Book #68 of 2026: Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins (The Underland Chronicles #2) Overall a decent middle-grade adventure sequel, although not really as entertaining or imaginative as its predecessor. The first volume established the existence of the ‘Underland’ beneath New York City, and ended with the revelation of a further prophecy …
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TV #21 of 2026: Daredevil: Born Again, season 2 The first season of this MCU revival series was a notoriously Frankensteined affair, with its writing staff fired and replaced midway through production but all the footage filmed up until that point incorporated into the next version, which leaned more into the darker tone of the …
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TV #20 of 2026: Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord, season 1 On balance I think I’ll give this latest animated Star Wars series three-out-of-five stars, with the acknowledgment that it gets substantially better over the course of its ten-episode run. The problem is that early on, the program doesn’t really have a clear premise …
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Book #67 of 2026: The Elsewhere Express by Samantha Sotto Yambao In the abstract, this magical realist novel seems like it should have been right up my alley. Its premise of a wondrous train built on daydreams that whisks away people feeling hopeless in life isn’t so radically different from stories I’ve enjoyed like The …
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Book #66 of 2026: Nonesuch by Francis Spufford I really like the first half of this historical fantasy novel, in which an enterprising young British woman stumbles into some occult secrets in the early days of World War II. Despite the plot shenanigans, it’s a very character-driven piece, and our heroine is an interesting figure …
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Book #65 of 2026: Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow This 2025 title is an expansion of several essays that activist-journalist Cory Doctorow had previously published on the subject, including the one where he originally coined the word “enshittification.” Although many people have since adopted that …
Movie #20 of 2026: Terminator Genisys (2015) [Note: this is an updated version of my review from 2016.] The fifth Terminator movie is a fun but deeply incoherent action spectacle, enjoyable only to the extent you can turn off the parts of your brain that obsess over plot holes or try to keep track of …
Book #64 of 2026: The Sword of Kaigen by M. L. Wang This fantasy novel starts out strong, gets legitimately great around midway through, but then unfortunately peters out in the end, without really resolving some of the larger plot threads that it introduces (which might be excusable for the launch of a series, but …
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Book #63 of 2026: In Lonely Lands by Victoria Goddard This is the sort of title that I almost hate to see released as a standalone item, because it’s too insubstantial to bear much scrutiny but could be perfectly situated as a part of a larger story collection. In this case, it’s a ‘tale of …
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Book #62 of 2026: 84K by Claire North This novel has an interesting dystopian setting, which reads sort of like Gattaca meets V for Vendetta meets some of the depressing ultra-capitalist futures from Black Mirror. The justice system has shifted all crimes to be punished with indemnity charges rather than jail time, meaning that even …
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