Book #92 of 2025: Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green (Nightside #2) [Note: this is a modified version of my review from 2018.] This urban fantasy series still has issues like an oversexualization of its female characters, but this second novel is better than I remembered and a vast improvement over the …
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Book #91 of 2025: All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall Theoretically, this is gentle post-apocalyptic fiction in the Station Eleven tradition, tracking a small family unit as they lose their home to the rising floodwaters and attempt to find refuge elsewhere. Our teenage heroine has only dim memories of life before the …
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Book #90 of 2025: The Glassblower by Victoria Goddard (The Glassblower Diptych #1) “This was another story beginning, the tale unfurling beneath her feet with every breath she took, every question on her tongue.” That line comes at 97% of the way through this slim novella in author Victoria Goddard’s sprawling Nine Worlds fantasy saga, …
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Book #89 of 2025: Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams I first heard about this book through the news that Facebook had unsuccessfully sued to prevent its publication, which of course cemented my desire to read the thing. It’s easy to see why the company’s not happy, …
TV #29 of 2025: Doctor Who, season 2 The Whoniverse is in a weird place right now. Back in 2022, the BBC struck a deal with Disney to co-produce 26 new episodes of the long-running British franchise, after which the parties would reassess the viability of the brand going forward. And now it appears we’ve …
Movie #6 of 2025: Babylon 5: In the Beginning (1998) Produced in the run-up to the fifth and final season of the TV show, which would soon be airing on a new network, this Babylon 5 film seems partially aimed at attracting new viewers to the sci-fi franchise. It’s a presentation via flashback of certain …
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TV #28 of 2025: Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, season 1 This 2004 miniseries, airing a couple years after the premature cancellation of the regular Farscape TV show, reminds me a lot of the movie Serenity (2005) and its relation to Firefly. Like that film, it aims to offer a stronger conclusion to the ongoing storyline …
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Book #88 of 2025: Revolution by John Peel (2099 #4) This middle-grade sci-fi series stalls out a bit here, though I’m hoping the final two volumes are able to recapture the original momentum and fun. (It’s been a quarter-century since my last read, so none of this is particularly clear in my memory.) The subplot …
Book #87 of 2025: Never Flinch by Stephen King (Holly Gibney #4) In the afterword to this new novel, author Stephen King acknowledges that it was difficult to write before saying that he’s “happy enough” with the final version. That’s largely how I feel as a reader, too. This is pretty far from the writer …
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TV #27 of 2025: Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld, season 1 “This is solid but unremarkable Star Wars for the most part, and although it isn’t the worst of the franchise, it never comes close to justifying its existence.” That’s what I said in my review of last year’s Tales of the Empire cartoon …
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