Book #181 of 2022: Doctor Who: Origin Stories by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, Sophie Aldred, Jasbinder Bilan, Nikita Gill, Mark Griffiths, Katy Manning, Emma Norry, Temi Oh, and Dave Rudden A mixed bag, as such collections often are. The premise of this Doctor Who title is that its entries are prequels exploring various incidents from before the …
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Movie Review: The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022)
Movie #19 of 2022: The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022) At 42 minutes from start to post-credits scene, this second Marvel Studios Special Presentation is…. fine. It’s fine. It’s in no way essential to any ongoing series plot, but it’s a decent check-in on the various Guardians of the Galaxy characters, I guess. …
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TV Review: Andor, season 1
TV #57 of 2022: Andor, season 1 On paper, this prequel to a prequel might have sounded like a wholly unnecessary franchise extension, but in practice, Star Wars has literally never been better. Ostensibly a show about Cassian Andor five years before the movie Rogue One takes place, it has turned out to be more …
Book Review: Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction by Grady Hendrix
Book #180 of 2022: Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction by Grady Hendrix A whirlwind tour of decades of English-language horror publishing, spanning from Rosemary’s Baby in 1967 through the middle-grade era of R. L. Stine and Christopher Pike in the mid-90s, and quite a lot in between. While …
TV Review: Star Trek: Enterprise, season 1
TV #56 of 2022: Star Trek: Enterprise, season 1 In my ongoing aim to watch through the entirety of the franchise, I have now seen 27 whole seasons of Star Trek. That’s all of The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine, in addition to most of Voyager, and this, …
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Book Review: Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo
Book #179 of 2022: Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #3) This is the first volume of the Singing Hills Cycle that hasn’t quite worked for me. We’re still following nonbinary Cleric Chih as they wander around this East Asian fantasy world recording people’s stories, learning the truth behind the lore, …
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Book Review: The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin
Book #178 of 2022: The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea #2) Earthsea is a very loose children’s fantasy series, somewhat akin to The Chronicles of Narnia: although certain characters recur across volumes, each book has a fairly distinct structure and tone, and there isn’t much of an overarching plot. This second …
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Book Review: Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie
Book #177 of 2022: Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie This standalone spy thriller, also published under the name So Many Steps to Death, is not necessarily playing to author Agatha Christie’s strengths, and there’s a definite vein of anti-Asian and anti-Black racism (including an instance of blackface) running through the affair. It nevertheless carries a …
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Book Review: The Boy in the Red Dress by Kristin Lambert
Book #176 of 2022: The Boy in the Red Dress by Kristin Lambert I appreciate the representation in this title — bisexual heroine, trying to clear the name of her gay runaway best friend who performs in drag at the speakeasy run by her lesbian aunt and has now been accused of killing someone from …
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Book Review: A Restless Truth by Freya Marske
Book #175 of 2022: A Restless Truth by Freya Marske (The Last Binding #2) 3.5 stars, rounded up. I don’t like this queer adult fantasy sequel nearly as much as its predecessor, but it’s an engaging story that mostly earns the reader’s forbearance over the switch in protagonists. Whereas the first volume in this series …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 