Book #348 of 2021: Strange Dreams edited by Stephen R. Donaldson Rating each story in this 1993 collection individually, they average out to just three-out-of-five stars overall for me. It’s an uneven bunch, yet there are still some winners among the lot. (No fives, but 10 fours, along with 11 threes, 5 twos, and 2 …
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Book #347 of 2021: Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby Between this novel and author S. A. Cosby’s later Razorblade Tears, I am fully ready to crown him the Elmore Leonard of the state of Virginia, demonstrating that late crime writer’s same flair for action scenes, local dialect, and colorful characters with particular codes of …
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Book #346 of 2021: You Feel It Just Below the Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson This novel technically takes place in the dystopian setting of authors Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson’s “Within the Wires” podcast, but you don’t need to have listened to that first in order to enjoy it — all I’ve …
Book #345 of 2021: Gods of Riverworld by Philip José Farmer (Riverworld #5) This somewhat-vestigial sequel to the core Riverworld plot is actually an improvement over the past couple titles, although it’s still not great. Having finally reached the grand tower at the head of the river in the previous story, the remaining protagonists spend …
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Book #344 of 2021: Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch #14) The Liam Neeson movie Taken came out in 2008, and it sure seems like author Michael Connelly was trying to ride its coattails for this Bosch novel the following year. The start of the story concerns a liquor store robbery-homicide that may have …
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Book #343 of 2021: Elfangor’s Secret by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs Megamorphs #3) Is there any Animorphs opening more unsettling than this one, with its in-media-res presentation of an alternate universe where our heroes are still fighting the same covert alien invasion, but as citizens of a racist, slave-holding empire? Rachel is nowhere to be …
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Book #342 of 2021: Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens An incredibly heavy yet informative read on how the modern field of gynecology was created in the age of American slavery, with enslaved black women its unwilling participants. They were involved as patients for experimental techniques, of …
Book #341 of 2021: Towards Zero by Agatha Christie (Superintendent Battle #5) A delightfully twisty Agatha Christie piece, and a de facto end to her Superintendent Battle series. That investigator is more present here than he often is for his novels, but he still doesn’t dominate with an oversized personality as Poirot or Miss Marple …
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Book #340 of 2021: Search for Senna by K. A. Applegate (Everworld #1) [I read and reviewed this title at a Patreon donor’s request. Want to nominate your own books for me to read and review (or otherwise support my writing)? Sign up for a small monthly donation today at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke !] I’m a bigger …
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Book #339 of 2021: Defending Elysium by Brandon Sanderson [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] This novella from 2008 is one of author Brandon Sanderson’s earliest published works, still freely available on his website although now re-released for purchase as an official tie-in to his later Skyward / Cytoverse series. Set centuries beforehand, …
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