The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Star Wars: The Acolyte: The Crystal Crown by Tessa Gratton

Book #182 of 2025:

Star Wars: The Acolyte: The Crystal Crown by Tessa Gratton

I remain dissatisfied with Disney’s treatment of the Acolyte branch of its Star Wars universe: first canceling the flawed-but-engaging TV show after a single season that ended on several obvious cliffhangers, and then, presumably recognizing that the program had amassed a dedicated following anyway, issuing two novels that do not continue forward in the canon to reveal what happens next either, but rather fill in backstory for some of the supporting cast. This prequel is at least more interesting and competently told than the previous title Wayseeker, in part because Jecki and Yord are more entertaining characters than Vernestra and Indara. Their novel also feels like a story built specifically to showcase the younger pair, whereas its predecessor seemingly functioned as a capstone to the tangentially-related High Republic era instead.

The two Padawans — Yord hasn’t undergone his trials yet to become a Jedi Knight — take center stage here, and author Tessa Gratton captures their bickering-siblings tone well. As part of a diplomatic mission for the Order, they wind up competing in a planet’s local youth tournament that’s sort of like a non-lethal Hunger Games, which offers an adventure that’s both fun in the moment and a vehicle for personal growth towards the later selves we already know. Readers can thus revisit these fan favorites and gain insight into their development, although there’s not much to suggest the tragic end most of us are aware is coming.

But if you can set the greater shape of the franchise aside and accept the sanitized YA terms of the contest, this is a neat little Star Wars volume. It features one nonbinary human who uses they/them pronouns and a genderfluid member of a different species who shifts between she/her and he/him on occasion, which is the kind of diversity I love to see in this genre. It may not be the genuine followup to The Acolyte that audiences are still craving, but it’s a decent enough diversion. I give it three-and-a-half stars, rounded up.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Ripley’s Game by Patricia Highsmith

Book #181 of 2025:

Ripley’s Game by Patricia Highsmith (The Ripliad #3)

On a plot level, this third Tom Ripley novel plays out similarly to the first two, seeing our sociopathic protagonist get involved in yet another illegal enterprise that seems like it could have been avoided, whereupon he’s eventually driven to murder, dispose of his victims’ corpses, and then dodge the official investigation that ensues. This time he drags an innocent civilian along with him, correctly gambling that a man six years into a fatal leukemia diagnosis might be willing to kill for a payout of money to leave behind for his family after he’s gone.

The mafioso enemies represent a more capable opponent than usual, but what really elevates the matter is the rich queer subtext, although to get there, we need to discuss the previous titles as well. The Talented Mr. Ripley addresses its antihero’s sexuality head-on: other characters directly accuse him of liking men, which he denies, inviting readers to determine whether he’s a reliable narrator or not. And the evidence is substantial — to quote my own review of those early adventures in Europe, the American expat displays “both a fascination for male bodies and the sort of platonic masculinity he somehow can’t perform and a hatred of women and the idea of any conventional romance or sex with them.”

In Ripley Under Ground, any queerness is considerably repressed. Though Tom’s primary relationships are all still with men, he no longer struggles with how he’s perceived by them, and he enjoys a comfortable marriage to a woman with whom he’s physically affectionate. If this story were not a sequel and its author not known to us as a lesbian, I doubt any reader would imagine the character had greater depths to his affairs beyond what’s textually on the page.

This volume, as the final panel of that triptych (although two more Ripliad entries would subsequently follow), complicates the picture further. Strictly speaking, no one voices any thought in Ripley’s Game that the titular figure might feel a romantic inclination towards his own gender. And yet he steadily persuades an upright married man into becoming his intimate acquaintance and co-conspirator, which leads the fellow’s wife to rightly view Tom as an interloper in their formerly happy home. All throughout, the luring of Jonathan is framed as a seduction, with the lamb unable to explain the appeal he sees in the more worldly con artist and his hitman job offer. And since half the text is from his perspective, in a departure for a series that has previously stuck wholly to its original POV, we understand that confusion to be genuine.

