Content warning for gun violence, cannibalism, and genocide.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side by Agatha Christie

Book #88 of 2023:

The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side by Agatha Christie (Miss Marple #9)

This 1962 novel, published in the U.S. as simply The Mirror Crack’d, offers a fun little murder mystery that’s kept me guessing throughout. No one seems to have had any motive that could account for the neighborhood woman’s death at the house party of a glamorous movie star resented by many — so was the wrong cup poisoned, or is something even stranger afoot? Luckily Miss Marple is on hand to push the police in the right direction and conduct her own discreet inquiries, all the while dodging the ageist attentions of her fussy nursemaid. The solution to the puzzle doesn’t quite play as fairly as I’d like, relying as it does on the heroine’s background medical knowledge that isn’t actually introduced to us as a proper clue in the plot. (Or perhaps the key piece of information was less obscure in the original time and place of publication?) Yet regardless, the characters are engaging and the setting captures a nice snapshot of how author Agatha Christie’s iconic quiet English villages were changing as the twentieth century barreled along. I appreciate the slight ambiguity of the ending, as well.

[Content warning for suicide and racism including slurs.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby

Book #87 of 2023:

All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby

Author S. A. Cosby’s latest novel is his best work yet, a gripping southern noir with heavy shades of True Detective and extreme depictions of mutilation out of something like Hannibal. Check my content warnings below — it’s definitely not for the faint of heart! Our hero is the Black sheriff of a fictional rural Virginia county, and his story starts with reports of an active shooter at the local high school. Upon arrival, Titus learns that the suspect is a student who has killed one of his teachers, and when the boy comes out the door without lowering his weapon, an officer on the scene guns him down. It feels very ripped-from-the-headlines, especially since the deputy is white and the teenager was Black, leading to the expected public outcry and allegations of police overreaction and racism.

The plot turns when the protagonist examines the dead teacher’s phone and discovers evidence that he, his killer, and a masked third person were all partners in the serial torture, rape, and murder of a string of missing children. The last man is still out there and now begins both taunting the police and striking out to silence potential witnesses, with the remainder of the book focusing on the hunt to learn his identity and end his long streak of cruelty. It’s a riveting tale, particularly against the backdrop of small-town racial and religious dynamics and simmering family resentments that the main character has to navigate just to do his job.

The one flaw in the affair for me, or at least in how I approached this read, is that it’s not an especially satisfying mystery in the end. Spoiler alert: while the sheriff spends a lot of time interviewing and considering various suspects, the culprit turns out to be a pretty minor background figure with no particular clues pointing his way. The narrative still works great as a suspenseful crime thriller, but there isn’t that nice sense of subtle pieces falling into place upon the eventual reveal. Other readers might feel differently, but I wonder if it might have been a stronger choice to tell us the murderer’s name from the start, so that we don’t waste our energy anticipating a big twist or puzzling over an answer that can’t really be deduced in advance. That aside, however, I continue to be quite impressed with this writer and believe he’s improving his craft with every title.

[Content warning for racism, gun violence, domestic abuse, torture, gore, and sexual assault, including all of the above directed at children.]

★★★★☆

TV Review: Seinfeld, season 2

TV #34 of 2023:

Seinfeld, season 2

A marginal improvement over the first year of this 90s sitcom, though it retains Jerry’s dreadful stand-up material on the binary differences he sees between men and women. Outside those scenes, the storytelling engine is working a little better now at spinning minutiae into twenty-minute comedy pieces, but the writers are still struggling against the impulse towards over-the-top wackiness in some of these plots. It’s not enough in The Heart Attack for George’s hypochondria to send him to the hospital — he then has to move on to Kramer’s recommendation of a faith healer, whose alternative medicine turns him bright purple, and ultimately wind up in an ambulance heading back to the hospital when it crashes because the paramedics are arguing over a stolen candy bar, all the while Elaine is dating his doctor who’s more interested in literally studying her tongue. It’s all a bit chaotic and loud more than it is funny, a perpetual problem so far when it comes to integrating Jerry’s neighbor into the action.

Sometimes, the scripts calm down enough to actually work as humor. This season produces the first episode I would unequivocally highlight as great, The Chinese Restaurant, which is hilarious despite playing out in real-time as just a lengthy wait for a table that’s been promised to only take five or ten minutes. (Perhaps tellingly, Kramer sits this one out completely.) On the other hand, this run also gives us the worst and most dated Seinfeld I’ve seen yet: The Revenge, in which George and Elaine try to slip his boss a drugged drink to make him forget about an unfortunate workplace incident, while Jerry advises Kramer to tell his friend who keeps threatening to jump off the building to quit whining and just do it already. It’s a whole lot of yikes!

But the upward trend is promising, and I have to assume that even stronger outings are ahead, given how none of the famous quotes I’ve heard from this series seem to have come up yet. I’m far from hooked on the show, but it’s a low enough time investment to keep watching for now.

