The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Aviva vs. the Dybbuk by Mari Lowe

Book #165 of 2022:

Aviva vs. the Dybbuk by Mari Lowe

A dybbuk is a ghoulish spirit from Jewish folklore, traditionally said to be haunting a person or place due to unfinished business at the creature’s time of death. In this middle-grade novel, there’s such an entity lurking around the mikvah (a ritual bath site) that twelve-year-old Aviva tends with her widowed mother, although the girl is the only one who ever sees its mischief. Poltergeist-like, the supernatural being seems to lash out destructively whenever the heroine’s emotions are riled, and astute readers will probably predict the exact connection between the two well before the story’s conclusion, though this doesn’t weaken the impact of the narrative device.

The protagonist’s family has been living in their apartment off the mikvah ever since her father passed six years ago, and while the manner of his death likewise isn’t revealed until near the end, it’s clear that there is great unprocessed trauma and mental health struggles in both of his immediate survivors. The older woman spends much of her time staring off into space and making excuses to not leave the house, and her daughter is having difficulty sitting still and following rules in school. When a project for the upcoming bat mitzvah party for all sixth-graders brings her together with her former best friend, Aviva finds herself picking at old wounds she’s been desperately trying to ignore and finally confronting her inner demons, the dybbuk included.

Overall, this is a short but powerful read on grief and lingering pain, with a massive content warning required for both depression and antisemitism. While the mythological element isn’t as prominent as the title might suggest, #ownvoices author Mari Lowe is writing from a very Jewish perspective, building a tale that is both brimming with authentic lived-in details of Judaic life and urgently expressing what it’s like to exist in a community facing both rising levels of outside bigotry and long-standing generational trauma. I worry it might even be too heavy for some in its intended audience, although I trust younger folks to make that determination for themselves as they go along.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater

Book #164 of 2022:

Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater (The Dreamer Trilogy #3)

I’ve been steadily losing patience with this Raven Cycle spinoff from the start of the second volume on, and unfortunately, nothing in this final novel (which appears to close out the entire franchise, at least for now) does anything to reverse that trend. The two characters I find most interesting, Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch, are barely in it, and the latter spends the majority of his scenes floating in a weird dreamspace that doesn’t add much to the narrative. We’re given additional retcons about people being either not dead as previously indicated or else secretly someone’s dreams brought to life, and that’s a twist with pretty diminished impact after how many times author Maggie Stiefvater has sprung it on us over the course of this saga. It’s likewise disappointing to learn that Ronan is something of a chosen one, when the most remarkable thing about the premise of this trilogy heretofore has been its treatment of his magical gift as more commonplace than anyone realized in the original series.

In my review of the previous title, I noted “a certain haziness throughout the affair, with no one’s motivations ever feeling particularly well-grounded or urgent.” That’s exacerbated here, and while the mystical vibe allows for some occasional striking imagery and the writer’s typical flowery prose, it’s less satisfying when so abstracted from any concrete relationships. Despite regular reminders that “this is the story of the Lynch family,” the brothers hardly interact with one another at all, and their parents’ backstory feels unnecessarily tacked-on after readers have gotten to know the boys on their own terms for so long. I’m lukewarm about the result as an individual installment, and downright unhappy with it as a conclusion to the extended plot of this setting.

[Content warning for gun violence and gore.]

This volume: ★★☆☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Volumes ranked: 1 > 2 > 3

TV Review: Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, season 1

TV #51 of 2022:

Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, season 1

I don’t quite see the point of this latest Star Wars anthology series — and I’m not sure that Disney does either, given their decision to drop the entire first season in the middle of the ongoing Andor release schedule. Theoretically I think this cartoon is supposed to depict short vignettes from the lives of various Jedi, but that intention feels obscured when this initial batch of episodes contains one look at Ahsoka as a baby, then a loose trilogy about Count Dooku’s turn to the Separatist cause / Dark Side, then an Ahsoka training montage, and finally a story about her coming out of hiding to join the Rebel Alliance. Those last two installments in particular seem like showrunner Dave Filoni working to plug perceived plot holes in the haphazard way the Togruta’s arc has developed over multiple earlier programs, but they aren’t really telling us anything new about the character.

The Dooku stuff is stronger, fleshing out his motives and characterization in a way that actor Christopher Lee never got a chance to do in the movies (not to mention providing a long-overdue showcase for Jedi Master Yaddle, a member of Yoda’s species previously confined to the background of certain prequel shots). The Count is still not an especially sympathetic figure, and some of the material will likely feel familiar for anyone who’s heard his backstory in the canon audiobook Dooku: Jedi Lost, but such projects at least present his defection as more nuanced than just the flat embrace of evil that his ‘Darth Tyranus’ name suggests.

