TV #42 of 2020: The Office, season 4 This is a deceptively light season of the classic workplace sitcom, with few of the plot shake-ups that have marked previous years. But there is still the structure of Ryan’s time at corporate bookending this particular run, and some new romantic developments offer intriguing forward momentum that …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Book Review: Our Time Is Now by Stacey Abrams
Book #241 of 2020: Our Time Is Now by Stacey Abrams Author Stacey Abrams witnessed unprecedented levels of voter suppression in her 2018 campaign for Georgia governor (in which her opponent was the state official doing most of the suppressing), and even the slight fraction that she presents here should be infuriating to anyone who …
Continue reading “Book Review: Our Time Is Now by Stacey Abrams”
TV Review: The Good Wife, season 7
TV #41 of 2020: The Good Wife, season 7 The penultimate run of this legal drama petered out by the end, but this final year is somehow another big step down. On a scene-by-scene basis The Good Wife continues to bear a surface resemblance to the show it used to be, but the characterizations and …
Book Review: The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal
Book #240 of 2020: The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal (Lady Astronaut #2) This alternative history sequel furthers the accelerated timeline for space travel after the natural disaster of the original novel, with most of its new plot concerning a 1960s first voyage to Mars. That’s fun to see play out via Apollo-level technology, …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal”
Book Review: The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly
Book #239 of 2020: The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch #4) I know it was only a matter of time before Detective Harry Bosch would get around to the cold case of his mother’s murder, but most of the investigation here plays out too straightforwardly to keep my full interest. The lack of …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly”
Book Review: American Hippo by Sarah Gailey
Book #238 of 2020: American Hippo by Sarah Gailey This volume collects two novellas that were previously published independently — but which I hadn’t read before — along with a pair of new short stories in the same setting. Together they present an alternate history of a nineteenth-century America populated by hippopotami, occupying roughly the …
Continue reading “Book Review: American Hippo by Sarah Gailey”
Book Review: The Tyrant Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
Book #237 of 2020: The Tyrant Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (The Masquerade #3) On balance I think this latest Baru Cormorant sequel is probably an improvement over the previous volume, but it’s still nowhere near as electrifying as the original novel. The more fantastical additions like self-aware cancers continue to not quite work for …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Tyrant Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson”
Book Review: Exit Strategy by Martha Wells
Book #236 of 2020: Exit Strategy by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries #4) This final Murderbot novella (for now, at least) draws the initial series arc to a close, clearing the way for whatever new plots the sequel novels will deliver. Linking back up with the supporting cast from the first volume helps reinject some …
Continue reading “Book Review: Exit Strategy by Martha Wells”
Book Review: The Shadows by Alex North
Book #235 of 2020: The Shadows by Alex North The backstory to this crime thriller is undeniably creepy — two of the protagonist’s friends killed their high school classmate in a ritualistic murder that has spawned multiple copycat acts in the quarter-century since, with one of the original culprits never brought to justice — but …
Book Review: Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead by Steve Cole
Book #234 of 2020: Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead by Steve Cole This is the first novel in Time Lord Victorious, a multimedia Doctor Who event unfolding over books, comics, Big Finish audio dramas, and more. It’s also the first title so far to feel like it’s taking …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 