TV #28 of 2024: Doctor Who, season 1 We have, for some reason, started over again with our numbering for this long-running science-fiction franchise, so that there now exists Doctor Who season 1 – 26 (1963 – 1989), Doctor Who season 1 – 13 (2005 – 2021), and a new Doctor Who season 1 – …
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Book Review: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm by Greg Keyes
Book #90 of 2024: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm by Greg Keyes A surprisingly strong media tie-in novel, especially compared to the same author’s more aimless later work, War for the Planet of the Apes: Revelations. Like that volume, this one is aimed at bridging the gap between the events of two …
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Book Review: The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown
Book #89 of 2024: The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown I love the initial premise of this novel, and I still feel like many of its subsequent elements have some potential charm to them. But the execution is beyond abysmal, beginning with the heroine with a severe case of written-by-a-man-itis: “She caught her reflection …
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TV Review: Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 4
TV #27 of 2024: Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 4 Still a loving and satisfyingly funny low-stakes riff on the Star Trek franchise, but not quite as tight a production as the last couple seasons (especially following the phenomenal crossover “Those Old Scientists” on Strange New Worlds). There’s an overarching storyline involving ships of various …
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Book Review: The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
Book #88 of 2024: The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo I know from her publicity materials for this standalone adult fantasy novel that it’s a very personal project for author Leigh Bardugo, drawing on her own family history for its tale of a sixteenth-century converso (a member of Spain’s Jewish population or their descendants, whose ethnoreligious …
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Book Review: Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Book #87 of 2024: Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki This story seems like it fundamentally shouldn’t work, and yet it pretty much does, and rather gloriously throughout. One heroine is a trans teen runaway, fleeing her parents’ domestic abuse and refusal to accept her identity. Another is the elderly mentor she finds for …
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TV Review: Classic Doctor Who, season 12
TV #26 of 2024: Classic Doctor Who, season 12 A bright new era for the show, with incoming Fourth Doctor Tom Baker — still many viewers’ platonic ideal of the gallivanting Time Lord hero, who would go on for a record seven seasons in the role — making an immediate impression. This initial material doesn’t …
Book Review: Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case by Agatha Christie
Book #86 of 2024: Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #44) This final Hercule Poirot novel is not one of the better mysteries in its series, relying as it does on an implausible understanding of psychology for a serial killer’s eventually revealed motivation and means. It can also be frustrating to read, …
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Book Review: A Door in the Dark by Scott Reintgen
Book #85 of 2024: A Door in the Dark by Scott Reintgen (Waxways #1) This YA fantasy novel grows on me as it goes along, but the first quarter or so of the text could really have been tightened up. That’s how long it takes for the story to spring its basic premise, introduced in …
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Book Review: Happy Place by Emily Henry
Book #84 of 2024: Happy Place by Emily Henry I don’t read a ton of romance novels, but author Emily Henry’s Book Lovers was such a pleasant surprise for me that I decided to check out this next title of hers as well. Unfortunately, I haven’t liked it nearly as much in either its premise …
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