Movie #19 of 2026: Terminator Salvation (2009) A competent action spectacle that finally shows us John Connor in his element as a resistance soldier (though not yet a leader) in the post-apocalyptic future that the franchise had repeatedly warned us was looming. That’s a reasonable premise to explore and one that never plays like much …
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Book #61 of 2026: The Red Box by Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe #4) These 1930s mysteries remain solid enough as a sort of American pastiche of Agatha Christie, but so far they’ve failed to hit the heights that she could periodically achieve for me. The premise to this novel, for example, is initially interesting — …
TV #18 of 2026: Abbott Elementary, season 5 As a sitcom, this series has always had a somewhat tenuous connection to any sort of grounded reality, but like The Office, it feels as though the comedy is getting broader and the characters more flanderized as the program ages. So here, for example, the teachers spend …
Book #58 of 2026: Tom’s Crossing by Mark Z. Danielewski This is an incredibly long novel — 1232 pages in hardback; 58 hours to listen to the audiobook on regular speed — that in my opinion never quite manages to justify its heft. It’s a pretty straightforward story, especially compared to author Mark Z. Danielewski’s …
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Movie #18 of 2026: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) This third Terminator feature is a deeply cynical film. It would almost have to be, since series creator James Cameron famously considered the story to have finished with the exemplary Terminator 2: Judgement Day in 1991 — and so for the new rights holders …
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Book #53 of 2026: Love at Second Sight by F. T. Lukens It’s great that today’s young readers have stories like this 2025 YA urban fantasy title, in which queerness is totally normalized. The protagonist is a fifteen-year-old boy with a crush on a male classmate, his best friend uses they/them pronouns and has two …
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Book #50 of 2026: The Rubber Band by Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe #3) This third Nero Wolfe mystery, also published under the alternate title of To Kill Again, is fine, much as the previous installments have been. The best elements remain the eccentric homebody detective and his banter with his assistant Archie, while the specific …
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Book #49 of 2026: Moonrise by Ben Bova (Moonbase Saga #1) I remember liking this mid-90s duology about the first lunar settlement within author Ben Bova’s larger Grand Tour sequence of space exploration stories, but mainly for the political element, which it turns out is mostly in the sequel Moonwar. Here that takes a backseat …
Book #48 of 2026: Doctor Who: Frida Kahlo and the Skull Children by Sophie McKenzie (Icons #1) Doctor Who as a franchise has a long history of introducing its alien time-traveler to historical celebrities of Earth, dating all the way back to the Marco Polo serial of its very first season in 1964. This newer …
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Book #47 of 2026: The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker (The Prince of Nothing #1) I know that I read this fantasy novel around when it came out back in 2004, but I couldn’t remember anything about it and I don’t think I ever got to any of the sequels. Revisiting it …
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