Movie #19 of 2018: Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) A big improvement over the first Ant-Man movie, which was funny but had some definite character issues and lousy gender representation. This one feels stronger on all fronts, and there are a lot of clever uses of the shrinking and growing technology that don’t just copy …
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TV #47 of 2018: Fargo, season 3 This show has always been in danger of substituting style for substance, given that its essential MO is to just remix the themes, characters, and events of the original Coen brothers movie. And while the first two seasons largely managed to chart their own strong courses of midwestern …
Book #203 of 2018: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King (Mary Russell #1) This tale of a Jewish teenager being trained as a detective by a retired Sherlock Holmes in the early twentieth century is a lovely bildungsroman and portrait of a budding partnership. Mary Russell is a great character in her own right, …
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Book #202 of 2018: Doctor Who: Lungbarrow by Marc Platt (Virgin New Adventures #60) This is a fascinatingly weird book, the culmination of a series of adventures that the Seventh Doctor continued to have after the classic run of Doctor Who was canceled as a television program in 1989. When that version of the Time …
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Book #201 of 2018: The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander (The Chronicles of Prydain #2) I like this second adventure through the land of Prydain even more than its predecessor, perhaps because it has more twists and turns (some easy to predict, others not) and a greater focus on characterization over plot. But there’s the …
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Book #200 of 2018: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou A terrific piece of long-form investigative journalism, detailing the shady business practices of the Theranos blood-test corporation. From their heavy employee turnover and their “culture of secrecy and fear” to their overpromises of technical breakthroughs and their lies …
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Book #199 of 2018: Trickster’s Queen by Tamora Pierce (Daughter of the Lioness #2) Tamora Pierce is always hit-or-miss for me, and this particular Tortall novel is unfortunately more of a miss. The spycraft feels mostly like a repeat of the last book, the plot points are easy to predict, and the author ultimately does …
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Book #198 of 2018: The Outsider by Stephen King Stephen King’s latest novel is also his best work in years (since 11/22/63 in 2011, in my opinion). It’s a compulsively readable mystery-thriller with an irresistible premise: a man is arrested for the horrific rape and murder of a young boy, with irrefutable eyewitness, fingerprint, and …
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TV #46 of 2018: ReBoot: The Guardian Code, season 2 I ultimately gave the first season of this show a 2-star review, feeling that although it was significantly worse than the original ReBoot cartoon, it had occasional flashes of quality that showed promise. Unfortunately, I can’t be as generous to this second season (which was …
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Book #197 of 2018: There There by Tommy Orange This debut novel is a blistering look at the experiences of many contemporary Native Americans, as seen through the perspectives of a dozen “urban Indians” who are each drawn in turn to a pow wow in Oakland. The characters differ in their relation to their heritage …
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