Book #356 of 2021: Hook, Line & Sinister: Mysteries to Reel You In edited by T. Jefferson Parker This 2010 collection is… fine. The subtitle is a bit misleading — the entries are generally more like crime thrillers than mysteries per se — but as a charity anthology of original fiction involving fishing, written by …
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Book Review: The Reunion by K. A. Applegate
Book #355 of 2021: The Reunion by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #30) I’m not a fan of the coincidence-heavy setup to this Animorphs volume — Marco has a nightmare involving his mom, the Controller to the Yeerk Visser One, which leads him to skip school and randomly go to the city’s business district, where she …
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Book Review: Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson
Book #354 of 2021: Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson (Vespertine #1) I’ve described author Margaret Rogerson’s fantasy fiction as an Old Kingdom readalike in the past, and she proves it again in this latest novel, in which a trainee nun fights undead spirits with the help of one bound to her that only she can hear …
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Book Review: Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution by H. W. Brands
Book #353 of 2021: Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution by H. W. Brands This is a solid history of the American Revolution, with plenty of specific details that I didn’t previously know. It’s burdened with a misleading title, however, as there’s no real attempt here to apply an analytic …
Book Review: Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie
Book #352 of 2021: Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie An interesting little oddity, and author Agatha Christie’s apparent sole foray into historical fiction — easy as it is now to forget that all her quaint drawing-room mysteries were actually set contemporaneously upon release — not to mention one of only four Christie …
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Book Review: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
Book #351 of 2021: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher I enjoy the protagonist’s magic here, which is limited to spells about baking and eventually gets put to creative use in defending the city from an invading army. I also approve of the dark and creepily realistic portrayal of a growing extremist …
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TV Review: Doctor Who: Flux
TV #86 of 2021: Doctor Who: Flux Doctor Who is a franchise that thrives on change, and so I have to credit soon-to-be-former showrunner Chris Chibnall for structuring this season as basically one single six-episode story, an experiment in serialization the likes of which the show hasn’t attempted since maybe Trial of a Time Lord …
TV Review: ReBoot, season 3
TV #85 of 2021: ReBoot, season 3 An absolute delight, all the way through to that daft but earned Penzance recap number that closes everything out. This run starts right where the last one left off (although a year and a half had passed for viewers), and it continues the strong streak of serialized plot …
Book Review: Cytonic by Brandon Sanderson
Book #350 of 2021: Cytonic by Brandon Sanderson (Skyward #3) [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] I love author Brandon Sanderson’s work in general, and I’ve been enjoying this YA space opera, but I have to admit to finding this latest volume a bit perfunctory. There are big worldbuilding reveals of the kind …
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Book Review: The First Journey by K. A. Applegate
Book #349 of 2021: The First Journey by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs Alternamorphs #1) I went into my adult reread of this choose-your-own-adventure Animorphs title with pretty low expectations, and yet it somehow still managed to disappoint. Who exactly is the audience here? The tone is more juvenile than the main novels, with lots of …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 