Book #191 of 2020: A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown (A Song of Wraiths and Ruin #1) Although I have questions about some of the character motivations, this is a strong debut novel from author Roseanne A. Brown, with interesting fantasy worldbuilding drawn from #ownvoices West African folklore, an all-black cast, …
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Book #190 of 2020: Willow Moss and the Lost Day by Dominique Valente (Starfell #1) A whimsical yet somewhat generic children’s fantasy novel. I’d still maybe recommend it to kids or their parents who are tired of rereading classics like The Enchanted Forest Chronicles and The Two Princesses of Bamarre, but there’s not really much …
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Book #189 of 2020: Doctor Who: Rose by Russell T. Davies This novelization of Doctor Who’s first Ninth Doctor episode from 2005 is made more interesting by the fact that it wasn’t written until 2018, and author / former showrunner Russell T. Davies has approached the project less as a strict retelling and more as …
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Book #188 of 2020: Lord Foul’s Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever #1) On the surface, this 1977 novel is a Narnia-style portal fantasy, in which a person from our reality travels to another and gets caught up in an epic quest. The lush worldbuilding is as intricate and …
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TV #31 of 2020: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 7 The plot logistics go somewhat off the rails by the end, but overall, this is a fun and confident sendoff to the unlikely durable Marvel property. Time travel allows the season to play in a lighter key than usual, more akin to DC’s Legends of …
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Book #187 of 2020: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson Although this free-verse memoir captures some great impressionistic snapshots of author Jacqueline Woodson growing up amid the dawning Civil Rights movement, it’s overall a tad short and disjointed for my tastes. I’d still recommend the title for younger readers, especially those interested in a black …
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Book #186 of 2020: Destroy All Monsters by Sam J. Miller This novel plays with some interesting ideas, but it’s developed too loosely to be very effective. The two teenage protagonists, both repressing a certain trauma from when they were kids, are literally now living in different worlds: her in something like our reality and …
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Book #185 of 2020: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro It takes a while for me to warm up to this novel about an English butler looking back on his life, and I still wouldn’t say I love it by the end. Yet I have come to appreciate author Kazuo Ishiguro’s skill at …
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Book #184 of 2020: Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton This is a wild fever dream of a novel, heavy on the New York City party scene of sex, drugs, and drinking but somewhat lacking in any likable characters. Everyone in this story is some combination of vapid, foolish, and/or entitled, and although the plot …
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TV #30 of 2020: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 1 This first season of the CGI show is a definite improvement over the 2008 feature film, and I appreciate the travelogue aspect of showing off different Star Wars settings. Still, it seems pretty nonessential to the canon so far, beyond the rare glimpses of …
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