Book #31 of 2026: The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science by Kate McKinnon (The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science #1) This 2024 title unfortunately hasn’t hit the mark for me, much as I love author Kate McKinnon’s work on Saturday Night Live. The …
Tag Archives: two stars
Movie Review: Rocky IV (1985)
Movie #8 of 2026: Rocky IV (1985) There’s the seed of a good idea in this movie when Apollo Creed, by now close friends with his former rival Rocky, is killed in the ring while boxing against their latest opponent. (It is, notably, the thread that filmmaker Ryan Coogler would later pick up for his …
Book Review: Empire Builders by Ben Bova
Book #27 of 2026: Empire Builders by Ben Bova I don’t know if this third Grand Tour installment (in chronological order) is objectively any weaker than the stories before, but at a minimum I’m growing pretty tired of our recurring hero Dan Randolph, dashing genius billionaire tech CEO and inveterate womanizer. A decade has passed …
Book Review: Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
Book #20 of 2026: Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones This 1984 fantasy novel offers a weird and problematic little bildungsroman. Author Diana Wynne Jones excels as usual at the quotidian slice-of-life business and the unexpected intrusion of magic into the ordinary, but there are a few major hurdles that readers will need to …
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Book Review: Long Chills & Case Dough: A Sanderson Curiosity by Brandon Sanderson
Book #19 of 2026: Long Chills & Case Dough: A Sanderson Curiosity by Brandon Sanderson [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] This short novella was written in the early 2000s and included as an extra gift to backers of author Brandon Sanderson’s massive Kickstarter campaign in 2023 (now subtitled as A Sanderson Curiosity, …
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Book Review: A Spell to Wake the Dead by Nicole Lesperance
Book #9 of 2026: A Spell to Wake the Dead by Nicole Lesperance This novel has a neat beginning that it then proceeds to squander, becoming one of those stories where I can viscerally feel my rating for it dropping as I continue to read along. The initial premise involves a trio of queer and …
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Book Review: The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar
Book #8 of 2026: The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar This 2025 novel has been promoted as author Louis Sachar’s first story for grown-ups, but I feel as though it only earns that designation via the adult narrator and the slightly higher page count. The tone isn’t noticeably different from his previous offerings, …
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Book Review: Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith
Book #203 of 2025: Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith (The Ripliad #5) Author Patricia Highsmith’s final novel about the amoral Tom Ripley is unfortunately also her weakest. The only thing driving the plot this time is that a new couple has moved into town, seemingly with the express purpose of tormenting the antihero whom …
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TV Review: 12 Monkeys, season 2
TV #58 of 2025: 12 Monkeys, season 2 The debut year of this program offered an uneven but promising sci-fi premise of a dystopian soldier and a contemporary doctor working together to try to prevent the pandemic that’s ravaged the planet by his era. It’s a loose reboot of the 1995 Terry Gilliam movie, less …
Movie Review: Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)
Movie #26 of 2025: Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) One of the strangest genre pivots for a sequel that I’ve ever seen, swapping the time-travel shenanigans of the first movie for the afterlife experience of this installment’s title. Things here start out fine: the last film established that a utopian future was somehow built …
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