Book #107 of 2026: The Corruption of Hollis Brown by K. Ancrum Seventeen-year-old Hollis is a troubled kid, getting into fights at school, suppressing a certain suicidal ideation, and resigning himself to the fact that he’s going to be stuck in his dying blue-collar small town forever. That makes him the perfect victim for the …
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Book #106 of 2026: Songs of the Dead by Brandon Sanderson and Peter Orullian (The Strata Wars #1) [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with the first author.] This collaborative foray into the urban fantasy genre leaves a lot to be desired, and reading between the lines of the co-writers’ public statements, it sounds like the …
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TV #31 of 2026: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, season 2 On an episodic level, this second and final run of the late-aughts Terminator show works alright, I guess. The character dynamics of a fraught relationship between mother and son and the awkward peace with their spectrum-coded cyborg ally remain compelling, and the action sequences …
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Book #105 of 2026: Minute Cryptic by Angas Tiernan and Liam Runnalls Cryptic crosswords are a sort of puzzle, more common in England, in which the answers to clues involve creative wordplay rather than outside trivia. Generally the solution will be a synonym for either the start or the end of the prompt, with the …
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Book #104 of 2026: The Rock Rats by Ben Bova (The Asteroid Wars #2) Author Ben Bova’s Grand Tour stories of outer space exploration continue to be hit-or-miss for me, and this title unfortunately isn’t one of the better ones. There’s the core of a neat idea here, involving the small community that’s grown up …
Book #103 of 2026: Doctor Who: White Darkness by David A. McIntee (Virgin New Adventures #15) Largely a back-to-basics reset for the series, bringing the Seventh Doctor and his companions Ace and Bernice to Haiti in 1915, amid the unrest that ultimately led to an American invasion and occupation of the island country. While not …
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Movie #31 of 2026: Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019) Here’s a picture that lives up to its title, effectively repeating the premise from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001): those slacker stoners again going on a cross-country journey to Hollywood, in order to stop a film being made about the comic book superheroes …
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Book #102 of 2026: Magician’s Gambit by David Eddings (The Belgariad #3) I continue to struggle with how generic this 80s fantasy series seems to me, like The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Prydain with the more interesting worldbuilding, character, and plot details sanded down. It’s very much a product of its …
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TV #30 of 2026: Homicide: Life on the Street, season 4 Still enjoyable, but too uneven compared to previous years, which is going to result in a lower rating from me. I do commend the writers for experimenting a bit with the conventional procedural format, and the results include two of my favorite episodes yet: …
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Book #101 of 2026: Gregor and the Code of Claw by Suzanne Collins (The Underland Chronicles #5) This series has had its ups and downs, but it concludes on a high note that ties everything together rather gracefully. Following the cliffhanger from the last volume, the story resumes with the humans and their allies in …
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