Book #5 of 2026: Powersat by Ben Bova From 1985 through his death in 2020, author Ben Bova wrote around 30 interconnected novels in a loose sci-fi series he eventually called his Grand Tour. (It’s actually surprisingly difficult to get an exact count there, since this was seldom used as a marketing term and there …
Tag Archives: three stars
Book Review: Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig
Book #3 of 2026: Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig (The Shepherd King #2) I liked the first volume of this fantasy series enough to pick up this sequel, and I do think it concludes the overarching story reasonably well. Unfortunately it does this in sort of a weird way, jettisoning the parts I enjoyed …
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Book Review: World Tales edited by G. Randal Rau
Book #2 of 2026: World Tales edited by G. Randal Rau The 1985 World Fantasy Convention, held that year in Tucson, AZ with a theme of “Writers of the Southwest,” produced this souvenir book to resemble an issue of the old pulp magazine Weird Tales. (Seriously, look it up; designer Donald D. Markstein did an …
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Book Review: Star Wars: Master of Evil by Adam Christopher
Book #1 of 2026: Star Wars: Master of Evil by Adam Christopher This is a solid but basically unspectacular Star Wars novel, unfortunately saddled with a misleading title, publisher’s summary, and cover art. It’s only a Darth Vader story in that he’s around for a lot of the plot, but he gets just a handful …
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TV Review: Stranger Things, season 5
TV #1 of 2026: Stranger Things, season 5 A satisfactory-enough conclusion, although not one that ever lives up to the early years of this show, when it felt more like an intimate character-driven horror thriller meets Amblin adventure and not a Marvel-ified action blockbuster. In fact, I’d say this final season is about on par …
Book Review: The Bride Wore Black Leather by Simon R. Green
Book #202 of 2025: The Bride Wore Black Leather by Simon R. Green (Nightside #12) And so the Nightside series comes to an end, more or less. (There’s still a collection of short stories in the setting, which I’ll be rereading next, and a few crossovers with some of author Simon R. Green’s other works …
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Book Review: Superboy: A Celebration of 75 Years by various
Book #201 of 2025: Superboy: A Celebration of 75 Years by various This 2020 anthology commemorates three-quarters of a century of the titular junior superhero via a selection of comic book issues from across that span. In fact, it turns out that four different Kryptonians have each worn the mantle of Superboy at one point …
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Book Review: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
Book #197 of 2025: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann An interesting nonfiction account of a 1740s maritime disaster, in which the British vessel HMS Wager was shipwrecked in the South Pacific, near modern Chile. The incident occurred during the so-called “War of Jenkins’ Ear” conflict with Spain — …
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Book Review: Doctor Who: Transit by Ben Aaronovitch
Book #196 of 2025: Doctor Who: Transit by Ben Aaronovitch (Virgin New Adventures #10) This cyberpunk / cosmic horror mashup is big on worldbuilding texture but light on plot and character work. The worst thing about it, though, stems from its place in the Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures series, as the first installment with …
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Book Review: Tailored Realities by Brandon Sanderson
Book #195 of 2025: Tailored Realities by Brandon Sanderson [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] This is Brandon Sanderson’s second collection of short fiction, following Arcanum Unbounded in 2016. That earlier volume collected all the writer’s smaller works in his expansive Cosmere setting, while this one contains the opposite: ten tales expressly not …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 