If this brief run had included only the three Dooku episodes, or instead a wider variety of Jedi protagonists, I might feel more favorable towards it. But Dooku and Ahsoka are a bizarre pairing to anchor the overall affair, and her storyline across it is too scattered to be effective in aggregate. Future releases could do better in this format, but this debut installment is pretty uneven in both quality and structure.

★★★☆☆

Book Review: Amari and the Great Game by B. B. Alston

Book #163 of 2022:

Amari and the Great Game by B. B. Alston (Supernatural Investigations #2)

It remains hard to avoid Harry Potter comparisons in discussing this middle-grade fantasy series, but this second volume is just as engaging as the first and continues to put an original spin on some common genre tropes shared between the sagas. In this story, a new authoritarian figure has come to power in the magical world and swiftly increased the official persecution of non-human creatures and wizards like Amari, who were already being treated as second-class citizens beforehand. (Most people who know about supernatural affairs in the setting are unpowered agents and bureaucrats, tasked with keeping mystical threats in check and hidden from the rest of humanity.) In fact, the thirteen-year-old protagonist only really faces anti-wizarding bigotry in this sequel and not any textual racism as a young Black girl — which I mention as neither a good or a bad thing in and of itself, but simply a noticeable change from the previous title.

As the tale unfolds, this character is struggling with the onerous new regulations, trying to solve the mystery of the inciting incident for which an unknown wizard is being blamed, and eventually getting dragged into the titular secret competition to determine who will lead all magic-users as a war looms ever more likely. Some of the plot developments and hurdles are a tad juvenile for my tastes, but I’m not the intended audience and I’m still enjoying myself for the most part, especially given the ways author B. B. Alston finds to illustrate sound resistance tactics to institutionalized oppression. I’m looking forward to seeing where things go from here.

(I’ll repeat my complaint about the audiobook production from last time, however, since once again the narrator is using the same standard American accent for all characters, even the one whose dialogue regularly features dialectal markers like “ye lasses.” Either another reader or a better director is sorely needed for any further installments.)

★★★★☆

Book Review: Road of Bones by Christopher Golden

Book #162 of 2022:

Road of Bones by Christopher Golden

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

The atmosphere of this horror novel draws a reader in immediately, well before any hint of the supernatural appears. Set in the far north of Siberia, one of the coldest places on earth that’s nevertheless inhabited, it takes its title from the nickname for a real-life highway that was built by Soviet prison labor in the Stalin era. Hundreds of thousands of political prisoners died there, either working on the road or encamped at one of the gulags nearby, and their bodies were interred beneath the pavement as a quicker alternative to digging graves in the permafrost. This obscure yet apparently true piece of history is gruesome enough to begin with, and it launches the book on a note both chilling and chilly.

Author Christopher Golden excels at conveying the frigid temperatures, the extreme isolation, and above all the difficulty of navigating in such an environment, channeling the spirit of reality TV programs like Ice Road Truckers. Indeed, our primary viewpoint into the scene is a producer who has traveled to Russia to start filming a new series there, looking at both the perils of driving on the road itself and any local rumors of paranormal activity. He and his team get more than they’d bargained for when they arrive at one town where they’d planned to spend the night and instead find everyone vanished with building doors flung open wide, dinner still on the table, and evidence that coats and shoes have been left behind. Only one little girl has somehow been overlooked — and there’s something out in the woods that’s coming back for her now.

The story that unfolds from there is a pulse-pounding chase across the tundra, peppered with all manner of creepy Stephen King-like frights, from shadows that snap like wolves to former villagers who have been transformed into vengeful mutant reindeer. I confess that the plot logic eludes me a bit near the end, even after one character magically intuits what’s been driving the creatures, but the terror of the experience is what really registers, along with the steadily-climbing body count. A perfect read for this colder part of the year, although probably strong enough to give shivers even in the heat of summer.

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

★★★★☆

Book Review: A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow

Book #161 of 2022:

A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow (Fractured Fables #2)

I enjoyed A Spindle Splintered for its fresh take on fairy tales (by means of a terminally-ill young queer woman from our world discovering she’s an iteration of the Sleeping Beauty trope and then traveling throughout the multiverse rescuing some of her counterparts), but this sequel novella doesn’t reach nearly the same delirious heights for me. That previous protagonist is back, and she’s now found her way into the Snow White mythos, where she immediately sparks romantic chemistry with the first wicked stepmother figure she encounters. That’s a fine development / premise, but there aren’t as many different realms on display in this title, and the heroine’s arc doesn’t seem as clear or as urgent as before — she’s mostly just trying to find a way to save the repentant queen from the fate she’s both brought upon herself and had thrust upon her by the shape of her story. This book is overall less remarkable than its predecessor, and while I can’t tell if the series is intended to continue beyond the ending here, I’m not sure that any future volumes are going to make it onto my priority list.