The two men are bound together by forces they can’t define and no one else can appreciate, sharing secret late-night rendezvous and private phone calls and repeatedly saving one another’s lives. Their connection is never identified as a romance — nor do I think the pair would welcome that label themselves — but the book is almost fundamentally impossible to fathom otherwise. There’s some initial trickery on Ripley’s part to make the disease prognosis seem even more serious, but by the time he agrees to become an assassin, the younger man has seen through that ruse and decided to accept the proposal anyway. He wonders what signals he gave off for Tom to have recognized him as a potential killer, which reads very much like someone in the closet panicking over a more experienced gay person clocking and flirting with them. Considered through that lens, it’s no wonder he appears helplessly drawn towards the ruthless criminal.

And does Tom Ripley care for Jonathan in return? Perhaps! He does step in and help him when the smarter play would be to stay out of events altogether, and our devious hero has never been given to overt self-reflection. At the same time, however, he’s quick to brush off the ultimate unhappy ending that spoils their frantic close association, as I suppose we’ve always known he would be.

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

★★★★☆

Some Belated Rankings

Indiana Jones was the second in a new feature I’m calling Film Franchise Fridays, where I pick a movie series and watch one picture a week until the end. Before that was Jason Bourne, and up next after the holiday will probably be The Matrix (so far all examples where I know I’ve missed at least one of the later entries). Now that I’m done, here’s my rankings of those first two sagas:

INDIANA JONES:

★★★★★ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
★★★★★ Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
★★★★☆ Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
★★★☆☆ Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
★★☆☆☆ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
overall rating: ★★★★☆

JASON BOURNE:

★★★★☆ The Bourne Identity (2002)
★★★☆☆ The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
★★★☆☆ Jason Bourne (2016)
★★★☆☆ The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
★★☆☆☆ The Bourne Legacy (2012)
overall rating: ★★★☆☆

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Movie #24 of 2025:

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Never say never in Hollywood, but the press statements from star Harrison Ford and current Lucasfilm owner Disney have all indicated that this fifth Indiana Jones movie is meant to stand as the final entry in that long-running saga, which began four decades ago with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). If so, it’s a fairly strong conclusion, sending the intrepid hero off on another globehopping treasure hunt that nimbly recaptures the thrills of the past.

This is in fact a story about time travel in many ways, opening with an extended sequence set near the end of World War II — the period of the original trilogy — that uses de-aging technology to restore the lead actor to a pretty good approximation of his youthful appearance. While there he clashes with a new villain played by Mads Mikkelsen over the latest maguffin antiquity, a mathematical calculation device invented by Archimedes that some believe can enable literal transport across history. Later in the film’s most eye-popping spectacle, the object does just that, hurtling the characters backwards to the Siege of Syracuse in 214 BCE (which might be ludicrous in a more grounded franchise, but I’d argue is no stranger than certain other scenarios the archaeologist has encountered over the years). And in between, this is the tale of a man out of step with his era, looking back on regrets near the end of his life as he’s forced to battle enemies he’d once thought vanquished.

A lot of this works for me! Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the adventurer’s goddaughter is a particular delight, and the Nazis continue to be the ideal antagonists for this series, with their supremacist ideology forming a natural contrast to the archaeology professor’s rugged determination to recover ancient artifacts for the public eye. While the primary action is set in 1969, the decision to incorporate the supposedly-reformed scientists in Operation Paperclip is a terrific way to keep that German faction relevant — and a welcome improvement over the awkward attempt to refashion the Soviet Union as the resident bad guys in the previous title. Sallah and Marion are nice to see again too, although the explanation that Shia LaBeouf’s Mutt has died between movies seems unnecessarily rude.

The plot logic could be tightened up in a few places, and I feel only slightly more warmly towards Teddy as a junior sidekick than I did for Short Round, but overall this is an above-average genre piece. It may be nowhere near the classic of Raiders or Last Crusade (1989), but I’m very comfortable calling it the next-best installment after those.

