Book #23 of 2016: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins The Girl on the Train has been described by many reviewers as “the next Gone Girl,” and it honestly struggles to escape that novel’s shadow. In fact, without getting too spoilery for either, I would say that this book doesn’t truly get good until …
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Book #22 of 2016: Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore (Graceling Realm #3) Kristin Cashore has improved a lot as both a writer and a worldbuilder over the course of this series, and Bitterblue is easily her best novel yet. This is a work of fantasy from a strong feminist perspective, as a queen and her people …
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TV #13 of 2016: Deadwood, season 1 I’m not sure what to make of this series so far. The production values are great, as is the cast and the acting, but I still feel like most of my enjoyment is coming from spotting all those familiar faces in Wild West getup. The characters themselves are …
Book #21 of 2016: Rogues edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois Rogues took me forever to read, partly because it’s a really long book and partly because I had to share custody of the library copy with two or three other people, so there were weeks at a time when I couldn’t …
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Book #20 of 2016: Made to Kill by Adam Christopher (Ray Electromatic Mysteries #1) Made to Kill stars a robot private eye, but it’s nowhere near as good an execution as A. Lee Martinez’s novel The Automatic Detective, my first exposure to that concept. This book never clearly establishes the rules of its world, which …
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Book #19 of 2016: Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman This Neil Gaiman short story collection is about what you would expect if you’ve read a Neil Gaiman short story collection before. I really liked the Sherlock Holmes story The Case of Death and Honey, and of course it’s always fun to …
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Book #18 of 2016: Another Day by David Levithan (Every Day #2) Another Day is a “companion novel” to Levithan’s earlier book Every Day – it covers the exact same span of time and tell the exact same story, but from a different character’s point of view. I know some people don’t like that sort …
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TV #12 of 2016: Star Trek, season 1 How do you even begin to describe something like Star Trek? I’m now watching it through from the beginning, and I’m coming into it fairly fresh – or at least, as fresh as one can be in this culture. I’ve seen the two J. J. Abrams films …
TV #11 of 2016: The Shannara Chronicles, season 1 The Elfstones of Shannara is a thoroughly mediocre novel, the kind of thing that you devour in middle school but in no way holds up to a reread later in life. (I did reread it in anticipation of this MTV adaptation, and it’s fairly unremarkable. Like …
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TV #10 of 2016: Marvel’s Agent Carter, season 2 A solid follow-up, but a definite step down from this show’s first season. Way too much focus on the hetero romance stuff, too. (And a terrible ending, on that front.) Still, I really love how this show helps build out the world of the Marvel Cinematic …
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