Book #34 of 2016: Golden Son by Pierce Brown (Red Rising #2) Given their common themes of dystopian wargames and rebellion against a corrupt government, The Hunger Games remains the go-to comparison for the Red Rising series of books. But this second novel of the series deepens the plot outside of the arena far more …
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TV Review: iZombie, season 2
TV #20 of 2016: iZombie, season 2 iZombie may well be the best show airing on TV right now. I know the basic premise sounds gimmicky as hell, but it reliably delivers a solid character-driven drama and ever-ratcheting plot week after week. The last few episodes of this season also suggest that the fake-psychic-solving-crimes gimmick …
Book Review: Imago by Octavia E. Butler
Book #33 of 2016: Imago by Octavia E. Butler (Xenogenesis #3) This is the final book in Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy (also called Lilith’s Brood, which is such a worse and more misleading title). Then again, calling these books a trilogy is misleading in its own way: they do build on one another as the …
Movie Review: Election (1999)
Movie #8 of 2016: Election (1999) Meh. This film kept popping up on those lists of “great stuff leaving Netflix this month” or whatever, so I finally got around to watching it… and did not care for it at all. Matthew Broderick’s character is a jerk and a creep, and the narrative only seems to …
Book Review: Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Book #32 of 2016: Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising #1) Red Rising at its heart is telling a story like The Count of Monte Cristo or Gattaca, where someone from a lower class has to infiltrate the upper class in order to take them down from within. Except in this case, doing so …
TV Review: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, season 3
TV #19 of 2016: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, season 3 One of the reasons I like to both consume and review TV shows in season-length portions is that that’s by and large how they are planned out, with the whole year’s character and plot arcs determined by the writers over the break. That’s not always so important …
Book Review: The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub
Book #31 of 2016: The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub (The Talisman #1) I’m normally a sucker for stories about parallel universes, but the mechanics of the magic (particularly the world-hopping) in this one were so unclear that it was a pretty frustrating reading experience. I do like that there was plenty of …
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TV Review: Better Call Saul, season 2
TV #18 of 2016: Better Call Saul, season 2 The unexpected Breaking Bad spinoff continues to be a fascinating character study, and this season really embraces the aspect of a Shakespearean tragedy that comes from its audience knowing, at least in broad strokes, how the story ends. I’m not sure why so few prequels manage …
TV Review: Supergirl, season 1
TV #17 of 2016: Supergirl, season 1 Supergirl had a very uneven first season, and I can’t shake the suspicion that I am nowhere near young enough to be the intended audience for this show – but Melissa Benoist is just so great in the lead role that I’m willing to overlook a lot of …
Book Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Book #30 of 2016: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch #1) I thought this book was incredibly slow at the beginning, to the point where I almost put it down several times. I’m very glad I didn’t, however, as the story gets great about a third of the way through, and from then on …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 