The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes

Book #196 of 2022:

Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes

A thrillingly creepy sci-fi horror novel in the same general vein as movies like Event Horizon, Alien, or Sunshine, where human/corporate greed may be the true enemy (for anyone who can survive the crazed assault of its previous victims). Out on the far vestiges of humanity’s reach into space, our protagonist and her crew are just finishing installing the last beacon in a communications network when it picks up a faint distress call from even further into the black. There they discover a luxury starliner that notoriously vanished soon after its launch decades ago, now adrift with seemingly all its passengers floating lifelessly inside. Boarding the vessel, the new arrivals find signs that these ill-fated voyagers may have turned violent and paranoid against one another, and they swiftly begin experiencing a succession of unsettling visions themselves.

The narrative is initially divided into two timelines: the past when the heroine and her team are exploring the wreck, and the present when she’s being interrogated by her disbelieving superiors back on earth over her fragmented recollection of events. Across both sides of the plot, we come to learn more about the character’s traumatic and guilt-ridden background, and why she’s not the most reliable narrator even before encountering the Aurora. This element is what elevates the book for me over similar genre mindtrips like Annihilation, which I often find frustrating due to their ambiguity over what’s real and what’s hallucinatory. By digging into the viewpoint figure, author S. A. Barnes grounds us in her lived perspective, and makes it easier to set aside the questions of whether she’s delusional, psychic, haunted, or what. All that matters is how she interprets what she’s seeing, and what she chooses to do next as a result.

I really enjoy the final sequence of this story too, which finds the woman reluctantly returning to the derelict ship as a guide for her former interrogators. Beyond the resurgence of scares at that point, it also escalates the tension for readers by removing the safety net of knowing she’ll escape alive and makes good use of her memory loss, as she can’t be certain whether everyone on-board was actually dead when she left before or not. Some of the ensuing twists are more surprising than others, but it’s overall a successfully spooky read.

[Content warning for gun violence, institutionalization, gaslighting, cannibalism, and gore.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Eight Nights of Flirting by Hannah Reynolds

Book #195 of 2022:

Eight Nights of Flirting by Hannah Reynolds

I was hoping this would be a cute little Hanukkah read, but it’s instead been a source of perpetual frustration and discomfort for me. The basic premise is that the narrator is desperate to get with the crush who’ll be visiting her grandparents’ house over winter break, but because she’s convinced she’s bad at flirting — whatever that means — she asks her hot jerk of a neighbor to give her some lessons on that first. Obviously, the two of them end up falling for one another instead, and the plot is full of those tired rom-com tropes about hurt feelings over miscommunication and mistaken ideas of the other person’s seriousness / interest level.

I suppose I knew to expect all that going in, while also assuming from the title that this would be a festive Jewish love story. And that’s true, to an extent. The main character is Jewish, as is her original purported romantic interest, and we get to see a lot of her big Jewish family celebrating the holiday together. But the guy she hangs out with for most of the book is Christian, and she spends quite a while educating him (and perhaps the imagined reader) on elements of Judaism 101. It feels more like a dry and unnecessary lesson than the rich #ownvoices immersion I’d ideally wanted from this novel.

My bigger issue concerns the ages of the ensemble. Our protagonist is a 16-year-old high school junior, whereas the young men opposite her are 18/19 and both in college. That’s not an age-gap that I’d say needs to be inherently off-limits in fictional romance, but it’s at a minimum problematic — literally raising relevant problems — in a way never addressed by the text. These people are at very different stages of their lives, and although the heroine balks when either of her beaus tries moving beyond kissing, the discussion is limited to what she wants / is comfortable with, not their respective maturity levels or the legality of the situation. No one bats an eye at her underage drinking with them, either. And given everyone’s wealth in this exclusive Nantucket enclave, it all reads a bit like an exercise in the excesses of the uber-privileged.

Add to that the obnoxious behavior of the fellow Shira ultimately picks — like repeatedly calling her by a nickname she’s told him she doesn’t like, a major red flag for ignoring of boundaries in general — and a long subplot about research into local whaling history that ends with the girl insisting her interpretation of certain scant facts must be correct, and the whole thing is just a mess. It apparently functions as a loose sequel to the author’s earlier YA piece The Summer of Lost Letters too, and while I haven’t read that one, I think it would have taken a great deal of returning good will to get me to enjoy this follow-up.

[Content warning for homophobia.]