[Content warning for gun violence.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

Book #86 of 2023:

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

A creepy #ownvoices haunted house story that never quite clicks into gear, perhaps because the premise is just a bit too convoluted for my tastes. Our queer teenage protagonist, visiting her father in Vietnam while he fixes up an old manor home, is visited nightly by both a cruel spirit that wants to hurt the family and a secretive yet more friendly-seeming ghost that offers her cryptic warnings against the other. Then, since Jade can’t get anyone else to believe her about these hauntings, she and a friend / love interest rig up fake evidence of further paranormal activity themselves! But they don’t always communicate with one another before acting, leading to inevitable instances of the heroine not being sure if a certain spooky development is phony, threatening, or intended to help.

Beyond all that, I feel like the characters are too binary in their reactions to the revelation of the genre around them. They either categorically reject the idea of the supernatural or else accept it matter-of-factly with no skepticism or lingering doubts, even when moving from the former group into the latter. That adds an extra level of artificiality to a plot I was already struggling to stay invested in, and while I think debut author Trang Thanh Tran has some meaningful things to say about generational trauma, their delivery here doesn’t entirely work for me as a reader.

[Content warning for racism, homophobia, domestic abuse, body horror, and gore.]

★★★☆☆

TV Review: Black Mirror, season 6

TV #33 of 2023:

Black Mirror, season 6

After four long years — twice the length of its previous longest gap — the infamous anthology series is back with another star-studded cast in five new twisted installments. Despite the program’s frequent focus on the dark underbelly of emerging technologies, I’ve always maintained that Black Mirror is a show more about the moral failures (and occasional triumphs) of people than about the devices that happen to aid them. And that feels especially true this time around, with the majority of its episodes — “Loch Henry,” “Mazey Day,” and “Demon 79” — not being particularly tech-driven at all. The last two of those, which close out the season, aren’t even set in the present or future, instead taking place in the decidedly non-dystopian eras of 2006 and 1979 respectively.

Regardless, it’s a strong sequence, although I personally don’t like the pair of horror period pieces quite as much as “Joan Is Awful,” “Loch Henry,” and especially “Beyond the Sea,” which all have some stomach-turning ironic twists to their already-delightful high concepts. A woman finds that the terms and conditions of her streaming service allow it to air a barely-fictionalized version of her life that puts all her flaws on display for the world to see. A couple budding documentarians turn their attention to the history of a local serial killer, only to learn that the case isn’t nearly as cold as anyone thinks. And in the most heartbreaking hour, far-distant astronauts with an Avatar-like connection to cyborg versions of themselves back on earth discover how helpless they are when personal tragedies strike at home.

The shorthand criticism of this series has always been Daniel M. Lavery’s iconic and admittedly funny formulation, “what if phones, but too much,” but in my opinion that’s never been less fair an assessment of the show’s aims, themes, and general operating procedures. Showrunner and primary writer Charlie Booker is producing a modern Twilight Zone here, a genre-hopping tour de force that uses black comedy, shock horror, and political satire to explore the unintended consequences that can spin out from any number of intriguing premises, often with a twist ending adding further impact to the current affair. In the more sci-fi-oriented stories, that can involve smartphones or their imagined descendants, but either way, it’s the core human frailties that really drive the plot, as they continue to do throughout this latest batch.

[Content warning for sexual assault, torture, domestic abuse, racism, gun violence, violence against children, incest, and gore.]

★★★★☆

TV Review: Classic Doctor Who, season 7

TV #32 of 2023:

Classic Doctor Who, season 7

Previously for this rewatch, I’ve been assigning each season of Classic Who an average rating that’s the literal mean of my ratings for the individual serials within. I’m going to cheat a little this time, though, both since there are only four stories in season 7 and because some consideration is probably owed to how thoroughly the creative team under incoming producer Barry Letts managed to overhaul the series for it. So I will round that 3.25 average up to a score of 4 stars overall instead.

We’ve got a new Doctor, of course, joined by a new companion Liz Shaw who sadly wouldn’t return after this. The program is also rather strikingly presented in color for the first time — welcome to the 70s! — and it depicts a radical reimagining of the core premise to the production. For six years, audiences had watched as the First or the Second Doctor piloted the TARDIS to a different time and place at the top of every serial, getting involved in local events and then swiftly retreating once the relevant victory is secured. Now, the Third Doctor finds himself marooned on contemporary(-ish) earth, where he is forced to maintain a collegial working relationship with UNIT, the military taskforce defending the planet from alien incursions that had previously popped up during the Second Doctor’s tenure. It’s a bold redirection, and a smart writing choice for the additional supporting cast and the ways in which they butt heads with the Doctor over the proper approach to each emerging threat.

Not every such storyline works for me. I think The Ambassadors of Death gets lost in its twisty government conspiracy and string of surprise reveals of who’s in on it, and at seven episodes, that serial and two of the three others all have a lot of unnecessary subplots and similar digressive elements that could stand to be tightened up. (Following this, no Doctor Who serial would ever go longer than six episodes in total.) But the better parts are pretty great, and the Autons and Silurians introduced during this run would go on to rank among the iconic recurring creatures of the franchise. Best of all is the final outing Inferno, which whisks the Doctor away to a fascist alternate reality and its cruel doppelgängers of his now-familiar UNIT allies. That’s a move the show literally couldn’t have done before this point, without a stable home setting and characters to invert, and it’s a terrific way to end Jon Pertwee’s debut year.

