Book #33 of 2026: Behooved by M. Stevenson The punny premise that lends this romantasy novel its title doesn’t technically spring until almost a quarter of the way through the text, which is late enough that I normally wouldn’t mention it in a review. But since the publisher’s description gives it away anyway, and it …
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Book Review: Berserker Base edited by Fred Saberhagen
Book #32 of 2026: Berserker Base edited by Fred Saberhagen (Berserker #7) I’ve never read anything else in Fred Saberhagen’s classic Berserker series (1963-2005), but I know that its core idea of killer self-replicating spaceships programmed by a long-dead race to destroy all life in the universe has been fairly influential in the science-fiction genre. …
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Book Review: The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science by Kate McKinnon
Book #31 of 2026: The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science by Kate McKinnon (The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science #1) This 2024 title unfortunately hasn’t hit the mark for me, much as I love author Kate McKinnon’s work on Saturday Night Live. The …
TV Review: The Lincoln Lawyer, season 4
TV #8 of 2026: The Lincoln Lawyer, season 4 I feel like this show is perpetually on the bubble between three and four stars for me, in that it’s a generally enjoyable legal thriller that isn’t doing anything remotely revolutionary in terms of its cinematography, plot, or so on (beyond I guess staging each season …
Movie Review: Rocky IV (1985)
Movie #8 of 2026: Rocky IV (1985) There’s the seed of a good idea in this movie when Apollo Creed, by now close friends with his former rival Rocky, is killed in the ring while boxing against their latest opponent. (It is, notably, the thread that filmmaker Ryan Coogler would later pick up for his …
Book Review: The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine
Book #30 of 2026: The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine An entertaining blend of Taylor Jenkins Reid with Ruth Ware, in which a down-on-her-luck publishing editor, expecting to soon be fired, is instead tasked with handling the upcoming tell-all memoir from a beloved but secretive celebrity chef. In this novel Maria Capello is a …
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Book Review: Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik
Book #29 of 2026: Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik A solid mix of 3s and 4s, collecting eleven pieces of short fiction by fantasy author Naomi Novik previously published elsewhere between 2008 and 2019. The remaining two entries that are new to this volume (“After Hours,” which follows her Scholomance trilogy, and …
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Book Review: Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout
Book #28 of 2026: Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe #1) This 1934 novel introduces the character of Nero Wolfe, as well as his assistant Archie Goodwin and a few other members of their inner circle. The former is a genius consulting detective in the style of Hercule Poirot (who had debuted in 1920) or …
Book Review: Empire Builders by Ben Bova
Book #27 of 2026: Empire Builders by Ben Bova I don’t know if this third Grand Tour installment (in chronological order) is objectively any weaker than the stories before, but at a minimum I’m growing pretty tired of our recurring hero Dan Randolph, dashing genius billionaire tech CEO and inveterate womanizer. A decade has passed …
TV Review: The Sopranos, season 6
TV #7 of 2026: The Sopranos, season 6 As with its contemporary crime drama The Shield, the infamous ending to The Sopranos was one of the few concrete spoilers I knew about the show going into it, which admittedly shaped my expectations along the way. (To quickly weigh in on the controversy: I don’t think …
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