Make a Constitution Roll

Many news headlines yesterday triumphantly reported the Supreme Court ruling in the case "Trump v. Barbara," upholding the law that people born in the United States are to be treated as U.S. citizens. In the rush to report this as a "loss for Trump" or a "win for the rule of law," most headlines completely overlook a chilling reality -- this actually was a close decision, and should not have been.

Four of nine Justices ruled (in dissent) that the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution doesn't actually say what it says. It's not a complicated sentence full of legalese. It says:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 

Actually, most of the Constitution is pretty clear in this way, if you've ever made the time to read it. But admittedly, some of it is less so. And with all of that in mind, I'm here to recommend a book -- The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader. (Yes, for some reason, the cover title doesn't exactly match the listed title.)

This book was written by Melissa Murray, law professor and co-host of the podcast Strict Scrutiny. And the book is like getting the chance to sit in on one of her classes. Actually, it's better than that, because the book is very much crafted for the layperson... which, as Murray enthusiastically presents, is exactly who that founding document was intended for.

After a brief introduction, the book presents the Constitution in whole... but then the titular "Guide" begins. Murray goes through the document article by article, amendment by amendment, sometimes even clause by clause, explaining exactly what's going on. At each step, she discusses the history: what was going on at the time that sparked this particular element of the Constitution, and how it was debated at the time. She then walks you through key Supreme Court rulings since, and how they shifted, crystallized, or redefined the meaning over time. In instances where a provision in the document is the subject of modern debate, she details the positions in that debate.

On the podcast Strict Scrutiny, Melissa Murray is a progressive voice whom I happen to agree with a great deal. But on this occasion, I actually appreciate even more that she has set aside any ideological stance (no matter how moral I may find it). This book is methodically even at every turn; it's not dispassionate by any means, very much reflecting the concerns of the Constitution's framers over the decades. But it is a book I think you could give to your "crazy relative on the other side of the aisle" without triggering any alarm bells about propaganda.

If you read this book for yourself, you will come away with a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution -- even if you actually have read the document for yourself (as so many politicians claim to have done, sometimes by pulling out the prop version they carry in their pocket). The Constitution is, most famously, a document of, for, and by the People. But for it to fully fulfill that promise, the People have to know what it says.

Melissa Murray has done her part to help with that. The book may be called The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader -- but another descriptor that might have gone in there is "essential." I give the book an A, and an enthusiastic recommendation.

(Maybe a few clowns on the Supreme Court should pick up a copy.) 

Dungeons and Aliens

From time to time, I've used reviews of books to shout out their audiobook narrators. And it almost pains me to say it, but Ray Porter no longer rules the roost as the best narrator I've listened to -- not now that I've listened to the first two books of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.

These books seem ubiquitous in the circles I travel in -- but on the off chance you don't know, Dungeon Crawler Carl is a book about an especially strange apocalypse. Abruptly, aliens arrive on Earth, utterly destroying all of civilization and forcing its decimated survivors into a fantasy-based dungeon game with real magic, real monsters, and real peril. And it's all televised like a reality program for a galactic fan base. The titular Carl finds himself woefully ill-equipped for the dungeon, but nevertheless endures with a healthy dose of gallows humor and the help of his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut.

Author Matt Dinniman is one of the latest success stories in self-publishing. Driven into writing full-time by the Covid pandemic, he began churning out books in this series that spread like wildfire and were eventually picked up by a publishing house. We're very recently at eight books and counting.

As I mentioned, I'm two books in, having completed Dungeon Crawler Carl and Carl's Doomsday Scenario. They're both fun and breezy thrill rides. I was perhaps not fully on board after book one. I had slightly mixed feelings about the way Dinniman had so blatantly scavenged his story from other places; had he truly assembled it all in a way that felt original? More importantly, was there really anywhere for the story to go that wasn't going to be repetitive? But those doubts were easily quieted. The book was laugh out loud funny, for sure. And it also did a pretty good job of not just going for laughs, with surprisingly earnest moments contemplating the actual scope of global apocalypse. Might as well try another book and see where things went.

Book two silenced the doubts completely. It's clear that Dinniman realized that the mere premise alone would not sustain a long-running series. I don't know whether he planned the larger sprawl of the story from the beginning and wisely kept things accessible to start out, or improvised his way into something bigger after having fun the first time around. Either way, there's plenty of "there" there.

But then there's the real special sauce of the series: audiobook narrator Jeff Hays. Dinniman himself has said that audiobook sales of this series have far surpassed book physical and e-book sales, and there's absolutely no mystery why. Hays gives an absolute tour de force performance -- about 50 times over as he voices character after character after character, so convincingly that you'd swear this audiobook had a full cast. Hays is picking up the sort of humor Dinniman puts down. I've had a chance to flip through the pages of a physical copy of Dungeon Crawler Carl, and I have to say, some of the jokes are only jokes because of the way Hays delivers them. I absolutely cannot recommend reading Dungeon Crawler Carl when the audiobook version exists.

But the audiobook? That I absolutely can recommend. I'd say book one lands around a B+ for me, and then book two jumped up to an A. I'm fully invested now in finishing the series... my only dilemma being how to pace myself with other audiobooks in between, to not overindulge in the delightful experience. And whatever awards exist for audiobook narration should all go to Jeff Hays for as long as he keeps doing these.

Calam Up

Previously, I've blogged about the Reckoners series by Brandon Sanderson. Steelheart and Firefight -- books one and two of a trilogy -- were fun audiobook adventures. I had a few reservations with each, but generally enjoyed their premise and narrative.

Those being: when people begin to develop superpowers in our own world, society quickly collapses. That's because the "epics" who get powers are invariably corrupted by them, turning evil. Young David Charleston has a history with one epic in particular, and his deep desire for vengeance leads him to the Reckoners, a group of humans dedicated to learning the weaknesses of epics and taking them out. Now, in book three, Calamity, the Reckoners are forced to fight one of their own who has been corrupted by powers. But David is convinced there is a way to turn epics back from the darkness. If he's right, the world will be forever changed again.

There are a couple of other Reckoners stories floating around out there, including an interstitial novella and an audiobook exclusive. But Calamity is the end of the trilogy, and as such has two almost competing goals to fulfill. First, it has to pay off the very personal conflict that the Reckoners now have with one of their own. This is by far the most interesting part of the story, with stakes built up over multiple books, characters you've come to care about, and a Return-of-the-Jedi-esque "there is still good in him" tension. This part of Calamity is quite successful. The story doesn't shy away from the corrupted former Reckoner doing some truly horrible things, making any redemption uncertain -- and bittersweet if it does come.  

But second, the book also has to bring an "end" to the larger issue of the epics in this world: how is the red comet Calamity responsible for making superheroes, and is it truly inevitable that all of them will become corrupt and evil? This is a much harder element for the story to tackle, for a number of reasons. Sanderson has wanted to keep some of the mechanics of this secret for a big third act (third book) reveal, making for a heavy freight of exposition just before the finish line. Some of the answers relate to new characters we haven't spent any time with before now, making it much harder to invest in what happens. And ultimately, how complete a resolution do any of us actually want here? Sanderson ultimately went back to his Mistborn series that started it all, writing a whole new trilogy; does he really want to foreclose any possibility of returning to this setting? All of these elusive qualities make it essentially impossible for this third book to satisfy the reader in this second aspect. It can kind of only just end abruptly, in a bit of a letdown.