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

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny by Simon R. Green

Book #180 of 2025:

The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny by Simon R. Green (Nightside #10)

One of the weaker entries in this 2000s urban fantasy series, which is unfortunate, since it also directly sets up the endgame and includes the deaths of some fairly major recurring characters. But plotwise, this is a mess. These books are never very long to begin with, and this installment features an extended early case of the protagonist escorting a fugitive elf across the city that doesn’t especially connect with the remainder of the tale. After that resolves he’s hired to find an old ally who vanished back in volume six, while his frenemy Walker keeps trying to convince him to take over his job as what passes for an authority figure in the Nightside.

Individual moments here work okay, but the writing is as repetitive as ever, which is increasingly noticeable this deep into the saga, and none of the action scenes or worldbuilding descriptions stand out as particular creative highlights. With only two novels remaining, it’s a shame this title doesn’t make a stronger impression or significantly challenge our hero, who’s been in any number of more desperate scrapes before now. But at least it clears the board of a few issues we don’t need to revisit again, I guess.

[Content warning for drug abuse and gore.]

★★☆☆☆

TV Review: 12 Monkeys, season 1

TV #55 of 2025:

12 Monkeys, season 1

There’s a fun Fringe vibe running through the first year of this Syfy program, and not only because Kirk Acevedo is around in a supporting role. Like that earlier show, it also offers a story that deepens as it goes along and starts digging into the personal stakes for certain characters, rather than relying on the worldsaving heroics alone to sell the drama. The focus is still on using time travel to prevent a virus from destroying human civilization, but by the end of this season it’s clear that one particular person is motivated by having lost a child in the fall, while another is working for the other side to maintain the timeline and keep their own family from being erased. That’s a conflict that resonates and doesn’t offer easy answers, to the overall improvement of the series.

12 Monkeys is a 2015 reboot of the 1995 film of the same name, in which a man from a plague-ravaged future seemingly travels back in time and gets locked up in a mental hospital, but it sheds the manic Terry Gilliam energy and ambiguities over the protagonist’s sanity. This version of Cole is obviously on-the-level, though his superiors aren’t necessarily giving him the full picture, and his own ordeal as an institutional patient doesn’t last very long. He’s mostly teaming up with a modern CDC doctor to undo the outbreak before it occurs, and getting increasingly frustrated as their successful missions aren’t changing anything back in his home era. The plot is twisty, sometimes beyond the point of believability, but it’s definitely the kind of tale that’s more satisfying to look back on once the pieces have fallen into place than it always manages to be in the moment.

I don’t think the finale sticks the landing, especially for rushing a romantic connection between the leads that could have used more room to develop naturally, and the narrative as a whole doesn’t seem like the writers have quite worked through what the rules of paradoxes and such should be in this setting, in terms of whether it’s genuinely possible to ever rewrite history or merely upend people’s flawed understanding of past events. (I’m not saying the scripts can’t square everything we see in this initial outing under a grand unified theory of worldbuilding, just that it hasn’t happened yet.) But the effort improves across these thirteen episodes for sure, and leaves me hopeful for what the remaining seasons will bring.

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

★★★☆☆

Book Review: The Strength of the Few by James Islington

Book #179 of 2025:

The Strength of the Few by James Islington (Hierarchy #2)

I don’t really know what to do with this title, rating-wise. I have major critiques about its structure that I’ll get into below, but taking every section on its own terms, I suppose I’ve enjoyed the unfolding story and how it continues what was started in The Will of the Many. I’ll go with 3.5 stars, rounded up, which is sort of the opposite of how I felt about that initial volume, where a dazzling majority was brought down by a confusingly unsupported ending. Unfortunately, author James Islington’s odd choices there continue to shatter the resulting narrative in this sequel.

But let’s set the stage here (and spoil the conclusion of the first book, as a warning). Our returning hero is a young man with quite a lot of secrets: he’s the orphaned heir of a small kingdom that his militaristic empire conquered, hiding the identity that would mark him for death but being blackmailed over it by a band of rebels, while also trying to pierce a shadowy conspiracy at his cutthroat academy. At the end of the last adventure, he succeeded in that latter goal, only to trigger a ritual that copied him into the two alternate dimensions that apparently broke off from his own several millennia ago. From that point on, there are three of him, and this novel follows them all as they proceed to pick their respective paths forward.

