I’m never quite sure whether to regret that Joan Didion stopped producing new work before the rise of Donald Trump. It would be easy to say that in times like these the need for her incisive insight is greater than ever, but I don’t know that that’s true. When things get terrible, it’s obvious thatContinue reading “Book Notes: Pre-Posthumous Joan Didion”
Author Archives: Brendan Moody
Book Notes: The Angel of the Crows
This morning I finished Sarah Monette’s latest novel, the second published under the pseudonym Katherine Addison. I still haven’t read the first, The Goblin Emperor, but I’m a great admirer of the The Doctrine of Labyrinths, an epic fantasy series published under her own name that’s as much about the mental traumas of its half-brotherContinue reading “Book Notes: The Angel of the Crows”
Unliving History
If science fiction is as much about the present as the future, then alternate history is as much about the actual past as the imagined one. That Curtis Sittenfeld’s latest novel, Rodham, is alternate history as wish fulfillment (or, to echo Laura Miller, as fan fiction) is both more obvious and less interesting than justContinue reading “Unliving History”
Big Finish in Brief: Torchwood Soho and Blood on Santa’s Claw
One of the ways Big Finish has worked around availability issues with the main cast of TV Torchwood is by elaborating on the Institute’s history, from its founding by Queen Victoria to an American outpost in the 1970s to the last hurrah of Torchwood One under Yvonne Hartman. Perhaps the most prominent addition, though, isContinue reading “Big Finish in Brief: Torchwood Soho and Blood on Santa’s Claw”
Nobody Knows Anything
I never watch the party conventions. I don’t pay attention to political speeches even when they’re of potential historical significance (my high school American history teacher frowned at us when no one in the class had watched Bush’s speech announcing the Iraq War, but I was and am unrepentant), so I’m certainly not going toContinue reading “Nobody Knows Anything”
Running Away from the Consequences
[This review reveals more about something that happens near the end of the story Thin Time than I would like. I’ve been as vague as I can, but it’s something that’s impossible to discuss at all without making it easy to guess some of the specifics.] Part of the effect of the coronavirus pandemic onContinue reading “Running Away from the Consequences”
Book Notes: Alan Bradley and Roz Chast
It was a productive weekend for reading; in addition to the Margaret Oliphant and Robert Shearman books I wrote about yesterday, I also finished Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is the firstContinue reading “Book Notes: Alan Bradley and Roz Chast”
Book Notes: Robert Shearman and Margaret Oliphant
This weekend I finished reading Margaret Oliphant’s Miss Marjoribanks and Robert Shearman’s We All Hear Stories in the Dark. I bought Miss Marjoribanks on a whim after reading Tom Crewe’s recent article about it in the London Review of Books. I’d heard of Oliphant before as a writer of ghost stories, but I was utterlyContinue reading “Book Notes: Robert Shearman and Margaret Oliphant”
A Roman Question
Season 19 of Doctor Who returned to a dynamic not seen since the show’s early days, when there were often not one or two companions traveling alongside the Doctor, but three. This second “crowded TARDIS” era didn’t last long before Adric was killed off in “Earthshock,” though it would briefly return the following season betweenContinue reading “A Roman Question”
What Did You Do in the War, Granddaddy?
One of the quirks of Big Finish’s recent Doctor Who output is that they’ve made up for their limited or non-existent access to new series cast members by building series around whatever recurring or guest characters happen to be available. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that approach, though when carried to extremes (a whole boxContinue reading “What Did You Do in the War, Granddaddy?”
