TV #44 of 2022: Happy Endings, season 1 This sitcom launch from 2011 is fine, but somewhat unremarkable. Although it improves over the course of these first 13 episodes — not that original audiences would’ve fully realized, with the season airing all out of its intended production order — I still feel as though I …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Book Review: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers
Book #144 of 2022: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers (Monk and Robot #2) This Monk and Robot sequel retains much of what I enjoyed about the setting in the original novella: its “warm hug of hopepunk goodness… rooted in empathetic respect and curiosity toward different cultures,” to quote from my review last …
Continue reading “Book Review: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers”
Book Review: A Daughter’s a Daughter by Mary Westmacott
Book #143 of 2022: A Daughter’s a Daughter by Mary Westmacott This 1952 title is a decent character study, but a thoroughly unpleasant and exasperating read about a toxically codependent parental relationship. The fifth of six novels that author Agatha Christie published under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott — at this point merely an affectation, after …
Continue reading “Book Review: A Daughter’s a Daughter by Mary Westmacott”
Movie Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Movie #15 of 2022: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) When I first saw this picture in theaters six years ago, I raved that it was “My favorite sort of prequel, that slots neatly into the existing continuity without the need for retconning AND enhances the viewer’s appreciation of certain elements in the original …
Continue reading “Movie Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)”
Book Review: The Answer by K. A. Applegate
Book #142 of 2022: The Answer by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #53) (A quick note from your reviewer here. If you’ve read my past few Animorphs reviews, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been giving away more and more of the plot each time. These final volumes are just so jam-packed with major developments that it’s …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Answer by K. A. Applegate”
Book Review: Fairy Tale by Stephen King
Book #141 of 2022: Fairy Tale by Stephen King This new portal fantasy from Stephen King is fine, but its tale of an ordinary kid finding his way into a magical world is not exactly breaking fresh ground for the author of such works as The Waste Lands or The Talisman. There’s also an awful …
Book Review: Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty
Book #140 of 2022: Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty I don’t love this book, but it’s significantly better once you realize it’s been falsely marketed as a collection of short stories when it’s actually a disjointed composite novel. Each entry ends somewhat abruptly, but they are not telling unrelated plots with distinct …
Continue reading “Book Review: Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty”
Book Review: What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
Book #139 of 2022: What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher This creepy little novella is a retelling of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher by way of Mexican Gothic or The Girl with All the Gifts — which is to say, it posits that a rare breed of mushroom colony at the …
Continue reading “Book Review: What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher”
Book Review: Star Wars: The Princess and the Scoundrel by Beth Revis
Book #138 of 2022: Star Wars: The Princess and the Scoundrel by Beth Revis This Star Wars novel — not to be confused with Alexandra Bracken’s 2015 junior novelization of A New Hope, entitled The Princess, The Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy — is slow on plot but rich in characterization, and covering a period …
Continue reading “Book Review: Star Wars: The Princess and the Scoundrel by Beth Revis”
Book Review: Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly
Book #137 of 2022: Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly (Ballard and Bosch #1) Detective Renée Ballard has only appeared in one Michael Connelly book before this, but there’s still a frisson of crossover thrill when she encounters the author’s more established hero Harry Bosch early in this volume. After cautiously feeling one another out …
Continue reading “Book Review: Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 