TV #31 of 2024: Seinfeld, season 7 We have an ongoing plot again! Sort of. This one doesn’t really develop and shift as the year goes on, but it does bookend and provide a distinctive atmosphere to that run. In the first episode, George suddenly decides that it’s time for him to settle down, leading …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Book Review: The Will of the Many by James Islington
Book #95 of 2024: The Will of the Many by James Islington (The Hierarchy #1) This fantasy novel starts off strong and gets even better from there, spinning a tale that’s rather reminiscent of Red Rising in both its Roman-inflected worldbuilding and its rage-filled protagonist infiltrating the high society of his enemies (and subsequently feeling …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Will of the Many by James Islington”
Book Review: The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
Book #94 of 2024: The Husbands by Holly Gramazio I was initially charmed but ultimately dissatisfied with this paths-not-taken novel, in which an unmarried London woman suddenly finds a husband of several years sharing her flat. No sooner has he arrived than he’s gone again, replaced by yet another stranger — for it turns out …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Husbands by Holly Gramazio”
Movie Review: Enchanted (2007)
Movie #16 of 2024: Enchanted (2007) Basically as delightful as I had remembered, and my 3y/o and 5y/o seemed to like it too, despite not being very into live-action stuff yet as a rule. This movie is so fascinating to me, because it rides a really fine line between lovingly mocking various Disney Princess tropes …
TV Review: American Gods, season 3
TV #30 of 2024: American Gods, season 3 Better than season 2, but ultimately unable to cross that elusive threshold from good to great, especially in comparison to the masterful first year of this loose Neil Gaiman adaptation. The perpetually troubled production swapped showrunners yet again for this final run, which really doesn’t feel like …
Book Review: Yendi by Steven Brust
Book #93 of 2024: Yendi by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #2) Published in 1984, this second Vlad Taltos novel is a prequel that’s lighter on the worldbuilding lore, taking us back to earlier in that assassin / crime boss’s career when the antihero was running a smaller territory and hadn’t yet married. In fact, he …
Book Review: While Idaho Slept: The Hunt for Answers in the Murders of Four College Students by J. Reuben Appelman
Book #92 of 2024: While Idaho Slept: The Hunt for Answers in the Murders of Four College Students by J. Reuben Appelman This true-crime title is pretty slim, despite how much time author J. Reuben Appelman spends on describing the victims’ backstories. He painstakingly walks through the police bodycam footage from when officers were called …
Book Review: A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland
Book #91 of 2024: A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland I’m so torn in my reaction to this fantasy novel, which is very well-written but absolutely not my thing in a rather unavoidably central way. I love all the worldbuilding details, the queer representation including a trinary-split gender system, the political intrigue, …
Continue reading “Book Review: A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland”
Movie Review: Babylon 5: The Gathering (1993)
Movie #15 of 2024: Babylon 5: The Gathering (1993) Okay, I like this. I don’t love Babylon 5 as a franchise quite yet, but this TV pilot movie is a solid setup for the sci-fi framework to follow. If I were a Warner Brothers executive in the 90s, I likely would have ordered a full …
Continue reading “Movie Review: Babylon 5: The Gathering (1993)”
Star Trek: Done!
Stop the clock! Eight years after I decided on a whim to start watching the Star Trek franchise from the very beginning, I’ve finally done it. I’ve seen all of Star Trek now. And because this is how my brain works, I’ll give you my subjective ranking of the various shows, by tier. TIER 1: …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 