Together, these two aspects of the story average out to a book I found to be the least satisfying of the trilogy, even as I acknowledge that it probably could not have gone any other way. I give Calamity a B-. It's not a steep enough drop in quality for me to regret reading the Reckoners trilogy; indeed, I think I would still recommend it overall to anyone tantalized by the premise. This is neither a perfect ending (that's really hard!) nor a... well... calamity.

It's Elementary Magic

One hazard of reading fantasy fiction is that most of the books held in highest regard are part of some epic, unfinished series from an author who putters around for years on the next book. I'm currently lost in the middle of more such stories than I can hold in memory, and not looking to start another. Except I just did. Fortunately, though, this one has turned out to be different.

The Tainted Cup comes from author Robert Jackson Bennett. It's the story of Dinios Kol, a young assistant assigned to brilliant investigator Ana Dolabra as she investigates a bizarre magical death. Din is an engraver, a person who has been magically altered to possess perfect memory. Ana dispatches him to go examine crime scenes without her, coming back to recount all the details. She remains blindfolded and shut away in her own thoughts as much as possible, bringing her intellect (also magically altered) to bear on solving cases. Together, the duo has stumbled onto a conspiracy that threatens the empire they serve.

The Tainted Cup is the first book of a trilogy dubbed "Shadow of the Leviathan," and bears all the trappings readers expect from high fantasy. The author has envisioned an elaborate world full of details that dance at the edges of the narrative: squabbling fiefdoms within a large empire; monstrous creatures that attack with regularity (and the efforts keep them at bay); and a unique system of magic with numerous facets, nooks, and crannies for the story to take advantage of.

And yet, the story of The Tainted Cup is not the typical "cast of dozens" set loose in that vivid world. It's the first-person narrative of Din, and is very much focused on the "Holmes and Watson"-like relationship they have in solving crimes. The book is almost as much a mystery novel as a fantasy novel, and I find the two genres play very well together. The instinct of a fantasy author to embellish a tale with elaborate details plants a perfect garden in which a mystery author can hide clues to a whodunnit. The presence of magic opens up whole new methods of how a crime can be carried out -- and so long as the rules of those magic are fixed and fair, the mystery can still be satisfying.

I'm not prepared to anoint The Tainted Cup as the beginning of my newest fantasy obsession. Still, Robert Jackson Bennett has crafted an enjoyable story featuring memorable characters and an overall setting worth going back to in future books. And on that front, there are two bonuses here:

First, The Tainted Cup is an almost-wholly self-contained book. By the end of it, the mystery has been solved. Tendrils of narrative certainly gesture at what will come next -- but plenty of conventional mystery novels conclude with less of a sense of closure than I found here in book one. This is a book that in my view doesn't require committing to the trilogy.

Second, following quickly on the heels of The Tainted Cup's publication last year, book two has already been released this year. And while you might well think, "sure... but how long until book three?", a quick search of Robert Jackson Bennett's bibliography shows he's been publishing with regularity since he first arrived on the scene in 2010 -- he's written a dozen books in 15 years, with never more than two years between them. Let's just say I'd put money on book three arriving before The Winds of Winter or The Doors of Stone.

I'd give The Tainted Cup a B+, and I plan to give book two a try at some point. If a high fantasy tweak on Holmes and Watson sounds like it might be for you, give it a try! 

I Reckon

Months ago, I blogged about Steelheart, the first book of the Reckoners trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Now I'm back for book two, Firefight.

This trilogy is Sanderson's foray into a twisted version of a superhero story. In a version of our own world, the arrival of a mysterious celestial body seems to trigger the development of superpowers in a select few people around the world. Without fail, these "Epics" become corrupt tyrants who use their powers to oppress and control as they slowly destroy the world. The Reckoners trilogy follows one group of humans as they try to uncover the weaknesses of these Epics and fight back. This second book, Firefight sees the protagonist David traveling to another city to fight an Epic with a past connection to his group's leader. Once there, he finds there's also an important connection to his own past, sure to drive a wedge into his group if anyone else learns of it.

Firefight is an interesting "middle chapter" of a trilogy, with plenty I liked and some things I didn't. It's young adult fiction, which isn't always known for nuance: in this genre, you usually expect that the "good guys" and good, the "bad guys" are bad, and that's just all there is to it. But some YA stories like to explore the gray areas, and Sanderson chooses that more rewarding option here. Book one, Steelheart, ended with a revelation that things are not as black-and-white as the protagonist, David, might have thought. And now book two, Firefight, really follows through on this idea. The course of the story drives David to really resist the good/evil dichotomy even more, stirring up new conflict that's satisfyingly born of character and not plot contrivance.

Sanderson also builds out the world he's created in interesting ways. He could probably have stretched out an exploration of strange powers and weaknesses (and their ramifications) into dozens of books. (That's certainly what other superpower franchises do.) That he did not do so means that each "Epic" character who shows up in the story has a truly important role to play. Firefight digs deeper into how this world came to be, why people get the powers they have, and why the powers drive people inexorably toward evil. And as it does all this, it shifts the story to an interesting new setting that differs from the first book.

But Firefight also goes back on one of the things I liked best about Steelheart. In my comments on that book, I mentioned that blessedly, the conventional romantic subplot that shows up in every YA book did not follow its expected course. Firefight reveals that nope, we're actually going to do exactly the romantic subplot these stories always have. In particular, I didn't enjoy how much the main character was motivated by love -- particularly when it's portrayed in an (accurate) teenage way that might as easily be infatuation, lust, or something else. Even with a character in the story who openly mocks the idea of "love being the answer," I felt the story wasn't doing enough to depart from the trope. I guess Sanderson felt like he could only thwart so many conventions of the genre.

Still, Firefight offered a few nice surprises along the way, even if I sensed the gist of where it would end. The journey was rewarding, even if -- like the young sick child of The Princess Bride -- I would have preferred to skip all the "kissy stuff." I give Firefight a B+. I'll be curious to get to the final book of the series and see how Sanderson brings it all home.

Let's Have a Ward

I enjoy reading fantasy -- but right at the moment, the various authors I've been reading are played out. I'm looking for a break from their work, or I'm waiting (along with everyone else) for the next book in their unfinished series. So I recently decided to try something and someone different: book one of the Demon Cycle, by Peter V. Brett.

The Warded Man is set in a world where each night, demonic creatures arise from some other plane of existence to menace humanity. While they can be held at bay using a complex language of written characters called "wards," very few have the knowledge to draw them effectively. This book tracks three separate stories of young children growing into adulthood in this world. Arlen, disgusted when his father's weakness costs his mother's life, sets out to learn all he can about warding. Leesha, an outcast among her village, finds purpose when she becomes apprentice to the wise local healer. Rojer, who loses both his parents at a very young age, falls in with a traveling entertainer and learns the trade. Years later, all three find that their fates are intertwined.

I really went on a journey with this book. At first, I was very much into it. Brett's writing is much less dense than most high fantasy, in an appealing way. Every night that I read The Warded Man, I could see myself making progress through a book of uncommonly reasonable length. And yet it didn't feel like any world-building had been sacrificed to reach a lower word count. I found this realm of wards and demons to be interesting.

I also appreciated that even though the three characters were all young -- two start early in their teens, and one is younger still -- these children weren't written conventionally as children. They weren't always making impulsive decisions just to speed the plot, and they were credibly aged by the weight of their difficult experiences. They weren't behaving childishly. I was into each of their story lines, even if I was wishing that the inevitable uniting of the three would come sooner. (But it's a five book series, I knew. So I figured that the three characters meeting up wasn't even something destined to happen in this first book.)

