Book #16 of 2023: Petty Treasons by Victoria Goddard This novella revisits and expands upon a slice of backstory previously mentioned in author Victoria Goddard’s excellent fantasy doorstopper The Hands of the Emperor, when Cliopher Mdang first began service as His Radiancy’s personal secretary. Except while that book was generally presented from Kip’s third-person limited …
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Book #15 of 2023: Bravely by Maggie Stiefvater This seems like it should have been an easy layup: beloved YA fantasist (and Celticist) Maggie Stiefvater writing an officially licensed sequel to Pixar’s Brave, the one about ancient Scottish magic, the mom who turns into a bear, and the headstrong daughter who breaks the curse by …
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Book #12 of 2023: Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea #5) Although I’ve generally been enjoying the Earthsea setting / franchise, I confess that I expected this 2001 book of short stories to be somewhat extraneous and non-essential. Luckily, however, with the exception of the dry historical account “A Description of Earthsea” …
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Book #7 of 2023: The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle I know this 1968 novel is a beloved fantasy classic for many, but I’ll admit that reading it for the first time today, I’ve struggled to connect with the characters or their story. The imagery is certainly beautiful enough, and the equity in gender …
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Book #5 of 2023: Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn (Legendborn #2) The plot in the middle of this YA fantasy sequel picks up a little, but the beginning spends too long reiterating the overall premise — a Black teenager from North Carolina finds herself the unlikely inheritor of King Arthur’s magical powers, which she must use …
Book #2 of 2023: Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, already one of the more prolific members of his field, realized in the pandemic lockdowns of 2020-2021 that his canceled public appearances and associated travel left him with a lot of …
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Book #1 of 2023: Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea #4) The second book in a row to be marketed as the final volume of Earthsea would ultimately, of course, prove not to be that at all. Author Ursula K. Le Guin just kept discovering new things to say about the fantasy setting and …
Book #199 of 2022: The Night-Bird’s Feather by Jenna Katerin Moran [I read and reviewed this title at a Patreon donor’s request. Want to nominate your own books for me to read and review (or otherwise support my writing)? Sign up for a small monthly donation at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke today!] I don’t love every part of …
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TV #61 of 2022: His Dark Materials, season 3 This adaptation has long struggled to capture and distill the complex themes of Philip Pullman’s classic fantasy trilogy, and this final season faces the additional hurdle of navigating the events of its most complicated volume, The Amber Spyglass. Theoretically, it’s a pretty faithful representation! The series …
Book #198 of 2022: When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb My shorthand pitch for this debut novel would probably be something like “Good Omens meets The Golem and the Jinni“: a tale of the early twentieth century, richly steeped in #ownvoices Jewish elements, in which a friendly angel and demon who …
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