Book #37 of 2017: The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (The Masquerade #1) A fascinating character and culture study, most reminiscent of Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch books. Baru Cormorant is a young woman whose homeland gets annexed by an expanding empire, after which she privately vows to rise through her conquerors’ ranks to take …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson”
Book #30 of 2017: Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection by Brandon Sanderson A great collection of short stories and novellas in the cosmere, the larger setting that links many of Brandon Sanderson’s individual book series like Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive. Sanderson plans for these series to eventually intersect directly, and there have been growing …
Continue reading “Book Review: Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection by Brandon Sanderson”
Book #29 of 2017: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey This self-help book is a tad jargon-heavy, and there are a lot of parts that should be taken with a grain of salt (if not discounted entirely). But overall it was a good read for …
Book #28 of 2017: The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events #11) I’m glad this series is now mostly done playing coy over VFD, which by this point has been firmly established as a secretive group the Baudelaire parents used to belong to. They use a lot of codes, they come …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket”
Book #27 of 2017: How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain by Gregory Berns The science is interesting, but the writing is stilted and the author frequently comes off as arrogant. Plus, as he admits, the fMRI research on dogs really just confirms what pet-owners have known about …
Book #26 of 2017: Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In by Bernie Sanders The first third of this book is essentially a play-by-play of Bernie’s recent presidential campaign, which is less interesting for someone who followed it closely to begin with, but effectively establishes the popular support behind the senator’s ideas. The remainder of …
Continue reading “Book Review: Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In by Bernie Sanders”
Book #25 of 2017: The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman (The Magicians #3) An improvement over the first two novels, and a satisfying end to this loose adult fantasy trilogy. Both protagonist Quentin Coldwater and writer Lev Grossman feel like they’ve grown up a lot for this novel, and both approach their tasks here as …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman”
Movie #2 of 2017: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) I saw this movie for the first time in ages, and it was better than I had remembered. The digital aging / de-aging effects are neat, and the script taps into some grand poetic longing of the Anne Rice variety. It’s still way too …
Continue reading “Movie Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)”
TV #7 of 2017: Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, season 1 A very smart, very funny adaptation of the beginning of this book series. (This first season covers the first four novels, out of a total of 13. The movie adaptation only spanned the first three.) Neil Patrick Harris and Patrick Warburton are …
Continue reading “TV Review: Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, season 1”
Book #24 of 2017: 1984 by George Orwell 1984’s vision of a dystopian future has only grown more eerily prescient since I first read it back in high school, foretelling a rise in the surveillance state and government efforts to repress reality through propaganda. The storyline and the characters are honestly not so great, but …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more