Book #88 of 2021: The Electric Kingdom by David Arnold At some point, I’m going to have to learn to ignore promotional materials that compare the latest post-apocalyptic saga to Station Eleven. Generally, as in this case, that sort of comparison is rather overselling the wonder and humanity on display. The Electric Kingdom is not …
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TV #31 of 2021: Community, season 6 The mantra for Community fans clamoring for renewal was always, “Six seasons and a movie!” after a hopeful throwaway Abed line about the ultimately short-lived series The Cape. The sitcom too fell shy of that goal — technically I suppose a revival film someday wouldn’t be so surprising, …
Book #87 of 2021: Parker Pyne Investigates by Agatha Christie Honestly, a better name for this 1934 collection might be “Parker Pyne Instigates.” In less than half of these stories does that fellow do any real investigative work; the majority of the time he instead constructs elaborate confidence schemes to make his patrons feel happy …
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Book #86 of 2021: Star Wars: Ahsoka by E. K. Johnston This Star Wars novel follows fan-favorite character Ahsoka Tano on her first real solo adventure, helping to fill in the gap between her appearances on the animated shows The Clone Wars and Rebels. (And because this franchise’s release schedule is all out of chronological …
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Book #85 of 2021: The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly It’s March 2021, and I’ve read quite a few titles over the past year looking at the global history of pandemics, the science behind their causes, and the strategies that led …
Book #84 of 2021: The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer Dexter Palmer’s 2010 authorial debut is a dense and challenging read, loosely spinning an imaginative steampunk riff on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, but with the inclusion of multiple timelines, recursive stories within stories, and sometimes off-putting, stream-of-consciousness delving into character psyches. (The author’s bio …
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Book #83 of 2021: The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman This 2007 title is a genre throwback in all the worst ways. It’s more interested in the scientific mechanics of time travel than in its flat characters, the women seem only there as objects of sexual wish-fulfilment, and the accumulated plot holes are pretty …
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TV #30 of 2021: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 2 I’m somewhat less impressed by this second outing of Deep Space Nine than I was by its debut year. The elements are all there for this show to tell a deeper, more serialized narrative than any previous Star Trek iteration — which jetsetted around …
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TV #29 of 2021: Killing Eve, season 2 Although the effect isn’t felt right away, this season ends up representing a major step down from the show’s electrifying debut. As often happens in such cases, a change in showrunners is likely to blame — and I wonder if the outgoing Phoebe Waller-Bridge had already begun …
Book #82 of 2021: The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston An interesting account of a 21st-century expedition to a pre-Columbian ruin, although the whole venture is pretty thoroughly drenched in colonialism and an outdated Indiana Jones style of archaeology, in which westerners brave the ‘unexplored’ ‘wilderness’ in search of ‘forgotten’ civilizations …
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