[Content warning for gore.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: Fair Warning by Michael Connelly

Book #160 of 2022:

Fair Warning by Michael Connelly (Jack McEvoy #3)

This 2020 novel is the third title to center on reporter Jack McEvoy, an otherwise peripheral figure in author Michael Connelly’s broad Harry Bosch / Mickey Haller franchise. He’s always an interesting change of pace from those more frequent protagonists, and I pictured them yelling at the character along with me at the beginning of this story, when he voluntarily talks to the police and gives them a sample of his DNA after learning he’s a suspect in a recent murder. (One of the minor antagonists even turns out to be an employee at a tech lab who has previously falsified criminal evidence, so I was fully expecting this rash decision to come back and bite the hero, though it weirdly never does. Still: don’t talk to the cops without a lawyer present, and don’t let them search your property or take your DNA without a warrant.)

While Jack knows he’s innocent and is less concerned about being arrested and convicted anyway than I would be in his position, the information that he’s a person of interest — he had a one-night stand with the victim a year ago — prompts him to look into the matter, eventually discovering it’s the work of a heretofore-unknown serial killer. The justification for the ensuing investigation is a little wonky, since the journalist’s beat is consumer protection and the women were apparently targeted by someone who accessed the personal data they submitted to a genealogical research company like 23andMe, but the taut cat-and-mouse thriller that develops is creepy and unpredictable in all the best ways. McEvoy’s limitations as a civilian with no law enforcement training or instincts further distinguish the affair, as they have for his previous outings, and the result is a definite page-turner. As a reader who’s found the Bosch series to be growing somewhat stale of late, I’ve really enjoyed this one.

[Content warning for incel sexism, suicide, gore, pedophilia, and rape.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson

Book #159 of 2022:

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson (Wax and Wayne #1 / Mistborn #4)

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

Brandon Sanderson’s original Mistborn trilogy from 2006 to 2008 fits squarely in the genre of high fantasy, presenting a sword-and-sorcery world in which gifted individuals can push and pull on the metal around them (in addition to other talents). His plan has always been to someday revisit that setting much later in its timeline, when technology based on those same magical principles has progressed to modern levels and beyond, allowing for a science-fiction atmosphere instead. But in 2011 he had an idea for an intermediary stage, roughly analogous to our 19th-century wild west, and a creative writing exercise to explore the period eventually grew to become this novel. Although initially intended as a standalone glimpse at the era, it would later be followed by an additional three sequels, deepening the plot and bringing in greater connections to Sanderson’s wider ongoing Cosmere saga.

The latest/last of those is due to be published next month, but so far, I think this first volume of the quartet is my favorite. The shift in tone is a lot of fun, and the writer is at his best when handling the elaborate choreography of the Allomantic combat scenes. The introduction of guns keeps this from ever feeling like a repeat of the skirmishes in previous books that all involved simpler weaponry, but the main characters have wisely been given a somewhat different assortment of powers, too. Whereas Mistborns like Vin could alternate along the entire range of Allomancy, pushing and pulling against nearby metal as the situation requires, our new protagonist can only push, resulting in an alternate strategic approach as he fights. He is also a Feruchemist, able to increase or decrease his body mass at will — and since his primary ability sends the lighter object careening away, they combine together for all manner of clever exploits. These are shootouts like none I’ve seen elsewhere, and are just incredibly entertaining to observe throughout the text.

Wax’s friend Wayne (sigh) has a new power as well, fueled by a refined alloy that was unavailable centuries earlier. He can create a bubble of compressed time around himself, so that outside events seem to happen more slowly and he can react seemingly instantaneously from an onlooker’s perspective. That’s admittedly less of a unique concept, but it’s equally delightful to see in action, especially since this sidekick figure is such a devious cad, often using his skill not to get the upper hand in a brawl like the hero, but to rapidly change from one disguise into another or to hold private conversations that no one else can hear. He’s a great comedic addition to the tale, and his gift with imitating accents and observations on their impact are interesting from a sociolinguistic view, too.

The story here is simple but effective, mostly serving to allow for a number of classic western tropes like train robberies, masked bandits, and rogue lawmen with some distinctive Sanderson flair. Waxillium himself can be a bit dour — which is why I’m not as taken with his later adventures, I expect — and the title strays into some uncomfortable darkness at times, as per my warnings below. But it’s largely a thrill that doesn’t overstay its welcome, at least for now.

[Content warning for gun violence, gore, post-traumatic stress disorder, copaganda, and rape.]

