Book #112 of 2021: Provenance by Ann Leckie This space-opera comedy of manners takes place in the same broad continuity as author Ann Leckie’s earlier Imperial Radch trilogy, but it largely stands apart from that narrative, focusing instead on a few civilizations along the periphery of Radchian influence. It’s also a new tone for the …
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Book Review: The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson
Book #111 of 2021: The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1) In the first Thomas Covenant trilogy, the titular antihero resisted the appeal of the fantasy realm that summoned him from our reality, but gradually came to decide that its ideals were worth fighting for even if he …
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Book Review: Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie
Book #110 of 2021: Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #11) This mystery almost feels like a Poirot story by happenstance; although the Belgian detective unveils his solution in the usual drawing-room denouement, he’s present for less than half of the proceedings beforehand. But the amateur investigators carry on fine in his absence, …
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Book Review: The Survivors by Jane Harper
Book #109 of 2021: The Survivors by Jane Harper Australian crime writer Jane Harper always excels at bringing the atmospheric vistas of her rural settings to life, and that remains true in her latest effort about a small town on the Tasmanian coast. But the protagonist is basically a stock figure at this point, both …
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Book Review: Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
Book #108 of 2021: Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor I think the conclusion to this novella could have had a little more punch to it, but overall it offers a great character study of a young girl afflicted by an extraterrestrial artifact with the involuntary power to kill anything around her when physically threatened. As …
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Book Review: The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark
Book #107 of 2021: The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark This 2018 novella is short enough that it feels more like a proof-of-concept for the setting than a full story, and while that worldbuilding has cool potential — a steampunk Afrofuturist historical fiction version of New Orleans that’s neutral in a Civil War …
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TV Review: Justified, season 4
TV #38 of 2021: Justified, season 4 As usual, I am torn on how I feel about this show. On the one hand, the fourth season has a more relaxed tone that I personally think is a better fit for its particular strengths than the urgent plotting of previous years. The Drew Thompson case carries …
Book Review: The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex
Book #106 of 2021: The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex I have to confess, I don’t really get this novel. It’s a fictionalized version of a real-life mystery, and it seems to have been written to propose a possible answer for why the three tenders of a remote lighthouse in the British Isles once vanished without …
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TV Review: The Americans, season 2
TV #37 of 2021: The Americans, season 2 A second fantastic run of this spy-drama period piece, this one built largely for considering its central couple as parents — struggling to keep their kids safe and raised with like-minded ideals as any of us would, but with the extra tensions that necessarily stem from their …
Book Review: A Universe of Wishes: A We Need Diverse Books Anthology edited by Dhonielle Clayton
Book #105 of 2021: A Universe of Wishes: A We Need Diverse Books Anthology edited by Dhonielle Clayton I love how works like this aim to spotlight authors and characters of under-represented backgrounds in literature, but for me as a reader, the YA sci-fi and fantasy stories in this collection are generally more good than …
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