TV #9 of 2018: Game of Thrones, season 6 Thrones is well past its prime at this point, but it’s still a powerhouse, and there are moments this season (especially that elegiac finale) that are absolutely breathtaking. Unfortunately, the narrative shortcuts are getting more obvious, and although we can partly blame the source material for …
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TV Review: The Good Place, season 2
TV #8 of 2018: The Good Place, season 2 I love this show, but it’s so hard to talk about without dropping spoilers! Suffice to say that it’s a sitcom about the afterlife, and that it’s probably the most serialized half-hour comedy you’ve ever seen. So much changes so fast that there’s no real status …
Book Review: Lola by Melissa Scrivner Love
Book #24 of 2018: Lola by Melissa Scrivner Love I want to like this novel a lot more than I do. The premise of a Mexican-American woman leading an L.A. street gang is strong, and it’s great when Lola confronts the limitations that society puts on her gender and class. I also really like the …
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Book Review: The Little Sisters of Eluria by Stephen King
Book #23 of 2018: The Little Sisters of Eluria by Stephen King I like this Dark Tower prequel novella, but it’s admittedly pretty extraneous to the regular series. The Mid-World setting makes it seem more primary, but it’s really closer in nature to a tangential Stephen King book like Black House than anything particularly essential …
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Book Review: Sir Thursday by Garth Nix
Book #22 of 2018: Sir Thursday by Garth Nix (The Keys to the Kingdom #4) I flat-out love most of the other Garth Nix books that I’ve read, but for some reason this particular series has never clicked for me. The plots are a bit too formulaic, the setting a bit too generic, and the …
Book Review: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King
Book #21 of 2018: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King (The Dark Tower #4) This was always my favorite novel in Stephen King’s epic sprawling Dark Tower series, and although I’m a bit longer in the tooth now than when I first read it, I’m excited to see that the story is just as great …
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Book Review: Harpist in the Wind by Patricia A. McKillip
Book #20 of 2018: Harpist in the Wind by Patricia A. McKillip (Riddle-Master #3) The Riddle-Master trilogy has always suffered from author Patricia A. McKillip keeping us at a distance from its world, and this concluding volume finally collapses under that weight. It isn’t a worldbuilding issue per se, since this reality has always felt …
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TV Review: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, season 1
TV #7 of 2018: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, season 1 This story of a 1958 housewife who becomes a stand-up comic after her husband leaves her was absolutely incredible. Hilarious, empowering, and so specific (and accurate!) in its portrayal of American Jewish life in a way I have NEVER before seen on television. I loved …
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TV Review: Marvel’s Luke Cage, season 1
TV #6 of 2018: Marvel’s Luke Cage, season 1 This show starts off so strongly, following in Daredevil’s footsteps of presenting a superhero spin on urban crime dramas like The Wire. But the villain of the back half of the series is never very well established, and the season really suffers for it, especially in …
Book Review: Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
Book #19 of 2018: Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan Saga #2) I still feel like this is a series I could happily walk away from and not miss, but this Hugo-winning second novel — actually the seventh in publication order — is a definite improvement over the first. (I’m also told that the baby …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 