But somewhere around the two-thirds point of the book, Brett made what I found to be a massively distasteful choice with the narrative. Both a spoiler and trigger warning -- Leesha is raped. A book club could debate whether this was a necessary turning point for the character, sufficiently earned by the setup that had come before. But I just found myself gut-punched, confused about why Brett felt we had to go there.

And suddenly, I was looking in retrospect at the book so far and realizing this wasn't a one-off decision: it was just the most impossible-to-miss sign of a story not just male-centric (as fantasy often is), but to a great extent anti-women. How had the stories for the other two main characters gotten started? Why, with the deaths of their mothers! (Sure, okay, one also lost his father, but still....) And what of the other female characters in the story? We'd met a loving wife, lovingly devoted to an often-absent husband, who takes one of the main characters under her wing as a "project." There was a fleeting love interest who only stood in the way of what one of the main characters really wanted. I suppose there was one stronger female character in Leesha's mentor, the village healer -- but it seemed as though others respected her only because she was useful, and her power came at a cost of withdrawing totally from society.

I was having a real eye-opening, glass-shattering moment with this book. I'd quite liked it so far, and had already been making plans to continue with the series. (Maybe even without reading something else in between books! Quite unlike me.) I had been enjoying it so much that I confess I didn't even seriously consider just stopping at that point. Still, what followed just wasn't the same for me. The three characters did unite, had their heroic adventure bonding them together, and things were put in place for their story to continue.

Yet the damage had been done. Here was an author who could imagine demons emerging from the ground every night... but who could seemingly imagine only misery and misogyny for any of his female characters.

And now I have a choice to make. Well -- two, I suppose; the first being, what do I rate this book? It was on its way to earning an enthusiastic A in my eyes until I suddenly reevaluated it and saw all the flaws. Does that average out to a B? Or does it drag the whole thing down to something much, much lower?

The other choice is whether to continue the series. I was really enjoying the book. Do I take the chance that this was just an unfortunate series of choices made in setting up the larger story? That if I continue, the assembled team of three will have adventures together that won't feel so... icky? I decided to blog about The Warded Man in large part to see if any of my readers have read the series, and have any thoughts on what follows.

But then, there are so many fantasy books out there to read. Maybe it's best to just cut my losses here and try one of those.

President Without Precedent?

Apropos of let's say nothing in particular, I recently was drawn to a non-fiction book written by constitutional law professor Corey Brettschneider. Including the subtitle, the book has an unwieldy name. But from it, you might intuit why I was interested -- The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It.

This book presents ignominious slices of American history: details of presidents who pushed the power of their office, and in some cases pushed the country to the brink of collapse. More importantly, it recounts what was involved to pull the United States back from the brink.

First up is John Adams, whose monarchical view of the presidency led him to vicious attacks on the press, including prosecutions of anyone speaking critically of the office of the president (himself). Then, as you might expect from a book like this, we read about James Buchanan, who colluded with the Supreme Court to deny the basic personhood of black people. Next comes Andrew Johnson, who encouraged violence against his political opponents as he asserted authority above Congress. Skip ahead a few decades, and read about Woodrow Wilson's focused efforts to mainstream racial animus through expansion of bigoted laws. And of course, no book about U.S. presidents threatening democracy would be complete without a look at Richard Nixon, who contended that no action taken by a president could be illegal.

Corey Brettschneider's book provided me strange comfort. Current events may be unprecedented in my lifetime, but not without precedent, period. Strip the names out of my previous paragraph, and a reader might well think that it was about current events. It's not that reading this book made me think, "oh, the country has been here before, so we'll be fine," but it was a relief of sorts to see that we have been here before, and there were ways out.

The book presents the thesis (and I believe the correct one) that effective opposition to corrupt and captured governments comes from the outside. The three branches of American government do not have the final say on how the country's constitution is interpreted; the values of the document are ultimately up to "we the people" to decide. Brettschneider focuses on individuals and citizen groups who rose up to oppose these past presidents, in what he calls "constitutional constituencies."

The book highlights several truly impressing and inspiring historical figures -- especially Frederick Douglass (in the Buchanan and Johnson sections) and William Monroe Trotter (in the Woodrow Wilson section). The book does point out that a "constitutional constituency" need not be led by a singular figure like Douglass or Trotter. It cites the example of the grand jury against Richard Nixon, who collectively and (at the time) anonymously united in their view that a president can and should be held accountable for criminal acts. Yet Brettschneider also points out that this action was essentially thwarted by President Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon -- and he further suggests that this thwarting of the will of "we the people" prevented the sort of full recovery that followed the actions of the other presidents chronicled in the book. The pardon of Nixon, the author argues, was the first step down a path that led to today.

And the book does touch on today. Or, at least, "today" at the time it was written. An epilogue touches on Donald Trump and the events of January 6, 2021. But given everything that's happened since then, given the extent to which today's attacks on democracy feel like "all five of the other attacks detailed in the book, all at once," it's a quite disheartening note to end the book on. Still, focus on the central message, and there is hope. Yes, the Supreme Court says that there is sweeping immunity for presidential lawlessness... but Brettschneider's entire point is that the people are the final arbiter on that.

In any case, the message that we've been here before (or, at least, "here-ish") is a good one for today, and this author does a good job delivering it. Even if you read The Presidents and the People purely for the history and not for "inspiration" or "advice," it's a solid read. You'll be reminded of the achievements of Frederick Douglass, and educated about those of William Monroe Trotter. You'll be persuaded that James Madison may have been the most underappreciated of the "Founding Father" presidents, and that Woodrow Wilson was actually far worse than is widely thought. I give the book a B+.

But Back to the Point...

Because I have so enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History, I've found myself going back on occasion to visit one of the books he wrote earlier in his career. Gladwell himself has now done the same thing, with the publication of Revenge of the Tipping Point.

Released in 2000, The Tipping Point is the book that put Malcolm Gladwell on the map. On the occasion of the book's 25th anniversary, Gladwell decided he would look back  and create some sort of revised or updated edition. Instead, he found enough to say to create a full-fledged sequel book. Ordinarily, I wouldn't consider taking on a sequel (book, movie, whatever) without having first experienced the original. But since some of the point here seemed to be Gladwell saying "here's what I think I got wrong," I decided jumping right in with Revenge was a valid way to go.

As always, I found Gladwell's writing to be engaging, and his anecdotes entertaining. He's compulsively readable, and a very clear communicator. But also, Revenge of the Tipping Point feels like a more "scattered" book than some of his other work. (For example, Blink -- which I have also read, but apparently did not blog about.) From one chapter to the next, the topics seem to vary wildly, and I'm not convinced that the final chapter, a classic summary meant to tie everything together in one nice bow, is as effective in unifying the thesis as it should be.

I think the most likely reason for this is the very podcast that led me to Gladwell in the first place. Revisionist History is now in its twelfth(!) season, and while a few of those seasons have taken a more serialized look at a single topic, most have just been a collection of intriguing stories well-suited to the "under an hour" audio format. It's a perfectly good format... but I think it may have "infected" his style when it comes to long-form writing. (Indeed, one of the chapters of Revenge of the Tipping Point has a "companion" episode in the latest season of Revisionist History!) Gladwell remains strong at telling a tight story -- be it in a chapter or a podcast episode -- but I'd say the whole of this book isn't any greater than the sum of the parts.