It’s not so unusual in the fantasy genre to divide a sprawling cast and then bounce around among them, as any Game of Thrones fan could attest. Still, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a tale like this before, where the protagonists are identical versions of the same person, engaging in completely separate subsequent plots. This isn’t a Sliding Doors situation exploring how small differences cascade into significant ones as they diverge — the worlds are all strikingly distinct in their histories, present societies, and rules of magic, not parallel in any meaningful sense — nor do the heroes ever reunite and integrate their storylines, at least in this installment. They’re just starring in a trio of totally different scenarios, each of which is a plausible continuation of their common previous ordeals. Adding to the confusion, the chapters are all told in first-person, unlabeled, and in no specific rotating pattern, and although it’s usually easy to determine from the first few sentences which copy we’re now with, the impact is jarring every time.

Despite all that, I can’t help but like the main character(s). His undercover mission in the primary setting remains very Red Rising-coded, ruthlessly gaining stature amidst his enemies so as to better destroy them from within, and he’s clever enough to discover a few Mistborn-style worldbuilding twists that will presumably be of increased relevance later on. He develops into more of a soldier / druid in one reality and a revolutionary spy in another, but all are fun to watch level up their skills in those arenas to overcome their particular opponents. The aggregate effect is enjoyable but decidedly bizarre whenever you stop to consider the bigger picture, and I have no idea how the series will maintain its current direction(s) in any future releases. But I guess I’m still on board to find out.

[Content warning for torture, gore, and mention of rape.]

★★★★☆

TV Review: Wednesday, season 2

TV #54 of 2025:

Wednesday, season 2

I gave the first season of this Addams Family modernization a rave review, praising its heroine, plot, comedy, and tone, but I’m afraid I’m rather cooler on this belated follow-up. (Seriously, I know this is not an issue limited to Netflix, but taking three years to produce eight episodes is an absolute absurdity. It kills the creative momentum and audience buy-in for a show and leads to ludicrous age-ups for child actors like the one playing Pugsley here.) Jenna Ortega as Wednesday herself is thankfully still a deadpan gothic gem, but the series around her this time is an overstuffed mess that seems to be prioritizing a loose hangout vibe over a compelling story.

It’s not that things don’t happen in the protagonist’s sophomore year at Nevermore; the scripts have the rough shape of rising action and gesture at narrative arcs. But so little of it feels rooted in any character making agentive choices or overcoming significant challenges to get what they want. Instead the program has seemingly fallen victim to its own perceived successes and formulas — Wednesday is a show where X, so the writers make sure we get plenty more X, without much effort to justify or follow through on any particular developments. I’m reminded of the streaming platform’s kooky superhero adaptation The Umbrella Academy, which increasingly suffered from similar problems as it went on.

The most understandable choice is to give more space to the girl’s famous relatives, though I think it proves to be a misguided one. A YA fantasy noir like this, set in a school of werewolves and psychics and the like, in a broader society that knows and generally tolerates such “outcasts,” is never going to manage to recreate the culture clash of previous Addams Family titles. Wednesday’s standoffishness, which continues to read as autistic-coded in a rewarding way, at least sets her apart from the other freaks on campus, but who are her parents contrasting with? The series has to settle for hurt-feelings drama between mother and daughter, which then proceeds to hit the same notes over and over again.

A bevy of subplots and episodic troubles keep the production moving, and it’s not all bad. The main character’s grudging friendship with her chipper roommate Enid remains enjoyable, and the hour when they magically switch bodies represents a real tour-de-force for both actresses, who are plainly having a blast temporarily performing against type. I’m glad the romantic entanglements of season 1 are gone and not replaced; I just wish there was more in their stead with an obvious point for us. It’s fine! Steve Buscemi and Billie Piper are here for some reason. So is Christopher Lloyd’s head in a jar. Thing gets an utterly unnecessary backstory. There’s a mystery about a zombie with a clockwork heart and some supernatural murders. It’s fine.