★★☆☆☆

TV Review: Classic Doctor Who, season 4

TV #60 of 2022:

Classic Doctor Who, season 4

This is the most incomplete surviving season of Doctor Who, meaning it has the highest number of episodes currently missing from any modern archive: 33 gone, and only 10 available to be viewed. As with all of the absent material for Who, we do have audio recordings, stage directions, set photos, and a variety of different reconstruction efforts, so you can still make your way through all 43 installments from this 1966-1967 year as I just have (for my second time). But it’s not the same experience that contemporary audiences would have gotten, and it’s possible my critical impression would be stronger if I could have seen more of these stories in their original form.

It was certainly a transitional period for the show, most notably for introducing the concept that would later be called regeneration, a plot justification for recasting the central role of the alien time traveler known as the Doctor. That label isn’t used here, nor has the character’s species or planet even been identified yet. But William Hartnell is tidily replaced by Patrick Troughton — leaving us without any of the initial cast from 1963 — and most of the season plays out in repeated variations on the new Doctor’s typical base-under-siege premise against a revolving assortment of monsters, including the Cybermen in their excellent first and second appearances. We also get two companions departing (Ben and Polly) and two arriving (Jamie and Victoria, the latter just under the wire in the finale), as well as some behind-the-scenes creative changes.

I would not call this a great run overall, but it’s the first in my current rewatch where I’ve given every serial a rating of 3 stars or higher. That makes it the best one yet, I suppose.

Serials ranked from worst to best:

★★★☆☆
THE EVIL OF THE DALEKS (4×37 – 4×43)
THE SMUGGLERS (4×1 – 4×4)
THE FACELESS ONES (4×31 – 4×36)
THE HIGHLANDERS (4×15 4 x18)
THE UNDERWATER MENACE (4×19 – 4×22)
THE POWER OF THE DALEKS (4×9 – 4×14)
THE MACRA TERROR (4×27 – 4×30)

★★★★☆
THE TENTH PLANET (4×5 – 4×8)
THE MOONBASE (4×23 – 4×26)

Overall rating for the season: ★★★☆☆

Book Review: Desert Star by Michael Connelly

Book #194 of 2022:

Desert Star by Michael Connelly (Ballard and Bosch #4)

Author Michael Connelly’s latest Harry Bosch story — his 38th book in this broad continuity of LA cops, lawyers, and reporters, if my math is right — finds the detective once again ensconced in the department where he spent most of his career… sort of. His unofficial partner of recent years, Renée Ballard, is now the commander of a new squad tasked with looking into cold cases, for which she’s been authorized to recruit volunteer civilian help. It’s a decent justification for bringing Harry back into the fold, and their evolving dynamic (as well as the older man’s habit of going outside official protocols in his investigations) is interestingly strained now that she’s his immediate supervising officer.

As usual for these novels, there are two significant crimes that the protagonists are investigating: the rape and murder of a girl whose brother grew up to be a local politician, and the execution of an entire family of four, presumably by the father’s business partner who then vanished. Each is gruesome for the violence against children, but the plot balances them well so that neither one’s darkness ever overtakes the narrative. And the tale that unfolds has some solid twists, especially in the former matter, as well as a great red herring that I’ll admit had me fooled. I could have done without the coworker claiming to get psychic impressions from the evidence, but at least the two viewpoint characters clearly both view her with the same disdain and impatience as I do. Please get this person out of the LAPD before she compromises your credibility with future jurors!

This title overall feels less immediately relevant for our times than its last two predecessors, but that may just be down to 2022 being a more ‘normal’ year than 2020 for all of us. I would still say it’s one of the better entries in its series, in general.

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

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson

Book #193 of 2022:

The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson (Wax and Wayne #4 / Mistborn #7)

[Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.]

Despite retaining its fantasy wild west trappings, the remainder of “Mistborn Era 2” has never lived up to the sheer entertainment value of The Alloy of Law for me, and this final volume again seems largely perfunctory as it moves pieces of the broader Cosmere saga into place. Although I continue to admire the expansive scope of author Brandon Sanderson’s imagination, the crossovers between his various sub-series are simply not working for me in practice. Here, for instance, we get characters from outside works like Elantris and The Emperor’s Soul making an appearance, albeit under codenames that I’m relying on a fan wiki to confirm. But they don’t really act like they did in their previous books, and while time has passed and they’ve clearly gone through important experiences that led them to join the world-hopping Ghostbloods organization, we don’t get to see any of that. With such a disconnect, their presence feels more like a Marvel post-credits reveal or a kid playing with interchangeable action figures than a compelling and coherent story in the moment.