But that shouldn't be construed as too great a criticism. The "parts" here are quite good. Whether looking at the most successful bank robbers in history, delving into the genetic plight of the cheetah, scrutinizing the early spread of COVID-19, or pitching his social momentum theory of "the Magic Third," Gladwell's newest book is stuffed full of the same kinds of tales that keep each new episode of his podcast as a "release day listen" for me. I give Revenge of the Tipping Point a B+.

A Challenging Read

For my generation, the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger was a defining event -- an "everybody remembers where they were" moment that looms large in memory to this day. For myself, always a fanboy for crewed space travel, it occupies an especially large mental space. So when I heard about a recent book on the tragedy by author Adam Higginbotham, I was curious to check it out.

Higginbotham's book is called Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, and it is an expansive look at the explosion -- with a lengthy examination of events both preceding and following. While most people have at least heard of the "O-rings" that were ultimately found to be the culprit (and I, in my fascination, had previously read a good deal more than that), I nonetheless found the book to be a good deal more informative and revealing than that.

This book demonstrates just how avoidable this "accident" really was. It paints a crystal clear picture of the state of NASA and its contractors during the creation of the Space Shuttle, and the first five years of its operation (prior to the Challenger disaster): it's the story of a government agency much like any other less conspicuous agency, struggling with a lack funding and impossible mandates, fighting to achieve just to ensure its own survival.

It's also a broad cautionary tale about the dangers of believing in one's own hype. Though the book makes a point to remind readers of the deaths (and near-deaths) during the Apollo moon program, it also shows how those events were not as indelible as you might think in the minds of new bean counters who took charge of the space program in the interrim. (It also suggests that NASA ultimately did not learn enough long-lasting lessons here, with part of the final chapter turning to the breakup of the Space Shuttle Columbia, and pointing out the parallels precipitating that tragedy.)

A major strength of Higginbotham's writing is that the focus is equally on the events themselves and on the people at the center of the story. Without feeling like he's angling for a Hollywood big screen adaptation, he unfolds the story much like a movie, making central characters of the engineers who foresaw tragedy, the executives who ignored the warnings... and, of course, each of the seven astronauts who was killed in the disaster. Part of what made Challenger such a massive story in the American consciousness was the death of teacher Christa McAuliffe. But she was one of seven astronauts killed in the disaster, and this book gives equal time and background to all of them -- and to the people who might have saved their lives.

I will say the book is a touch overwritten at times. Higginbotham does use more than the usual number of $5 words, which sometimes undermines his presumed thesis of making these events more simple and accessible to his audience. This is probably a book best consumed on an e-reader, where you can tap for a quick dictionary definition of the rare and unfamiliar words that pop up a few times every chapter. (But hey -- you're learning more than history!)

Aside from those occasional bumps in the road, though, I found this book to be engrossing and illuminating. It will tell you things you didn't know. More importantly, it will humanize the story -- something I think is welcome all these years later, as Challenger has passed into American mythology. I give Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space a B+.

A Force to Be Reckoned With

I've now completed two of author Brandon Sanderson's many book series. After quite enjoying Skyward and, uh, rather not enjoying Mistborn, it felt like if I was going to try another Sanderson series, the best way to go might be away from high fantasy. So I came to Steelheart, book one of a series called The Reckoners.

This series is set in a dystopian version of our own world, where a handful of "Epic" people with superhero powers have somehow emerged. But they're anything but heroic. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the Epics have carved up the world into fiefdoms where they rule tyrannically over the ashes of what remains of society. A resistance group called the Reckoners has devoted themselves to learning the weaknesses of Epics in order to assassinate them. A young man named David wants to join their ranks -- if he can find them. He wants their help, as he's set upon killing one of the most powerful Epics of all, Steelheart -- the one who killed his father.

Brandon Sanderson wrote this book five years before Skyward, and I wonder how much me coming to it in the opposite order colored my perception of it. They do have a lot of surface similarities. Our protagonist is a teenager on the cusp of adulthood, with an inflated sense of their own skills and a lot to learn about just how much they don't know. Both live in dystopian societies under the oppression of a seemingly indomitable force. Both develop romantic feelings with a person they initially butt heads with.

Mind you, these are all tropes of the genre at large, more than a matter of Sanderson repeating himself. And it's because this is probably the twentieth time I've encountered them in books, television, and movies -- not merely the second -- that I'm inclined to say that five years more experience writing helped Sanderson make Skyward a better book. I found the characterizations there to be more well-rounded, and the world-building more multi-layered, than what's here in Steelheart.

But Steelheart was by no means bad. Indeed, there are a number of welcome, even clever, subversions of the genre tropes within its pages. The obligatory Young Adult Fiction romantic subplot does not stay on the prescribed course. The eventual "humanization" of the implacable foe is indirect; the book exposes nuances about Epics in general without ever undermining the fundamental evilness of its titular villain. And the central hero, David -- in this first book of the trilogy, at least -- never really becomes the only person who can save the world; he isn't ever made "unique" or "special," remaining part of an effective team instead.

Also, this book about toppling a dystopia frequently emphasizes that you don't save the world simply by toppling one despot. Surely part of that is self-serving; this is book one of a trilogy, and Sanderson obviously needs to tee up the next books so they don't feel tacked on to an otherwise complete narrative. Still, there's some nuance here in the underlying message that many dystopian series don't get to until later books (if at all).

I'd give Steelheart a B+. I expect to rotate around to a few other things before circling back and trying Reckoners book two. But I do think I'll eventually be circling back.

An Unheroic Ending

Over the past few years, I've been giving author Brandon Sanderson a try. I started with a series I really enjoyed, the Skyward books. But Sanderson first got to the bestseller list with his fantasy writing, so it was inevitable that I'd eventually read his Mistborn series. I enjoyed the first book for its inventive setting, but didn't care much for book two. Still, I felt like I needed to finish this fantasy trilogy, with The Hero of Ages.

I found book three to be a frustrating slog.

As I said, book one laid out a fascinating setting that pulled me into the story. Book two built upon that in interesting ways, even as the plot itself slowed down in a way I didn't care for. But I think book three throws all the rules out the window.

Like many fantasy series, Mistborn is a world filled with magic and magic users. There are plenty of people in the world who wield some degree of power, but the story really focused -- as such stories generally do -- on one particularly "super-powered" character. Book one followed that character coming into her powers. Book two put that character up against problems that superpowers can't solve, and in dilemmas where she couldn't be in "two places at once."

In book three, everybody has super powers. A character who has never wielded magic of any kind now has it in this book, to as full an extent as the main protagonist has always had. Another character who has had minor -- almost trifling -- magic ability now suddenly wields vastly more magic than he has before. Yet another character, who'd never previously been a "perspective" character for the narrative, becomes one in this book, magnifying the extent to which it feels like their sort of magic-adjacent abilities drive the plot.

There are explanations for all of this, reasons why everyone is suddenly "leveling up" both within the story and as matter of narrative construction. Still, to me, it doesn't make for a fun read. Magic becomes the answer for everything. There's never a sense of true danger, never the notion that any problems might be insurmountable, never the feeling that anyone is in over their heads. This book has no stakes.

On top of that, Sanderson spends an outsized number of pages on material that wouldn't feel important even under the former "terms and conditions" of the story. In the middle of the book, when the two main characters make time over multiple chapters to attend not one but two lavish balls, it was all I could do to keep reading. As another character spends literally the entire book paging through historical records, it hardly mattered to me that it was an expression of his deep crisis of faith, I couldn't help but be bored by the repetitiveness.