[Content warning for gore.]

★★★☆☆

Movie Review: Babylon 5: The Road Home (2023)

Movie #23 of 2025:

Babylon 5: The Road Home (2023)

This is, for now, the latest screen entry in the winding Babylon 5 franchise, though there’s no indication that it’s meant to represent a conclusion or anything. In fact, this title is a prequel of sorts — taking place near the end of the TV show and before other follow-up projects like The Legend of the Rangers or Crusade — and it’s easy to imagine subsequent releases adopting the same approach, if not pushing forward into further sequel territory. It’s also the first animated feature for the series, reuniting most surviving cast members and recasting the remaining parts, in a medium that’s inherently forgiving of such moves to downplay how a quarter-century has passed for the actors in real life.

Both the look of the animation and the mix of voices that are familiar with those that are only rough approximations remind me of Marvel’s What If…? cartoon, as does the specific storyline here. The plot takes our old protagonist John Sheridan and sends him on a tachyon-fueled journey through other times and alternate realities, although the results are never as wildly imaginative or as immersive into the established continuity as I would ideally prefer. There are rewards for fans that newcomers won’t pick up on, like Zathras muttering about the One and not-the-One, but it’s pretty welcoming of audiences who might not have all the proper context, too. Overall it’s not a bad 79 minutes of sci-fi, and I’d certainly accept it as a proof-of-concept for the format, but I wouldn’t call it an essential part of the B5 canon.

★★★☆☆

Movie Review: The Ewok Adventure (1984)

Movie #22 of 2025:

The Ewok Adventure (1984)

My daughters (aged 6 and 4) lost interest midway through both A New Hope and The Phantom Menace, so I decided to see if this TV movie from the 1980s — later retitled to Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, though I’ve never called it by that name — would be any more effective at hooking them on the Star Wars franchise. And by that metric, I’d say it was a hit! They sat captivated for the whole thing, only getting a little scared near the end, and overall seemed to like watching the funny teddy bear creatures and their friends.

As an adult viewer, I do have some critiques. The Ewok actors themselves are actually rather charming in their bumbling physicality and the emotion they put into their untranslated vocalizations, but the four human characters — two of whom are admittedly played by children — leave a lot to be desired, performance-wise. Eric Walker as Mace especially feels like he was cast solely for a slight resemblance to Mark Hamill, and while the script doesn’t give him a ton to work with, he doesn’t exactly rise to the occasion, either. Aubree Miller is less objectionable as his younger sister Cindel, but at that age, all she really has to do is look appropriately adorable anyway. And their parents thankfully aren’t on-screen very much, serving mainly as the kidnapped maguffins driving the plot.

Still, the opening half of this film is pleasantly solid, besides the intrusive narration from Burl Ives explaining details that ideally should have been covered more naturally via dialogue. We meet the crash-landed protagonists and a few key members of the local tribe, they overcome their initial mistrust to grow closer, and then they all team up on a quest to find and rescue the missing grownups. It’s there that the story falls increasingly flat, spending too long adding further companions and having random scrapes on the way to the villain’s citadel, most of which get solved by waving one of several magic artifacts at it.

And that’s probably the biggest disappointment here, that the production plays so fast and loose with the surrounding canon. Even upon release it was an awkward fit for the series it theoretically belongs to, introducing obvious contradictions like when Warwick Davis’s Wicket first learns of the existence of offworlders. It’s also hard not to notice how this version of the forest moon of Endor is populated with familiar animals like owls, ferrets, horses, and lizards, whereas its big-screen counterparts offer intricate alien fauna throughout. By the time we’re facing curses and spells and decidedly non-Jedi mysticism, it’s clear that this fairy tale setting is basically irreconcilable with the original space opera concept.

Now, will kids care about any of that? Absolutely not, I’m certain. Nor will the cheap-looking stop-motion effects likely register to them, although they again mark a significant difference from the big-budget stuff. I’m almost tempted to round my rating up a bit on the basis of that intended audience, but in the final analysis, I just can’t say that this meets the standard I expect for Star Wars.

★★☆☆☆