Book #55 of 2017: The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #6) An overall solid Hercule Poirot mystery, although definitely one that leans a bit hard on coincidences and on the detective knowing facts that aren’t made available to the reader. Not Poirot’s best outing, but still a far cry from …
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Book #54 of 2017: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. (St. Leibowitz #1) A slow-paced but intriguing vision of the Catholic church in the centuries after the fall of western civilization and the loss of most earthly knowledge, where monks painstakingly copy manuscripts of electronic blueprints out of faith that one day …
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Book #53 of 2017: Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia A rare fresh take on vampires, as original as Octavia Butler’s Fledgling but without that novel’s uncomfortable issues of age and consent. I loved this novel’s characters and its Mexico City setting almost as much as I loved that its vampires were clearly drawn from …
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TV season #9 of 2017: House of Cards, season 4 Well, the Underwoods’ continual victories get harder to believe with every passing season, and I’m getting mighty tired of this revolving door of characters opposing them. (Opposition and setbacks are great, but it’s always somebody new picking up the mantle, because the writers don’t know …
Book #52 of 2017: The Dark Talent by Brandon Sanderson (Alcatraz #5) This whimsical series for young readers has been getting steadily darker, but the ending of this “final” book still feels jarringly out of place in its levels of death and suffering. It’s also deeply unsatisfying as a conclusion, so the revelation that one …
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TV #8 of 2017: Black Mirror, season 3 It’s now a Netflix original production, but Black Mirror is still every bit as great as its previous seasons, with the same focus on exploring the often-ghoulish potential ramifications of emerging technologies. As an anthology show there are obviously some episodes that are better than others, but …
Book #51 of 2017: Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman A neat retelling of old myths about Odin, Thor, and the other Norse gods, synthesized by Neil Gaiman from a variety of original sources. It doesn’t read like a novel (because it isn’t one), nor does it bear much resemblance to Gaiman’s other work. But it’s …
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Book #50 of 2017: The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events #12) Probably the best book of the series so far, with plenty of characters from earlier novels making surprise returns and the lines between good and evil continuing to blur. The Baudelaires and Count Olaf are all shaded into more …
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Book #49 of 2017: Swing Time by Zadie Smith Very reminiscent of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, in part because the narrator isn’t really at the center of her own story. Here, our unnamed protagonist alternates between childhood memories and more recent life history, each of which sees her drastically eclipsed by another figure: first …
Book #48 of 2017: Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce (The Immortals #1) More confident and less problematic than author Tamora Pierce’s earlier work Song of the Lioness, but with its same fun sense of magic and adventure. The Lioness Alanna and her friends return as supporting characters this time, with the main focus given over …
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