There is one compelling subplot of the book, though it doesn't get enough attention. I mentioned earlier that one character whose perspective we'd not previously gotten comes to the foreground in this final book. And while I don't love how their "magic" lends to an over-magicked whole, I did enjoy the insights into what makes the character tick. The character is the closest thing to an "alien" in this fantasy setting, caught up in a web of different societal values, and driven by an entirely different way of thinking. I felt this story ultimately did enrich the novel, though it was only one small part of a frustrating whole.

The ending was most frustrating of all. It's certainly of a piece with the "too much magic" I felt of the rest of the book, resolving all the problems by escalating the power once again beyond its already-escalated levels. And while I can't claim that the conclusion is "without consequences," I'd long since stopped caring enough about the characters involved for any sacrifices they made to matter to me in the slightest.

I give The Hero of Ages a D, about the lowest mark I could imagine giving to a full-length novel that I actually finished reading. If I didn't have the prior experience of finishing the Skyward series (and liking it from beginning to end), I'd quite likely be done with Brandon Sanderson altogether at this point. Certainly, I'll question ever giving his other "classic fantasy" books a try.

Heaven's -- Yes

It's been about a year since I finished the Bobiverse trilogy by author Dennis E. Taylor -- the tale of an expanding society of cloned brain scans of a 21st-century man, exploring the cosmos centuries in the future. Except that while the three books do tell a complete and satisfying story, Taylor apparently never planned to end the series as a trilogy. He's said he might have as many as 10 Bobiverse books in him, give or take. And with the fifth arriving soon, it seemed like the right time to enjoy the fourth, Heaven's River.

This book sees the first Bob replicant on an interstellar search for a fellow clone who disappeared decades earlier. The search leads him to discover a new alien race living in a massive artificial structure... and then working to infiltrate that structure. Meanwhile, things are changing in the Bobiverse itself. So many clones of clones of Bob have now been created, with younger Bobs "drifting" so far from the brain scan of the original, that subfactions are emerging within the whole. The Bobiverse must deal with internal conflict for the first time, with the "Skippies" (who have an intense focus on artificial intelligence) and "Starfleet" (who think the Bobiverse should withdraw from all interactions with biological lifeforms).

I think because the first three books of the Bobiverse series really did tell a seemingly complete story, I imagined that this fourth book would be kicking off a new trilogy. Instead, Taylor now seems to be thinking about his series over the long haul, approaching it as a writers room might approach a season of television. Heaven's River is an "episode" in the model, with some stand-alone parts and some threads woven in for future storytelling.

The self-contained aspects feel most satisfying to me. This book spends a lot of time with a new alien race, the Quinlans. Their oddly stagnant society, inside a massive spaceborne superstructure, is an intriguing mix of interesting characters, larger mysteries, and quirky alien ideas blended with more human-resonant behavior. And much of this story involves going into this society undercover, which I think really works for this book. It's not just that I love a heist (though longtime readers of the blog know I do)... it's that it makes for a nice departure of the often galactic stakes of the first three Bobiverse books to move to a smaller, personal scale for much of this book.

Other elements of the book get much less word count, and are accordingly less satisfying to me. But then, Taylor clearly wasn't aiming to wrap up everything in this book if he's planned some half a dozen more. The idea of this "drift" as cloned Bob copies become ever less like the first? That's fertile ground for future books -- not only for stories involving the major factions introduced here, but for other future factions that may yet show up in later books.

Still, I maybe could have wished for a bit more of a tease about where things are heading? One chapter of the book really sticks out in my mind, a prolonged role-playing session with a group called the "Gamers." It takes a LOT of time, ultimately for no other clear purpose than for one older "Bob" to realize that these "Bobs" are different -- a point being made abundantly clear already elsewhere in the book. I can only surmise that so much ink is spilled for the "Gamers" because they have a big story yet to come... but it feels like an unnecessary diversion here. (Or maybe Taylor just found it fun to write one chapter of a fantasy novel? In which case, it's kind of even more of a diversion?)

No matter how much track is being laid here for the future, though, there's still plenty enough here to satisfy. If you liked the other Bobiverse books, it's impossible you won't enjoy this one. You still spend time with the same pithy protagonists, on similar quirky light sci-fi adventures. And if you're listening to the audiobook, it's still all read perfectly by Ray Porter, who manages to put a wonderfully subtle spin on the different Bob clones.

I give Heaven's River a B+. And while part of me will be sad to be "fully caught up" once I've read the fifth Bobiverse book that releases in a few weeks, I won't likely be able to delay the gratification for long.

For Starters

I've blogged before about the writing of John Scalzi. Some of his books have worked great for me; others less so. But you're always going to get a story from Scalzi that you wouldn't get from anyone else. His latest is a great example of this: Starter Villain.

This is the story of Charlie Fitzer, who is roped into unexpected action when a long-estranged uncle dies, leaving behind a request that Charlie should arrange the funeral. When that turns out to be something of a test (which Charlie seemingly passes), he receives a most unexpected inheritance: the massive evil empire run by Charlie's uncle, complete with volcano lair, killer satellites, a rival conglomerate... and talking spy cats.

Like another of Scalzi's recent books, The Kaiju Preservation Society, Starter Villain makes for a great elevator pitch. "Hapless nobody inherits an evil empire" sounds fun. And even though conventional wisdom says you can't judge a book by its cover, this book simply has too great a cover not to judge it delightful: it features a scowling cat in a business suit. This book was all but screaming at me to read it.

Once you get under the surface, there isn't as much going on as I would have liked. There is a story here, and the book overall never stops being fun. But entertainment is very much the only item on the agenda here; telling a deeply satisfying story doesn't really make the list. If it's enough for you that this book is mainly about playing with James Bond cliches, and will pause in the middle of anything to follow a comedic side note (say, unionizing dolphins), then this book will be enough for you. If you need to become invested in the protagonist's journey? You're probably not going to get there.

I think listening to this on audiobook may have affected my perceptions of it too. Frequent Scalzi collaborator Wil Wheaton narrates -- and does a great job of heightening both everything I loved about the book and everything that I had reservations about. Oftentimes, when reviewing an actor's performance in something, a reviewer will say "you can tell they were having fun." (I've done it myself, I'm sure.) You can tell Wil Wheaton was having fun. He reads this book, clearly as delighted by everything that amused Scalzi when he wrote it. And that intensifies the laughs. But it also magnifies the too-unflappable tone of the protagonist, who always seems outside himself and the circumstances rather than fully drawn into them.

Don't get me wrong: I still liked Starter Villain. I'd give it a B, and if the description sounds at all entertaining to you, I'd definitely recommend it. But also, it's a fluffy confection of a book that melts on your brain like cotton candy on your tongue. It should be approached like dessert, and not the main course.

Problematic

Netflix has just announced that they will be making more episodes of its recent series 3 Body Problem. This came as good news to me, as I'd very recently finished the eight-episode season one, and was very much hoping there would be more.

3 Body Problem is adapted from the first book of a trilogy by author Liu Cixin. It's a story about an alien race coming to invade Earth with ominous intent. Constricted by travel time, they will not arrive for 400 years. But through advanced technology, and aided by willing humans on Earth, there's plenty of mayhem they can cause in the meantime.

A lot of the online talk about the series focused on the creators of the TV show: David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo. It's the first two getting all the attention, as they're the team behind Game of Thrones. Many reviews focused on the question, had they bungled this the way they bungled Game of Thrones?

