Book #50 of 2016: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline An exciting blockbuster of a novel that absolutely deserves the Steven Spielberg adaptation it’s now getting, Ready Player One tells the story of a group of video game nerds going up against an evil corporation to follow a series of obscure clues left in the …
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Book #49 of 2016: Yes Please by Amy Poehler Amy Poehler’s first book is 50% hilarious memoir, 50% gentle self-help book, and 100% unabashed feminist tome. The only problem is that Poehler’s feminism is not very intersectional, and there were a few parts that really rubbed me the wrong way. On two separate occasions in …
Book #48 of 2016: The Arrivals by Melissa Marr People from throughout earth’s history find themselves mysteriously transplanted to another world, where they awaken in bodies that do not age and can come back to life when killed. If that sounds interesting… then I strongly recommend To Your Scattered Bodies Go and its sequels in …
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TV #34 of 2016: Game of Thrones, season 6 This series has definitely entered its endgame, and it is an absolute thrill to watch all these far-flung characters and plots finally converge, even if the story logic isn’t always as sound as it appeared before. I think the writers have also been somewhat receptive to …
Book #47 of 2016: The Rook by Daniel O’Malley (The Checquy Files #1) The Rook begins like a Jason Bourne story, with its main character surrounded by assailants she has apparently killed but with no memory of anything before that moment. In execution, it’s more like Octavia Butler’s excellent vampire novel Fledgling, since our amnesiac …
Book #46 of 2016: Needful Things by Stephen King Needful Things is better than The Tommyknockers, but not as good as ‘Salem’s Lot – two other Stephen King novels that share its same basic story structure of a supernatural presence slowly corrupting and effectively destroying a small town. The fact that Needful Things is set …
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Movie #12 of 2016: The Martian (2015) This was my second time watching this movie, but my first time since reading the book it was based on. (I normally like to read a book before I see its movie adaptation, but the waiting list at my library for this one was super-long, and I really …
Book #45 of 2016: The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi (Jean le Flambeur #1) I sympathize with speculative fiction writers who don’t want to explain things about their universe that would be obvious to its characters, but there still need to be some clues for readers to pick up on. The Quantum Thief throws you …
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Book #44 of 2016: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke This is at least the third time that I’ve read this book, but the last time was more than five years ago (which is why I wanted to do another reread before I watched the recent BBC miniseries adaptation). It remains an astonishing …
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Book #43 of 2016: Calamity by Brandon Sanderson (The Reckoners #3) This conclusion to Brandon Sanderson’s trilogy about post-apocalyptic superpowers doesn’t quite stick the landing. For one thing, the villain set up at the end of book 2 turns out to be far less formidable than the foes David and the other Reckoners have faced …
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