TV #39 of 2022: Better Call Saul, season 6 An utterly masterful end to one of the great modern dramas of our time. This Breaking Bad prequel about Walter White’s shady lawyer has always been stronger than anyone could have predicted, and its final outing is truly one of its best. At long last we …
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Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien
Book #121 of 2022: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien (Rats of NIMH #1) I’m happy to revisit this beloved childhood classic today and discover that yes, it’s still an outstanding (though quick) story. The characters make an indelible impression, and the structure is fun, with a relatively lengthy nested …
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What We Do in the Shadows, season 2
TV #38 of 2022: What We Do in the Shadows, season 2 Another great yet too short season of this hilarious undead mockumentary. (Ten episodes may not be enough space to develop and deliver a truly superb storyline, especially given how meandering this series tends to be. I love the characters and laugh a lot …
Book Review: The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart
Book #120 of 2022: The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart The Paradox is a hotel for the clients of the world’s only time travel agency, which the government runs next door, and January Cole is its head of security — which means that in addition to all the regular service industry headaches, she also has …
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TV Review: The Lincoln Lawyer, season 1
TV #37 of 2022: The Lincoln Lawyer, season 1 Netflix’s adaptation of this twisty legal thriller is a lot of fun, aptly capturing and balancing the protagonist’s brilliance in court and vulnerability outside it. I’m particularly impressed with how the program has turned out, given some of the unusual production constraints placed upon it. This …
Book Review: Mrs McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie
Book #119 of 2022: Mrs McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #32) I generally enjoy a good Agatha Christie mystery, but the eventual solution to the case at the heart of this story from 1952 feels a bit too convoluted and contrived for me. As its alternate title Blood Will Tell might suggest, there’s …
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Movie Review: Live from the Space Stage: A HALYX Story (2020)
Movie #13 of 2022: Live from the Space Stage: A HALYX Story (2020) This feature-length documentary, produced by Kevin Perjurer of Defunctland and available free on that YouTube channel, is a loving deep dive into an incredibly obscure topic: the rock band HALYX, a sci-fi themed act that performed nightly on the stage in front …
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Book Review: The Diversion by K. A. Applegate
Book #118 of 2022: The Diversion by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #49) I’m surprised that series author K. A. Applegate didn’t claim this volume to write herself, and particularly that it was assigned to ghostwriter Lisa Harkrader, who had previously only penned Cassie’s eminently skippable Australian visit in #44 The Unexpected. Here, the plot is …
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Book Review: The Verifiers by Jane Pek
Book #117 of 2022: The Verifiers by Jane Pek A story curiously out of time. There’s a lot of talk in this debut book about online dating, corporate collection/abuse of confidential user data, and artificial intelligence, but it’s all conveyed in a fairly breathless manner to the characters and reader alike when none of the …
TV Review: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 7
TV #36 of 2022: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 7 A curiously bifurcated run. The first half of this last year almost seems to sputter, with some episodes that are absolutely up to the usual high dramatic standards of the series and others that represent some of the laziest, most self-indulgent writing ever. (I’m …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 