One angle on that was to focus on the changes between the show and the original book. I haven't read that book, but I know that the author (writing in Chinese) created a cast of Chinese characters. The TV series changed most of them to other nationalities, simultaneously improving diversity and opening itself up to accusations of whitewashing. To me, these changes ultimately seem necessary to make a TV show you intend to be watched by a Western audience. (You might as well complain about why so many theoretical scientists are conspicuously attractive. That's television.) If these changes rub you the wrong way, the book still exists -- though you should acknowledge that unless you're going to read it in the original Chinese, you're already reading an adaptation of sorts.

The rest of the criticism toward Benioff and Weiss centered on the final, badly-received season of Game of Thrones -- and I think it misses something very critical. The writing duo are actually very good at adaptation. The first five or six seasons of Game of Thrones were widely acclaimed, grew in popularity over time, and were almost always exciting and entertaining to watch. Those were the seasons based on material already published by George R.R. Martin. You know, adaptations. When the show ran out of runway, caught up with the published books, and had to begin telling the story for the first time rather than the second? Well, writing good original screenplays is a different skill than writing good adaptations, and Benioff and Weiss (unfortunately) revealed they weren't as good as that.

All of that is my long walk to say that 3 Body Problem (its first season, and the new episodes Netflix has announced will happen) are adapted from finished novels. Which means this is something these two show runners can do well. And I think they did so here. I found the eight episodes so far to be increasingly interesting. So much about the story seems intellectually stimulating to me. You have an antagonist that's both abstract and concrete, passive and deadly, sympathetic and menacing. You have real fantastical elements of science fiction underpinned by a desire to portray much more realistic science than the average sci-fi tale. Terrifying stakes for the entire world are skillfully balanced against very small but equally important personal stakes for the handful of main characters. Sure, all of that doubtlessly comes from the source material... but preserving that in a jump to another medium is what good adaptation is all about.

I love how the series kept me guessing from episode to episode. It routinely offered up plot twists you could see coming and feel clever about anticipating... seemingly just so that you'd be blindsided by other revelations hidden one level deeper than that. I became utterly convinced that I'd sussed out what form a second season of the show will take... but the way that the final episode of season one actually ended left me doubting that certainty.

The characters aren't necessarily the most standout element of the show, but there are a few performances that caught my eye. Rosalind Chao is great as Dr. Ye Wenjie, portraying a very difficult internal journey through carefully calibrated facial expressions. Benedict Wong is great as Clarence Shi, as close as this show gets to comic relief, served with a heaping side of exasperation. And the many returning Game of Thrones veterans are solid, though my personal favorite is Liam Cunningham, who ditches all the likability of his GoT character Davos to play proper asshole Thomas Wade.

Had Netflix opted not to continue the show, I'm quite confident I would have wanted to read the books to get the whole story. Even as it stands, the trilogy is now in my reading queue. I give 3 Body Problem a B+.

Bloody Thoughts

It has now been 13 years since George R.R. Martin published the fifth novel in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. It seems ever less likely we'll ever get the next book, The Winds of Winter, (much less the one after that, meant to conclude the series). And after the final season of the TV adaptation Game of Thrones, many former fans have simply decided they don't care.

But Martin has been busy this last decade, writings and editing all sorts of things that aren't The Winds of Winter. One of these, his 2018 book Fire & Blood, seemed almost like a challenge to anyone who might count themselves a George R.R. Martin "fan." It was a book set in Westeros -- just not the one everyone was waiting for. It recounted the history of past Targaryen kings, assembled in part from previously existing novellas, and (in its last half) forming the basis for the spin-off TV series House of the Dragon. But also... it was a project that Martin himself jokingly dubbed his "GRRMarillion," in reference to The Silmarillion -- J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth book that's so dry that it wasn't even published in his lifetime, and hasn't been read cover-to-cover by most of his fans. Was Martin implying his book was equally dense?

Well, the coming of House of the Dragon season two later this year inspired me to actually give it a shot; I recently finished Fire & Blood. And mostly, I was entertained. Thankfully, while the book is very much a history, it's not dry at all. It essentially reads like engaging non-fiction, like an author gathering up 150 years of a country's history and trying to lay it all out for you in the most compelling way possible.

There's an extra twist in Martin's approach here, as he writes not as himself, but as a "maester" within the world of Westeros who is himself setting down this history. Part of the conceit here is that the author openly sifts through conflicting accounts written at the time they happened, editorializing on which is more likely true. This allows Martin to lean into one of his greatest strengths as a writer: writing from the entrenched perspective of a specific character. The Ice and Fire series itself famously trades character viewpoints from chapter to chapter; here, Martin takes on one character's viewpoint for an entire book, as the character himself in turn comments on other characters. It may sound like an unnecessary contrivance, but I believe it's a key part of what keeps Fire & Blood from being too dull for all but the most devoted fans.

And it's not like the gimmick gets in the way. The maester character doesn't assert his presence on every page, or anything so overt. Mostly, the narrative just flows naturally. It is more compressed than Martin's more traditional novels, but there are many scenes that feel just as engaging, just as easily conjured in the mind's eye, as anything from the Ice and Fire series proper.

That said, the book purports to be examining the entire Targaryen dynasty from the first King Aegon I all the way to the end of the lineage. There are two problems with that. One is simply that some material is simply not compelling enough that it would have been included absent the narrative conceit. There's a reason why most people have heard of Henry V or VIII, or Victoria, or other monarchs whose tales have been told over and over. But unless you're a student of English monarchs, I'm guessing you've never heard of Cnut? Or Eadwig? My point is, not all of the content in Fire & Blood is as exciting as the chunk seized upon to create House of the Dragon.

And the second issue is that at the conclusion of this 700-page doorstop of a novel, Martin has still not told the complete Targaryen history. In terms of number of years, he's actually a bit less than halfway; so if indeed he ever means to complete this story, he has at least one more volume to write, and maybe two. So yes, you've got that right: George R.R. Martin set aside his epic unfinished series to take up another project and not finish it. If you choose not to reward this behavior by buying the book, I can't say I blame you.

But if George R.R. Martin is not "dead to you," then I have to say that Fire & Blood is at times a quite fun read. It cannot compare favorably to the imagined book we all wished we'd gotten, the sequel to A Dance With Dragons that begins working toward a conclusion we all find more satisfying than the one given to us by the television adaptation. But this book is here, and can actually be read, and I'd give it a B overall.

Fine Fellow

I've noted before that "bingeing" isn't really part of my television diet; I tend to watch a series "one episode a week" (at best), which often leaves me behind the pop culture curve. But there are some series I'd wager no one binge-watches, owing to the heavy themes at play that all but demand the viewer takes a break between installments. I recently finished a mini-series like that, Fellow Travelers.

Based on the novel by Thomas Mallon, Fellow Travelers is the decades-spanning, complicated romance story of Hawkins Fuller and Timothy Laughlin. The two men meet in Washington D.C. in the 1950s, a time and place where staying carefully in the closet is a matter of survival. We get that stage of their lives alternating with flash-forwards to the 1980s, when Tim is dying of AIDS and Hawkins flies across the country (and away from his wife and family) to see him. Over the course of eight episodes, both stories move in parallel, along with (ultimately) glimpses of the couple's separations and reunions throughout the 60s and 70s.

Make no mistake, Fellow Travelers is a "hard watch." This is a story about how poorly this world treated gays and lesbians, and even how poorly this led them to treat each other. There's very little uplifting "within the text"; you have to compare the time frame depicted to where things stand now to find any sense of inspiration. Fellow Travelers nonetheless feels like a topical story, in light of the ways that not everyone under the LGBT+ umbrella has been embraced as well.