Our lead protagonists fare a little better, at least. Waxillium is dour as ever, but the six-year time jump resets my patience with him to some degree, while providing Steris and Marasi both an increase in competence and confidence that I’ve found refreshing. Wayne, as always, is the funniest element around as well as the beating emotional core of this narrative, and the extended climax that features him prominently is just outstanding: a thrilling action sequence, a great coda on his overall personal arc, and a signature Sandersonian demonstration of inventive magical system exploits. I truly love it, almost enough to bump up my rating by another star. But there’s just too much beforehand that’s a bit of an empty slog, and lacking in those fun worldbuilding and plot twists that this writer can pull off at his best.

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

This title: ★★★☆☆

Overall Wax and Wayne series: ★★★☆☆

Volumes ranked: 1 > 4 > 2 > 3

TV Review: Bob’s Burgers, season 11

TV #59 of 2022:

Bob’s Burgers, season 11

Maybe a slight step up from the year before? Most episodes of this family cartoon remain unchallenging comfort television with a group of characters we know and love, but there’s at least some effort here to occasionally push one or another of them into unfamiliar growth territory. Like Gene accidentally locking himself in the basement in “Mr. Lonely Farts,” or Linda stumbling into her version of 127 Hours in “Die Card, or Card Trying” or getting arrested in “Sheshank Redumption”… There’s a certain darkness to these predicaments that has a real edge to it, despite the overall goofiness of the series and its well-established sitcom inelasticity of status quo. The Belchers have changed over the years, but they’ve always done so gradually and without any loss of life or limb. While that safety net remains, it feels more tenuous than it has in quite some time.

Generally, though, this is the same old program, for better or worse. “Fingers-loose” goes for a distinctive voiceover elementary noir vibe that I appreciate, but otherwise, these are conventional storylines presented straightforwardly enough. Bob’s Burgers could coast for eons with this energy, and so far, I’m still laughing along.

★★★☆☆

Book Review: Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel

Book #192 of 2022:

Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel

There are hints in this 2009 debut novel from author Emily St. John Mandel of the talents she’d bring to later works like Station Eleven, but on the whole, it’s a bit miserable. This is a story about sad people acting inexplicably even to themselves, told in a split timeline that’s far more interesting in the past than the present. Back then: a father kidnaps his seven-year-old daughter from his ex-wife’s custody and raises her on the road, changing towns and identities again and again over the years. We experience that unusual childhood along with her, always haunted by the question of what the pair have left behind and why. It’s a pretty good hook for a plot! But it’s subordinate to the framing narrative, in which her adult self abruptly walks out on her boyfriend of six months, and he travels from NYC up to Canada to seek after her.

Eli is a terrible character, despite how relatable I found him as a linguistics graduate student fascinated by endangered languages and unable to make much headway on his thesis. Through his eyes, Lilia is nothing but a manic pixie dream girl animating his quarter-life crisis — one of two such waifs he somehow winds up being drawn to — and the book never really digs into him enough to explore why he thinks he needs to track down a partner who’s obviously over him, or what he hopes will happen once he does. I feel totally checked-out of that thread, as I do towards his other love interest, the child of an obsessive detective who was frequently absent from her life during his long quest to find the runaways.

Taking a step back, I think there’s an alternate version of this title that could have sharply critiqued male entitlement and the peripheral damage anyone careless can cause in their wake. Individual passages sometimes lean in that direction, and the writer’s prose is effective enough that I wouldn’t rate this any lower than three-out-of-five stars overall. But it is very clearly an early attempt from an artist who would luckily go on to do better.

[Content warning for domestic abuse and suicide.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: Star Wars: Brotherhood by Mike Chen

Book #191 of 2022:

Star Wars: Brotherhood by Mike Chen

A good but not great Star Wars novel, taking place after Anakin and Padme get married at the end of Episode II but before he takes on Ahsoka as his padawan in the Clone Wars movie. The premise / goal here seems twofold: to show Obi-Wan and his own former apprentice adjusting to their new status as equals now that the latter has been promoted to a full Jedi Knight, and to finally explain what Kenobi meant in Episode III when he said, “That business on Cato Neimoidia doesn’t count” as one of the times the younger man saved his life.

