Book #118 of 2018: Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor (Binti #2) I continue to love the Afrofuturism implicit in this setting, and Binti herself is a compelling character caught between worlds. But these novellas keep not quite working for me. Everything in the plot feels very abrupt, with many moments either not set up well …
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Book #117 of 2018: A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (Wayfarers #2) This spinoff sequel to The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet shares its predecessor’s compassionate depiction of a sci-fi universe teeming with intelligent and emotional life. Among other qualities, it’s a radically trans-positive future, featuring aliens who regularly change their …
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Book #116 of 2018: The Planet Thieves by Dan Krokos (The Planet Thieves #1) This is a solid middle-grade space opera, capably balancing the terrors of war with the inherently goofy concept of moving an entire planet to a different solar system. I like that the whole book is basically one long adrenaline rush of …
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Book #115 of 2018: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway On the one hand: it’s oddly refreshing to see characters written in 1926 acting so much like modern-day hipsters, resorting to alcohol, travel, and ironic mockery to hide their anxieties that life is passing them by. On the other hand: the people in this …
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Book #114 of 2018: Renegades by Marissa Meyer (Renegades #1) The beginning of this YA superhero novel creaks under the weight of so much exposition, and when author Marissa Meyer does manage to show and not tell, the results generally feel more like standard comic book cliches than anything particularly original. Remembering how I hadn’t …
Book #113 of 2018: One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps by Andrea Pitzer When we think or talk about concentration camps, we often and understandably limit our focus to the atrocities of Nazi Germany, which cannot be overstated. Yet that program did not arise in a vacuum, and in this book, author …
Movie #11 of 2018: Ocean’s 8 (2018) Overall this is a fun heist movie, although the pacing lags near the end and some plot holes make it harder to enjoy the clever bits. Still, it’s easily on par with Ocean’s Twelve and Thirteen, and the new cast is great. I don’t know that I need …
Book #112 of 2018: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury I like to revisit this 1953 dystopian classic at least once a decade or so, and I inevitably find it richer and deeper whenever I do. Author Ray Bradbury has packed an incredible amount of ideas into such a slim volume, and although the overall thrust …
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Book #111 of 2018: Their Fractured Light by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Starbound #3) I like how every book in this trilogy focuses on a different pair of starcrossed lovers, but I have to admit that I don’t care much for this last couple. They meet when they both happen to break into the …
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Movie #10 of 2018: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) I missed this Marvel movie in theaters, in part because I didn’t see a whole lot of people talking about it. (And, honestly, because my fatigue over Spider-Man reboots had finally reached Batman levels.) As much as I liked Spidey in Captain America: Civil War and as happy …
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