Along the way, the mini-series makes a number of other potent points. It shows, for example, how it can take only one person in the "right" place to cause real harm: the real-world history of Senator Joseph McCarthy is woven throughout the 1950s story line. It shows how being closed off ("closeted" specifically, yes, but more generally) can lead to behavior both self-destructive and damaging to those around you. It also demonstrates that no amount of fairy tale "meant for each other" can overcome two people not being ready for each other at the same time and place.

Even the subplots of Fellow Travelers are emotionally heavy. The story also tracks another couple, Marcus and Frankie, as they navigate a relationship of their own amidst additional issues of racism,  gender non-conformity, and activism. It follows Lucy, the eventual wife of Hawkins, who gradually comes to understands the true nature of her husband and their relationship. For a time, it even tracks the relationship between two men who work for Senator McCarthy, using their position to "do unto others" as they absolutely would never have "done unto them."

The air of this story is so thick that even the romantic moments, which might be a prurient distraction in many other tragic love stories, aren't especially light. That said, Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey, who star as "Hawk" and Tim, are excellent throughout this series, both individually and as a screen couple. So are Jelani Alladin and Noah J. Ricketts as Marcus and Frankie; and Allison Williams makes the character of Lucy more interesting, I think, than the story itself seems to be interested in her. All five of these actors play their characters believably in four different decades, and garner audience sympathy in key moments of the story.

I give Fellow Travelers a B+. It was rarely the show I "wanted" to watch (and never the show I "enjoyed" watching), but I found it powerful and moving, and well worth it.

Two Good

Just when everyone was at last able to see Dune: Part Two... I headed out to Louisville for GAMA Expo 2024, and had no time for blogging. But now, as the sequel heads into its second weekend, I have a moment to put down my thoughts on the film.

I should perhaps start by locating my "Dune fandom" on the map: I've read the original book a couple of times and have enjoyed it well enough -- but I'd say that anyone who would call themselves a "Dune fan" surely feels more passionate about it than I do. It's not really fair to come too hard at a book written in 1965 for feeling "dated," and I would say that Dune has held up better than most classic science fiction from the most heralded authors of the genre.

Still... I think Dune really shows its age. Herbert had themes in mind that the world wasn't quite ready for in 1965, taking a dim view of religious zealotry and highlighting the dark sides of colonialism. But at the same time, he could only "reach toward" some of his own themes more than he could fully "grapple with" them. Most keenly, he was ahead of the curve enough to question the "white savior" archetype... but hardly gives it a full-throated rejection in his original book.

All that is a perhaps too-long walk leading up to this: given what the underlying themes of Dune really are, I don't think you could tell the story of Dune any better than director Denis Villeneuve and his co-writer Jon Spaihts have done here in Dune: Part Two. This adaptation changes a fair amount -- though I've been pleasantly surprised to hear fewer complaints from "book purists" than I would have imagined. The changes are all in service of sharpening the core of the story.

The central themes of religion and colonialism are heightened in this adaptation, and while the character of Paul (of many names) is still the conventional protagonist, it's really almost more "Chani's movie." The character, rather underdeveloped in the books (if you ask me), is given so much more material in Dune: Part Two (more than making up for her minimal appearance in Part One), and Zendaya really rises to the occasion.

She can't quite steal the movie, thanks to the other great stuff going on. Javier Bardem's version of Stilgar delighted me, a spot-on portrayal of unthinking zealotry that's utterly impervious to reason. Rebecca Ferguson has somewhat less to do here than in Part One, but what she has is excellent: not only does she negotiate this adaptation's take on Alia (very clever) without seeming mad, she leans into the character's dark side most effectively. The Jessica of Dune: Part Two strikes me as almost being a villain in how manipulative she is -- and her aspirations for her son come off as equally self-serving.

The production design remains incredible, which could almost go overlooked because so much of the look and feel of this was established in the prior Dune movie. Still: Paul's worm-riding sequence could have looked so dopey (it's such a far out concept), yet it felt visceral and dangerous and powerful. Much has been said about the infrared photography used for the outdoor scenes on Giedi Prime... but much should be said, because the look was striking. New costumes for new characters, new sets -- all top notch work. (It always annoys me when movies like this lose production design Oscars to period pieces where the design team was able to simply do historical research to create their looks. Everything here is invented, and it's cohesive and perfect.)

I will say that even at two hours and 45 minutes (which don't feel overly long), the movie still doesn't have enough space for all its characters. This is another "unadaptable" part of Herbert's book, and while this adaptation does remove both Hasimir Fenring and Thufir Hawat, and reworks Alia into something that will play on-screen better than a murderous "toddler adult," it still has more characters than can be serviced well. You don't really need a name as big as Christopher Walken to play an Emperor with this little presence in the story. And while Margot Fenring made it into the movie where her husband did not, it hardly felt like her brief story arc contributed much to this story (as opposed to laying track for later ones). Still, Villeneuve and Spaihts strayed farther from the source material than I would have imagined, and I'd rather give them credit for what they did do than quibble with still deeper changes they didn't.

I gave Dune: Part One a B+, and this movie is undeniably better. So I'll call Dune: Part Two an A-. It excited me to see still more of the story in a way that the books themselves never really did. And judging by the box office, it seems like we all will get to.

Defiant to the End

I've finally finished my first series written by Brandon Sanderson: I recently completed Defiant, the fourth and final book of the Skyward series. This concludes the saga of Spensa, the brash young warrior who flies space fighters against her people's powerful alien adversaries. (Ok, there's way more too it than that, but I'm not going to spoil four novels and three novellas' worth of plot here, even if I could find a way to do so succinctly.)

Sanderson is best known, of course, for his fantasy writing -- not science fiction, as this series is. But I've stalled in finishing his original Mistborn trilogy after what I thought was a lackluster book two. So this was my first exposure to one of his endings -- endings being arguably the other thing he's best known for (having completed many series of his own, as well as Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time). Did Sanderson have what it took to stick the landing?

Mostly, yes. From a story perspective, I was more than satisfied. The Skyward series has more than a dozen notable characters, and that's more than I'd expect to receive a "great" ending. But the story wraps up well for the main character, Spensa; the most important secondary characters also conclude satisfying arcs; most of the tertiary characters get a potent moment in this final installment. (And in a deft bit of narrative construction, the story does very much end while still leaving the door open for future stories of a different nature -- and it's already been announced that Sanderson's co-author on the Skyward novellas will be taking that up.)

But I had some reservations about the writing of this final book. Every part of the Skyward series so far has been told in the first person. The fact that you only get Spensa's perspective on things plays a crucial role in how the story is received by the reader. It's also part of what made the three novellas (in my view) essential reading in the overall narrative: when Spensa is separated from the rest of the characters for the bulk of books two and three, it falls to the novellas to chronicle what's happening in her absence. (And notably, even the novellas maintain a first-person conceit, each of the three being told from a different single character's perspective.)

This final book starts out from Spensa's perspective just as all the other main books have done. But just as the final act begins, about two-thirds of the way through the book, that convention is compromised. About half the chapters continue to be "first-person Spensa," but the other half are told third-person, focusing on different characters. Some of these aren't even the characters who were featured in the novellas. One, most jarringly, is the antagonist of the story -- why, this late in the game, do we need to know this person's inner thoughts?