Yes, this story is set partially in the heart of Trade Federation territory, and I actually think it does a pretty decent job of deepening the characterization of that faction and establishing a viewpoint for all the Neimoidians who aren’t its members and reject its tactics. Readers likely still won’t side with their grievances against the Galactic Core, but they at least feel better defined than they ever have on screen. The text falters more in depicting its nominally central relationship, however, given that the “brothers” wind up spending most of the book apart from one another until the obligatory heroics at the end. I’d honestly say there’s more insight here into Skywalker managing his new secret marriage and his first robotic replacement limb, rather than his shifting interpersonal dynamic with his old master.

As usual for this franchise’s spin-off works, there are a few too many protagonists thrown into the mix, when a simpler narrative probably would have helped clarify and strengthen the most important elements. It’s definitely a fun read overall, with Obi-Wan up to his old detective tricks again and meeting Asajj Ventress for the first time, but it’s not going to radically reorient your understanding of key series figures or events or anything.

★★★☆☆

Book Review: Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

Book #190 of 2022:

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

It’s apparent early on that there are two opposing threads in this story, and while I hoped they would eventually align and synergize, the narrative never really gets there for me. The stronger element is the #ownvoices presentation of Russian Jewish history, specifically concerning the pogroms of the early twentieth century, in conjunction with nods to traditional Judaic folklore of dybbuks, golems, and the like. Then against this backdrop, the weaker main plot includes two modern descendants of Baba Yaga who inherit her wandering chicken-footed house, and the villain who comes after them in search of it.

The latter piece falters in part due to a lack of clear worldbuilding. I don’t entirely mind author GennaRose Nethercott’s decision to move the fabled crone forward a few centuries, but both her inclusion and the overall mythic angle of the text sets up an expectation that the Baba Yaga legend itself will matter. Surely, a reader might reasonably think, her great-great-grandchildren will discover their heritage and be astonished! Instead, she turns out to be simply an old woman like any other, who once worked a wonder to transform and animate her home in a moment of severe anguish — a feat we are told vaguely has been attested in other such stressful situations around the world. Her scions do have powers of their own — one sibling to bring smaller inanimate things to life and her brother to flawlessly mimic the mannerisms of anyone he meets — but they are known from the start and likewise not incorporated into any larger conception of how magic is supposed to work here. It’s hard to worry about what might happen next, when there’s never any firm sense of what the rules are.

The characters themselves are also a problem, though. The stakes against them seem fairly meaningless, since all the bad guy wants to do is destroy the house they just found out about, and he’s too flat an antagonist to take seriously, even after the explanatory late reveal of his true nature. And beyond escaping him and keeping the hut safe, what do our protagonists even desire for themselves? Well, one is mostly trying to ignore his guilt over a dead friend (misplaced, in my opinion), while his sister is angsty about her attraction to a statue she ensorcelled and worried that the formerly-stone girl is being forced by the spell to reciprocate her affections.

In other words, these are all pretty petty and juvenile concerns that a good conversation could probably clear up, and the dramatic crux of the novel involves basically just that, along with the overdue and perfunctory answers about their ancestor. I hate how negative this sounds, because I could tell how the debut writer had poured her heart into the historical sections even before I saw an interview mentioning her own family’s experience with antisemitism in the region. And I would still call it a good book overall: a 3-star “I liked it” on the Goodreads scale. But the better parts are severely undermined by the framework around them.

★★★☆☆

TV Review: Dead to Me, season 3

TV #58 of 2022:

Dead to Me, season 3

The first year of this show started off relatively grounded and serious before escalating wildly into a succession of ridiculous soap-opera twists, which then took center stage in season 2. This final run seems aimed to split the difference, with more of the identical twin / murder / Greek mafia / lying-to-the-police hijinks placed alongside a major cancer diagnosis, but I’ve found myself largely checked out throughout — unable to either enjoy the wacky comedy in such a somber context or invest again emotionally in characters who have so thoroughly established themselves as clowns.

I might feel differently if I could have seen these last ten episodes closer to when the previous batch aired, but the two-and-a-half-year delay — brought on by COVID filming difficulties and star Christina Applegate’s own health concerns — really sunk how much I both cared and remembered about the series, and there’s not enough effort in these final scripts to ever get me back on-board. Watching this in the end became something of a chore, and that’s not the note you want any story to go out on.

[Content warning for gore and alcohol abuse including drunk driving.]

This season: ★★☆☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Seasons ranked: 2 > 1 > 3