Book #36 of 2023: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi Kaiju are giant monsters like Godzilla, the subject of a thriving genre of fiction in Japan and elsewhere over the latter half of the twentieth century and beyond. The premise of this story posits that such creatures exist in a parallel world, accessible via …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi”
TV #8 of 2023: Classic Doctor Who, season 5 I guess I have to concede, based on the average ratings I give its seven component serials below, that this season of old Doctor Who is still narrowly more good than great overall. But it’s easily my favorite of this rewatch yet, with some fun minor …
Book #35 of 2023: Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I went through a brief Heinlein phase in high school, and I suspect that if I had read this book back then, I probably would have liked it better. (Even today, I’ll note that I prefer it over Slaughterhouse-Five, the only other Vonnegut work that …
Continue reading “Book Review: Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.”
Book #34 of 2023: Sabriel by Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom #1) A thoroughly excellent modern fantasy classic, published in 1995 but just as enjoyable now upon my umpteenth reread. (I can’t remember when I first encountered it, but I do recall thinking in amazement that it was like a written version of the Diablo …
Book #33 of 2023: Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie A rather silly beginning, in which we learn that the stranger who could have corroborated an accused murderer’s alibi was hit by a truck, developed a case of short-term amnesia, and promptly departed for a two-year polar expedition, thus missing the publicity about the trial …
Continue reading “Book Review: Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie”
Book #32 of 2023: Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn A frustratingly three-star read. The premise is fine, but it’s one I’ve seen too many times before: an assassin’s employers for some reason decide they’ve become expendable, try unsuccessfully to kill them off, and then find themselves on the receiving end of the …
Continue reading “Book Review: Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn”
Book #31 of 2023: A Sliver of Darkness by C. J. Tudor This is a pretty consistently solid collection of horror (or horror-adjacent) short stories, many revolving around some type of dystopian apocalypse and its aftermath. Oftentimes I find such ensembles to vary dramatically in quality across their contents, but here I think I’d give …
Continue reading “Book Review: A Sliver of Darkness by C. J. Tudor”
Movie #3 of 2023: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) It looks like I’m out of step with the critical consensus on this one, based on the early reviews, but whatever: I really liked the latest piece in Marvel’s increasingly complex cinematic universe! Maybe I’m just riding the high of being back in a movie …
Continue reading “Movie Review: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)”
Book #30 of 2023: The Afterward by E. K. Johnston I like the idea of following up with a band of adventurers after they’ve completed their quest to save the world, and all the more so that our focus is on a pair of young women who became romantically entwined on that adventure but are …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Afterward by E. K. Johnston”
Book #29 of 2023: Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard (Carter & Lovecraft #1) The vibes of this fantasy noir, in which a private investigator learns that H. P. Lovecraft actually experienced some of the cosmic horrors he wrote about and gets caught up in a plot with the writer’s descendant, are top-notch. As …
Continue reading “Book Review: Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more