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 …
Tag Archives: three stars
Movie Review: Rocky III (1982)
Movie #7 of 2026: Rocky III (1982) “Eye of the Tiger” is a great song, but I’m not sure in the final analysis if Rocky III is a great movie or not. Length isn’t always a determination of that, but this one shaves about 20 minutes off the runtime of its predecessors, resulting in a …
Book Review: Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire
Book #25 of 2026: Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children #10) This fantasy series follows various children who stumble into Narnia-style portals to other worlds, generally by showing us the unhappy homes they fled, a bit of their wonderful new lives, and then the resulting angst when they inevitably find …
Continue reading “Book Review: Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire”
TV Review: 12 Monkeys, season 3
TV #6 of 2026: 12 Monkeys, season 3 I still think this sci-fi series was more interesting back when its time-traveling protagonists were more straightforwardly trying to avert a plague and the subsequent dystopian future, rather than opposing an evil cult that’s nebulously aiming to somehow break the timeline itself. But with that caveat, this …
Book Review: The Time Traveler’s Passport edited by John Joseph Adams
Book #22 of 2026: The Time Traveler’s Passport edited by John Joseph Adams The assembled titles in this collection of time travel short fiction get nearly the full range of ratings from me, which is often true of such anthologies. But since there are only six stories here, I guess I might as well review …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Time Traveler’s Passport edited by John Joseph Adams”
Book Review: Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling
Book #17 of 2026: Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling This horror-fantasy title has potential, but the novella format ultimately works against it by not offering enough room for adequate development of its ideas. An herbalist and shipping magnate in a blockaded city becomes aware of a strange new illness spreading through the population, rendering its …
Continue reading “Book Review: Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling”
Book Review: Privateers by Ben Bova
Book #16 of 2026: Privateers by Ben Bova This 1985 sci-fi novel is the debut volume that author Ben Bova wrote in what became his Grand Tour sequence, although it would subsequently be rendered non-canonical by real-life events influencing how the later books developed. The story here is set in the mid-twenty-first century, in which …
Book Review: Slow Gods by Claire North
Book #14 of 2026: Slow Gods by Claire North Here’s a space opera full of imaginative worldbuilding detail that still manages to feel empty without compelling characters to populate the setting. Both the narrator’s tone and the general plot remind me of the Animorphs spinoff The Ellimist Chronicles, in which an alien being survives the …
Book Review: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025 edited by Nnedi Okorafor
Book #13 of 2026: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025 edited by Nnedi Okorafor I got my hopes up during the introduction to this collection, in which series editor John Joseph Adams explains the selection methodology: he himself read several thousand short stories of genre fiction published throughout a single calendar year, aiming …
Movie Review: The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
Movie #4 of 2026: The Matrix Resurrections (2021) Legacy sequels are all the rage lately, with Keanu Reeves even appearing in an unnecessary Bill & Ted venture the year before reprising his more famous role of Neo for this fourth Matrix film. The business reasons behind the trend are obvious, as studios seek to capitalize …
Continue reading “Movie Review: The Matrix Resurrections (2021)”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 