Book #241 of 2021: The Escape by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #15) This is one of the more straightforward Animorphs missions — they basically just sneak onto an enemy base, sabotage it, and then do as the title says and escape — but it does offer minor developments for the larger series and some creative …
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Book #240 of 2021: The Wanderers by Meg Howrey This novel has a plot — three astronauts train in a seventeen-month simulated flight to Mars and back while their families adjust to life without them and the concept of having to go through the same thing again if the crew is tapped for the eventual …
Book #239 of 2021: Billy Summers by Stephen King I really enjoy the first section of this crime thriller about a hitman with a conscience, detailing the slow build-up to his intended last kill. Enmeshed for weeks in a community while waiting for his target to arrive, he’s able to construct two alternate identities for …
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TV #67 of 2021: Scandal, season 1 Initially this drama about a Washington lawyer/fixer seems like it might be clunkier and soapier than I would prefer, but it improves on the former measure as this first year goes along — an achievement, given that that’s just seven episodes in total — and the latter isn’t …
Book #238 of 2021: The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders This sci-fi novel plays with a few interesting concepts, especially in its setting of two opposing cities, the only human settlements in the narrow hospitable zone of a tidally-locked planet that will either burn or freeze anyone who wanders …
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TV #66 of 2021: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, season 1 A fun sketch comedy series that’s also quite short, with only six episodes of under 20 minutes each. Not every skit is a winner for me, and overall they lean on awkward cringe humor and shouting more than I’d probably prefer, …
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Book #237 of 2021: The Body in Question by Jill Ciment Two middle-aged jurors in a major murder trial — who go unnamed until a verdict is reached two-thirds of the way through the text — embark on an affair while sequestered, after which one must return home to her dying husband and deal with …
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Book #236 of 2021: The Gap Into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Gap Cycle #2) This sequel is a major improvement over its predecessor, deepening the worldbuilding of the space opera setting and populating it beyond a simple archetypal trio. We also switch our focal protagonist from the rapist lowlife Angus Thermopyle …
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Book #235 of 2021: The Unknown by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #14) It’s hard to pick the single goofiest element of this story. Is it the Yeerks infesting wild horses — the first earth animal hosts we’ve seen — to sneak into the setting’s equivalent of Area 51 and discover what the government is hiding …
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Book #234 of 2021: Wayward Witch by Zoraida Córdova (Brooklyn Brujas #3) Although I appreciate that this third heroine in author Zoraida Córdova’s Brooklyn Brujas trilogy is less foolhardy than her older sisters — as shown by how she’s the only one whose adventure doesn’t begin with her own selfish spell gone wrong — the …
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