Book 161 of 2018: My Father, the Pornographer by Chris Offutt Probably the worst thing about this memoir of a Baby Boomer childhood in rural Kentucky is its sensationalized title. Andrew J. Offutt didn’t work in the porn industry; he was a prolific author who happened to write erotic fiction (among many other genres). His …
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Book 160 of 2018: The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle #2) This Hugo-winning novella may feel somewhat familiar by today’s standards, but that’s simply because so many later works have copied from its playbook. From Avatar‘s plot of industrialist humans seeking to bulldoze an extraterrestrial forest, to the …
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Book #159 of 2018: The Black Stars by Dan Krokos (The Planet Thieves #2) This is kind of an odd sequel. In place of the action-packed military sci-fi of the first book, the child cadets are now back at their academy, resulting in more of a classic boarding school adventure (with an eventual return to …
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Book #158 of 2018: Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor (Binti #3) I’ve enjoyed the characters and Afrofuturism concepts of the Binti novellas, but this last book in Nnedi Okorafor’s sci-fi trilogy is the only one that’s really soared for me. Although just as short as the previous volumes, it lacks their abruptness, and …
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Movie #17 of 2018: Young Frankenstein (1974) This movie holds up pretty well, but it’s not quite as funny as I remember it being (and there are two scenes that skirt way closer to dubious sexual consent than I would like in my fiction, especially when played for a laugh). It’s also clearer on an …
Book #157 of 2018: The Dark Tower by Stephen King (The Dark Tower #7) In 1999, Stephen King was struck by a van and nearly killed, directly inspiring the author to resume and finish the Dark Tower series he had been working on intermittently since 1970. King would ultimately write these last three novels in …
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TV #37 of 2018: Lost in Space, season 1 This reboot grew on me as it went along, but it’s still not exactly great television. I think the problem for me as a viewer is that the show mirrors the look and feel of a serious, grounded sci-fi story, but the plot mechanics and character …
Book #156 of 2018: The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish This richly-detailed historical fiction novel about the Jewish population of 17th-century London brings to mind Geraldine Brooks’s People of the Book, but in my opinion author Rachel Kadish does a much better job of making the lives of researchers in the modern age as …
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Book #155 of 2018: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell This YA love story is a sweet high school romance with realistic, well-drawn characters. I especially like that the two protagonists are not more of the rail-thin, white, conventionally attractive figures that often dominate our media landscape, and that each one has friends and a …
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Book #154 of 2018: The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan Saga #4) The Vorkosigan series is fun enough that I keep coming back to it, but I’ve yet to be really blown away by any single title. This one is yet another solid space opera romp, with our returning hero Miles Vorkosigan wildly …
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