Book #202 of 2017: The Odyssey by Homer I liked this story a lot better than The Iliad, in part because it maintained a tight focus on a small number of characters rather than bouncing around among a sprawling Greek host. I also preferred the larger-than-life nature of Odysseus’s adventures to the endless battle scenes …
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TV Review: Game of Thrones, season 4
TV #42 of 2017: Game of Thrones, season 4 I try to keep these reviews fairly spoiler-free, even this long after the fact, so let me just say vaguely that after three years of Game of Thrones airing shocking plot twists at the end of each season, it’s nice to have the major moment in …
Book Review: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Book #201 of 2017: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson This is a creepy atmospheric story of people staying in a haunted house, although it’s never completely clear whether we’re witnessing actual spirits or just troubled human minds. It’s a solid story and probably the definitive take on this sort of plot, and …
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Book Review: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin
Book #200 of 2017: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin (The Tales of Dunk and Egg #1-3) This book is a collection of three novellas from George R.R. Martin, set in the century before his major series A Song of Ice and Fire. Presenting these stories in a single volume is …
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Book Review: Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell
Book #199 of 2017: Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell This is such a warm, cozy story of a baby found floating in a cello case after a shipwreck and the absentminded scholar who adopts her. Other characters may not understand Charles and Sophie’s unique little family, but they’re happy with one another and I just wanted …
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TV Review: Party Down, season 2
TV #41 of 2017: Party Down, season 2 One of the things I love about Party Down – and there’s a lot! – is just how committed it is to its structure. This is the only workplace comedy I can think of where practically every single moment takes place entirely within the workplace. These people …
Book Review: The Scourge by Jennifer A. Nielsen
Book #198 of 2017: The Scourge by Jennifer A. Nielsen I like that the main characters in this novel are from an oppressed underclass in their society, because it teaches an important lesson about tolerance to any young readers clever enough to spot the parallels to people’s treatment in our own world. Unfortunately the book …
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Book Review: Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray
Book #197 of 2017: Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray (Firebird #2) This middle book in Claudia Gray’s Firebird trilogy suffers from the same problem as a lot of sequels: a somewhat clunky effort to kickstart the plot and present new stakes now that the main conflict from the previous story has been …
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TV Review: The Mindy Project, season 2
TV #40 of 2017: The Mindy Project, season 2 Honestly I don’t think this show knows what it wants to be. Even ignoring all the cast changes, the writing too feels like it careens wildly from one sort of story to the next without always bringing in solid character logic to back those plays. On …
Book Review: The Iliad by Homer
Book #196 of 2017: The Iliad by Homer I had only ever read isolated portions of Homer before, so this was my first time through the Iliad as a whole. This epic poem is a bit odd to modern ears, more a series of brief vignettes than a single cohesive narrative (which is why reading …
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