★★★★☆

Book Review: The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi

Book #158 of 2022:

The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi (The Gilded Wolves #2)

Given the fairly direct character parallels, this sequel continues to read like Six of Crows fanfiction with the serial numbers barely scratched off. (If author Roshani Chokshi hasn’t read that bestselling YA fantasy series about a teenage heist gang whose members so clearly resemble her own cast, it’s an extraordinary coincidence and still an issue that a competent editor should have cautioned against.) And that’s fine, so far as it goes! It’s an engaging concept, and even though this volume’s high levels of angst make it less fun than its predecessor, there remains that delirious National Treasure vibe to the worldbuilding, where seemingly no artifact can be hidden or deadly trap rigged without some elaborate riddle hinting at a solution. The Crow knockoffs are a good match for such circumstances, despite spending a majority of this novel in painfully-obvious mutual pining situations that a quick conversation could clear up or missing the equally apparent warning signs of the eventual villain reveal.

Ultimately this title’s biggest fault is probably that it’s the middle book of a trilogy, a slower stretch of story that introduces new complications but never quite gets around to resolving much before the inevitable cliffhanger ending. Little here is actively bad, but it’s not particularly distinctive for the genre, either. I expect I’ll push on to the next/last installment at some point — for the continued autistic Jewish representation, if nothing else — but I can’t say that I’m in any hurry for it.

[Content warning for antisemitism, racism, domestic abuse, slut-shaming, rape, and gore.]

★★★☆☆

Movie Review: Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor (2022)

Movie #18 of 2022:

Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor (2022)

The beginning of this latest Who special is a bit chaotic, and the whole thing moves so quickly that I feel as though we’re missing a few steps of necessary premise-setting exposition, like why the Daleks have agreed to ally themselves with the Master and his army of Cybermen. (Sorry — CyberMasters, as these are the ones he made on Gallifrey at the end of season 12. That’s noteworthy because they can now regenerate when killed, a neat upgrade that’s fun to finally see in action.) And the villain’s big ploy of forcing the Doctor to regenerate into a copy of himself likewise seems to have a few explanatory holes that keep the drama from landing at the level it needs. It’s not clear what happens with his original body during that time, for instance, or why he couldn’t simply kill his enemy and call himself the Doctor to accomplish the same ends of ruining her reputation.

But the episode settles into itself as it goes along, and the guest/cameo appearances from previous stars of the show are categorically lovely and well-integrated into the plot. On some level, sure, it’s blatant fan-service to bring back those old faces, whom casual viewers in a modern audience won’t all recognize. But there’s always thematic depth in considering the past that the Doctor regularly flees from — the in-universe explanation for the vagaries of casting changes over such a long serialized production — and I appreciate that this story finds other beats to play than similar established setups like 2006’s “School Reunion.” Doctor Who has nearly six decades of rich history to draw upon at this point, and it’s a rare delight to get so much of it on the screen at once.

I’m also pleasantly surprised by how well Jodie Whittaker’s final outing here works as a farewell to her entire run, bringing back a few key figures and elements important to her specifically and not just the franchise at large. Despite the Classic cast members running around, the script maintains a fairly tight focus on this particular Doctor and allows her to shine in her final hour. She even gets to throw on her old welding goggles again! It’s a fitting departure for her incarnation and showrunner Chris Chibnall alike.

My biggest disappointment about this last Thirteenth Doctor adventure is that there’s no follow-up / conclusion to the mini-arc of her companion Yaz’s romantic feelings for her, a promising development which was introduced two episodes ago, pushed slightly further and left open-ended in the next, and could have really benefited from additional screentime here. Knowledge of the women’s recent dynamic adds a certain weight to their interactions, but that’s all on the viewer and the actresses. At a level of strict dialogue, there’s nothing framing Yasmin Khan as different from any other friend of the Doctor, and that’s a frustrating mishandling of an idea that seemed like it had such potential when first raised in “Eve of the Daleks.” Maybe the Big Finish audios or other licensed works will someday flesh out this aspect, but for now it remains an abrupt treatment that gestures at queer representation more than it actually delivers.

Still: that’s a criticism of 2022 Who as whole, and these specials are meant as essentially discrete installments, which is why (together with their length) I’ve been reviewing them as movie equivalents. There’s no way for a Doctor Who regeneration special to entirely stand alone, of course, and this one in particular leans heavily on what’s come before for its stakes and its impact. But grading it as a self-contained event, I think it accomplishes everything it sets out to do. It’s a high-octane reunion extravaganza that centers its heroine and sends her off triumphantly. All that and a truly inspired Boney M needle drop, to boot.

[Content warning for gun violence.]

★★★★☆