TV #40 of 2023: The Lincoln Lawyer, season 2 Overall I enjoy this legal procedural, but this sophomore season hasn’t impressed me quite as much as its first year did. Both runs are built around a single big case (drawn from a single Michael Connelly novel each time), but this one doesn’t kick off until …
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TV Review: Seinfeld, season 3
TV #39 of 2023: Seinfeld, season 3 This 90s sitcom remains just funny enough to keep watching, without really blowing me away. My favorite episodes from this third year are probably The Parking Garage and The Limo (featuring future Six Feet Under star Peter Krause!), with The Stranded (featuring future The Shield star Michael Chiklis!) …
Book Review: Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Book #97 of 2023: Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Three-out-of-five stars, which as usual is the hardest rating for me to articulate / justify in the space of a review. This horror title doesn’t make any major missteps, other than perhaps a bit of a drawn-out beginning. It’s a mid-90s period piece set in Mexico …
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Book Review: Vengeance of Orion by Ben Bova
Book #96 of 2023: Vengeance of Orion by Ben Bova (Orion #2) This first Orion sequel is interesting in its own right, but not nearly as good as its predecessor. That previous novel introduced humanity’s demigod champion by hurtling him progressively backwards in time, having to stop an adversary in each era determined to throw …
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Movie Review: Barbie (2023)
Movie #5 of 2023: Barbie (2023) Heartfelt, hilarious, and swathed in a vivid color palette — this movie about the titular doll isn’t really meant for the kids young enough to play with her, but it is very much a feel-good female empowerment hit for the rest of us. In this story all the Barbies …
Book Review: The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman
Book #95 of 2023: The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman (Blacktongue #1) This 2021 fantasy debut has all the gore of the grimdark subgenre, but it skillfully avoids the cynical nihilism that I’d consider typical of such properties. Instead, the tone here is more akin to The Lies of Locke Lamora — archly comic and …
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TV Review: Secret Invasion, season 1
TV #38 of 2023: Secret Invasion, season 1 This latest Marvel series, set in the modern-day but picking up plot threads from the 90s-set Captain Marvel movie, is a tediously dramatic and joyless affair (with Olivia Coleman’s cheerfully ruthless British intelligence commander providing the rare bright spot). It starts with a bold premise: the shapeshifting …
TV Review: Star Trek: Discovery, season 1
TV #37 of 2023: Star Trek: Discovery, season 1 This 2017 launch is the first of the ‘new Trek’ shows, bringing the sci-fi franchise back to the small screen for the first time in more than a decade since Enterprise ended. It’s a somewhat mixed result, but largely a rollicking experience, with a very propulsive …
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Book Review: Flux by Jinwoo Chong
Book #94 of 2023: Flux by Jinwoo Chong This sci-fi novel gets stronger as it goes along, yet it’s still weirder and more confusing than it needs to be. The full premise isn’t nailed down until fairly late in the text, but generally speaking, it’s the story of a queer Asian American whose amoral employers …
Book Review: The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
Book #93 of 2023: The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher I only learned after finishing this 2019 horror novel that it’s a loose sequel to Arthur Machen’s 1904 story “The White People,” and I wonder if some of my frustrations might have been mitigated by that additional context. As is, this later work has a …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 