The answer would seem to be purely practical: there's too much happening at the end of this story that the main character cannot personally be present for, and so it's difficult to deliver a satisfying ending without breaking the first-person convention. And yes, I want that satisfying ending, and so I suppose I ultimately have to agree with breaking the established "rules" in order to provide one. At the same time, this feels like trying to have your cake and eat it too. There are reasons a writer chooses to tell a story in the first person, and there are consequences of that choice that you have to accept and work around. Sanderson did that for three-and-two-thirds books... and then just gave up at the finish line. Did he always know this was the general ending he was working toward, and just never cared? Did he just need to get on to his next book, and didn't want to make time to try for some other ending? (I guess I can respect the choice not to become a George R. R. Martin, Scott Lynch, or Patrick Rothfuss.)

Most readers might not even care about this sort of thing, and might say I'm just nitpicking here. "Rules are made to be broken," some say. But I would say that when it comes to writing, rules are made to be ignored. There are countless "rules" of storytelling, and a writer is welcome to curate their own collection of which ones to embrace and which ones to abandon. But I feel like once you choose your toolbox, you really have to earn the decision to abandon it later. Defiant is a good enough ending to the Skyward series. But I think it's not that good.

I give Defiant a B. (Like I said, "good enough.") I think the series as a whole is worth reading (with or without the novellas, though my recommendation would be "with"). At the same time, this wasn't really the stellar experience I might have needed to nudge me into finishing book three of Mistborn -- that's going to take some more time.

Ocean (Re)view

It's been quite some time since I last read a book by Neil Gaiman, and concluded that while I was deeply impressed with his writing, I was not as swept up in his storytelling. Since then, I've watched Sandman and Good Omens both, and gradually came to feel that indeed, I would try another Gaiman book at some point. I finally wound up doing that with The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

When a man returns to his childhood hometown, he begins to remember fantastical, extraordinary events from his youth: the time a dark supernatural creature gained access to the real world, and the strange neighbors next door helped protect him.

Though first published in 2013, The Ocean at the End of the Lane has enjoyed renewed attention in recent years thanks to a stage adaptation that has enjoyed multiple limited runs in the U.K. It's a sensible choice to adapt into a play; assuming you can figure out how to portray some of the more fantastical elements live before an audience, the story itself is quite tight. The book is almost more novella than novel, one of the quicker reads I've undertaken in some time.

For me, it reinforced everything I felt about reading American Gods. I am deeply impressed by Gaiman's way with words. I tend to like plot-driven books, and so long as the language is sufficiently descriptive, I don't usually care if it's especially "poetic." Gaiman is somehow able to craft multiple sentences on every page that make you sit up and take notice... while still having them feel natural and not overly fussed over. It's heightened without being precious, clever without seeming false.

But also... I didn't get half as caught up in the story as I did in the language. Even as a slim novella, there were times The Ocean at the End of the Lane felt a bit "stretched too far" to me, like a bedtime story that rightfully should have taken one bedtime expanded to a week of them. Certain elements felt strange to me, from the protagonist being nameless, to the flashback structure that didn't seem to be adding much in my eyes. The story wasn't bad, but it just wasn't nearly as engaging as the clever turns of phrase throughout.

I'd give The Ocean at the End of the Lane a B. I'm glad to have read it, but I'm not sure I'll be rushing for another Gaiman book any time soon. It's simply a bit outside my own personal tastes -- something other readers may well love a great deal, but for me best left as an occasional diversion.

Devil's Bargain?

It's been a year-and-a-half since season three of The Orville wrapped up, and while the show hasn't officially been cancelled, the actors have all been released from their contracts and creator Seth MacFarlane has been focusing on other projects. To me, it feels likely that we've seen the last Orville episodes that will ever be made.

But we haven't heard the last. An audiobook novella has been released, narrated by recurring Orville guest star Bruce Boxleitner, called Sympathy for the Devil. It's essentially an episode of the show in another format, set specifically between two late season three episodes. Through a fascinating sci-fi conceit, the ship encounters an actual Nazi from the World War II era, actually bent on the extermination of Jewish people. But there's more to the situation than there appears to be on the surface, and it's quite unclear what the "right thing to do" is when futuristic ideals clash with archaic hatred.

How this audiobook came to exist is itself an interesting story. This was an intended 11th episode of season 3 (between the existing episodes 8 and 9), written by Seth MacFarlane himself and slated for production like all the rest. But the filming of season 3 was interrupted for nearly a full year at the onset of the Covid pandemic, and when it resumed fully in 2021, things had changed radically for this episode. Because of the World War II subject matter, the original concept had been to actually film on location in Europe for fully half of the episode. And even had the production been willing to compromise on that point and film on a set, the scenes called for an extensive guest cast... more people than the Covid monitoring protocols could effectively keep safe. It simply wasn't possible to make the episode as written; and rather than re-write it, they simply scrapped it.

So instead, Seth MacFarlane took his existing script, reframed it with more conventional prose, and came up with a three-hour novella. That's "Sympathy for the Devil," and it is an oddball episode. MacFarlane himself acknowledged that had it been made as intended, it was always going to be "experimental."

That's because -- minor spoiler warning here -- the full first half of it takes place in the 1900s, following one particular boy as he grows into a man who becomes commandant of a concentration camp. There's no indication this is actually an episode of The Orville, no science fiction at all, until an uncomfortably long time into the story. You're made to sit with the life story of a Nazi, which is very much the point.

In many ways, this is the purest form of The Orville, whose mission (as a show) was to be the purest form of Star Trek. Since there have been five new Star Trek shows in about as many years, since Star Trek shows are actually being cancelled now to make room for more new Star Trek shows... it's hard to remember that when The Orville was first conceived, it was essentially to give us a Star Trek show in a long drought of there being no Star Trek on television. And for a while, The Orville still had a niche to fill, as the show that was just giving us episodic morality plays in the mode of classic Star Trek and The Next Generation. And then, even after Strange New Worlds came along to do that same thing, The Orville was doing so earnestly enough, at a high enough level of quality, that you could imagine there was room for both shows. (Especially when each was only making 10 episodes a season.)

Anyway, Sympathy for the Devil is the most classic elevator pitch for a Star Trek episode you could imagine: "our heroes meet an actual Nazi." It's so classic that more than one Star Trek series actually did it. But none did it quite like this episode of The Orville -- and, surprisingly, none with as effective a moral dilemma at the heart of the story. Sympathy for the Devil is actually a really compelling episode of the series, and it would have been great to see it made in the normal way.

But this presentation of it here is tremendously compromised. For one thing, MacFarlane's writing to flesh it out in conventional prose (essentially -- the flowery ways in which he replaced the script's stage directions) is pretty rough at times. For another, the pacing is much harder to take in this format; had this been on television, I'd imagine shifting in my seat a lot wondering why half an hour of an Orville episode was tracking a Nazi in the 1900s, but listening to 90 minutes of that when I thought I'd signed up for a sci-fi audiobook? It's quite strange.

Plus, hanging over it all is the timing of the release. Had this been a late third season episode of the show, then the daring departure from format, combined with the emotional and intellectual heft of the ideas ultimately explored, would have likely made for one of the best (or at least most memorable) episodes of the season. But released later, it's an odd coda, an epilogue. In fact, it's very likely the last Orville we're ever going to get... and half of it doesn't even feel like an Orville episode. Which, in a way, serves as a frustrating reminder of this nice thing we don't get to keep having.

Overall, I'll give Sympathy for the Devil a B. But as for a recommendation? That's tricky. If you're a Star Trek fan who's never actually watched The Orville, it might actually be easiest to recommend to you -- without other attachments, you'll be able to enjoy this intriguing sci-fi story. If you're an Orville fan trying to decide if it's worth your time? Well, yes, it's worth your time, since it's "more of what you like." But prepare to be a little sad that you can't have even more of what you like.