Serials ranked from worst to best:

★★☆☆☆
THE AMBASSADORS OF DEATH (7×12 – 7×18)

★★★☆☆
DOCTOR WHO AND THE SILURIANS (7×5 – 7×11)

★★★★☆
SPEARHEAD FROM SPACE (7×1 – 7×4)
INFERNO (7×19 – 7×25)

Overall rating for the season: ★★★★☆

Book Review: Those Who Hold the Fire by Victoria Goddard

Book #85 of 2023:

Those Who Hold the Fire by Victoria Goddard

This prequel to author Victoria Goddard’s The Hands of the Emperor is rather short — the Nine Worlds wiki lists it as a novelette, not even a full novella — and it’s pretty dependent on the reader bringing outside context from that longer original story in order for its emotional beats and heavy foreshadowing to land. I would not advise anyone to start the Lays of the Hearth-fire sequence here, but if you’ve previously met its protagonist Kip Mdang as an adult, this is an enjoyable look at him at age thirteen, less confident than he’ll someday be, yet already determined to both embrace the ancient cultural practices of his people and make his mark on the wider world. It’s maybe a bit much to suggest that he was thinking of eventually serving an emperor so early in his life, and the scant length keeps this work from really digging into the hero at this stage, so different than we’ve seen him before. But it’s a nice depiction of a particular coming-of-age moment during his apprenticeship to his uncle Buru Tovo, and one which resonates with what we know of his future journey.

Overall the title works better for me than the writer’s Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander novella, so I suppose I’ll give this one a rating of three-and-a-half stars, rounded up.

★★★★☆

Book Review: Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

Book #84 of 2023:

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

A scathing dark satire of race, the internet, and the contemporary publishing landscape. Our protagonist is a great antihero in the tradition of Tom Ripley or Shakespeare’s Iago who secretly resents a more successful friend — only in this case, she never acts against her in life. But when the other writer dies suddenly in her apartment with no other witnesses, June seizes the unpublished manuscript of her next novel and begins working on it, ultimately passing the finished story off as entirely her own and watching it become a runaway bestseller. Complicating matters further, the book is about the Chinese laborers who were impressed into service in World War I, opening the white woman up to criticism that she didn’t have the right to authentically address that subject, even before rumors start circulating that the late Athena Liu may have been the true author after all. (Critics also pounce on the fact that June’s publishers have released the volume under her middle name Song rather than her last name Hayward, as though aiming for a more ambiguous presentation of her ethnicity.)

It’s a sharp character study and less of a suspense thriller than I expected, although the big secret definitely looms over events as a Chekhov’s gun just waiting to fire and take down the unscrupulous thief. But she also repeatedly makes things worse for herself via her subsequent actions, as though her tragic flaw is her unconscious inability to ever simply rest on her stolen laurels (in addition to her positively staggering amounts of unexamined racism and accordingly ironclad conviction that she couldn’t possibly be a bigot). And though I cited Othello above, the Shakespearean figures June truly resembles are MacBeth and his wife, as she becomes guiltily haunted — both metaphorically and at least psychologically, if not quite literally — by the ghost of the dead woman. She sees the face of her personal Banquo in crowds, and is tormented by anonymous abusers hiding behind her name and appearance online.

A lot of this text focuses on the drama of Twitter, where self-righteous call-out threads can swiftly tank a person’s reputation, and although I tend to believe such ‘cancel culture’ campaigns are generally well-intentioned and do more good than harm, author R. F. Kuang emphasizes the escalating secondary threats and unavoidable trauma of becoming the internet’s main character of the day. She also adds the important detail that no one in the digital panopticon is safe from being targeted themselves — Athena gets posthumously critiqued for her own ethical missteps at one point — and the even more damning observation that all the kerfuffle is largely ignored by the wider public, who if anything merely register that a canceled individual is newsworthy and proceed to buy more of her books.

This aspect feels very of-the-moment, and I honestly don’t know how well it will age! In a future where blue checks and Substacks and whatnot have joined the virtual graveyard, will this section of the plot still resonate with readers? I really couldn’t say, but I think it’s a meaningful reflection of our current era as it stands.

I’ll likewise maintain my agnosticism over whether we’re meant to see Athena as a self-insert for Kuang, whose personal biography she suspiciously mirrors. I know that’s been a sticking point for other reviewers, but I feel more invested in the emerging portrait of the antiheroine who survives her, and in the conflicting emotions of whether to root more for or against the plagiarist whilst being so firmly situated inside her perspective. It’s a masterful balancing act, and while I don’t love this novel overall as much as the author’s earlier work Babel: an Arcane History, it’s still a timely and chillingly immersive tale.

[Content warning for panic attacks and rape.]

★★★★☆