Matt

Some of my favorite books ever are the ones I know the least about heading into them.  With most media I like to know what I'm getting into, but recently I've had a lot of fun with books where I find out about them just from a social media post or a friend telling me they're great with no follow-up.  I found out about Project Hail Mary from the former as one day I was browsing Reddit and saw a post with the title ‘Project Hail Mary took me to the stars'.  Knowing nothing about the book besides the fact that someone said it took them to the stars, I decided to try it out.  Project Hail Mary continues the trend of me having great experiences with books I know almost nothing about prior to reading the first page.    Project Hail Mary is in many ways your classic space-exploration novel.  It focuses on one character (Dr. Grace) who wakes up and is trapped on a space shuttle with amnesia.  As with most modern sci-fi, there's a lot of snark (which I have heard is characteristic of Weir's writing).  The areas where the novel is stereotypical are good for what they are, but there are two areas where the novel really separates itself.    The first is in how the amnesia is dealt with.  As the novel goes on, Dr. Grace continues to recover pieces of his memory.  The pieces of memory he recovers also serves as exposition to the reader.  This feels a bit forced at times but I am overall a fan of it as it nicely breaks up the book into two separate ‘timelines' in ‘past' and ‘present', allowing neither section to get too monotonous.  Where this device works extremely well is near the end of the book.  Throughout Project Hail Mary, Dr. Grace has assumed that he volunteered to go on a suicide mission to save Earth.  He has thought of himself as a hero for this choice and this ego boost has carried him through some of the more difficult events that occur during his journey.  But in one of the last flashback/'past' sections, we (both the reader and Dr. Grace himself) find out that he was forced onto the mission against his will and that he was given medicine that would purposefully induce memory loss in order to ensure his cooperation on the ship.  It's a gut punch that functions well as both an emotional beat as well as explanation for why he had amnesia in the first place.  I do wish there was a bit more emotional payoff to the reveal that he was a coward instead of a hero but I can overlook that considering how great the moment itself is.   The second area the novel really stands out is in the main non-Dr. Grace character in the ‘present' sections of the novel.  At first, Dr. Grace is alone in space but around one-fifth of the way through the book his ship encounters another one.  This ship turns out to be inhabited by an alien that Dr. Grace names Rocky.  I cannot put into words how much I love Rocky.  Even though Dr. Grace describes him in ways that make him sound like a monster (he's a five-legged pentagonal spider covered in a jagged metal exoskeleton) Rocky is an absolute delight to read.  The friendship that develops between Dr. Grace and Rocky, two creatures who are just trying to save their species, is heartwarming and far and away the best part of the book.  I was so worried that Rocky was evil the entire time and while that may have made the book more dramatic, I like Weir's decision to keep the relationship as a wholly positive thing for both of them.  This book made me fall in love with a creepy space spider and I couldn't be happier for it.    Project Hail Mary does so many other different things greatly as well.  The characters we meet in Dr. Grace's flashback sequences are all reasonably well-developed, seeing Dr. Grace finagle his way out of seemingly impossible situations is really fun and the science itself is really solid.  Weir covers all his bases to make this novel a well-rounded piece of literature    After finishing the book I decided to check out the Reddit post that inspired me to read it.  As expected, I saw a lot of praise but I also saw a decent amount of comments disagreeing with the original poster.  A lot of the criticism focused on the abundance of sassy jabs between the characters in the flashback sequences, the amount of suspension of disbelief required throughout and the science being kind of hand-wavy at certain point.  After reading that criticism I can see why someone would have a problem with these points... but I don't care.  Project Hail Mary isn't perfect, but it made me have so much fun that I could easily overlook its flaws and just let myself enjoy the ride.  That is a feeling I crave in any sci-fi or fantasy book and it's why I continuously go back to these genres.  Project Hail Mary took me to the stars too, and I'm not sure I want to come back down.   

 This is my first Agatha Christie novel and to say I had fun with it is an understatement.  It's really hard to talk about this book without spoilers but I will say that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a very well-constructed murder mystery that left me guessing up until the last moment.  Part of why it's fun is that the characters are all really interesting and suspicious in their own way.  You can see why anyone could be Roger Ackroyd's murderer and each piece of detail and dialogue leaves you thinking.  I am a lifelong consumer of fictional murder mystery media and part of the fun of consuming this type of content is figuring out why the creator would include certain details.  Christie is a master at this.  She leaves so many little nuggets of information sprinkled throughout the book that the reader has to decide which are relevant and which aren't.  As a result, I felt like I was playing along with the characters in the book.  While they were trying to figure out who the murderer was, I was trying to figure out what Christie was doing.  And yet I will admit that I was totally fooled.  The best mysteries are the ones in which you as a consumer feel like you got outsmarted by the creator in an honest way and Christie certainly got the better of me.  Every clue was laid out for me to piece the puzzle together but I didn't.  Well done Agatha, this is a classic for a reason.
 

 After reading (and really enjoying) Jeff Pearlman's book Showtime I was told to pick up Three-Ring Circus.  Three-Ring Circus functions as a pseudo-sequel to Showtime.  While Showtime chronicles the joyous 1980s Los Angeles Lakers and their 5 titles, Three-Ring Circus covers the 1996-2004 Lakers, who won 3 titles of their own but in a far less exuberant fashion.  I knew about both of these times prior to reading Pearlman's respective books, so I was interested to see what would happen when he tackled a team whose mythology is far less celebrated.    As it turns out, Three-Ring Circus is still really good, if not quite as strong as its predecessor.  A number of the qualities that made Showtime such an excellent basketball book are present here as well.  Pearlman once again clearly researched his ass off to make this book.  There is no shortage of great quotes sprinkled throughout the book from just about everyone relevant to these Lakers.  Before starting this book, I had no opinion on Rick Fox, but now I know he's super smart and very insightful.  Pearlman is great at making figures like Fox memorable, and it's what makes his books so strong, both as historical documents and enjoyable reading experiences.  While Pearlman's books are very densely packed with information, he puts in enough style and humor that they don't feel like chores to get through by any stretch of the imagination.    One thing I want to commend Pearlman on in this book specifically is the tone.  While Showtime is a mostly happy ride exploring the nooks and crannies of one of the NBA's most beloved teams, Three-Ring Circus leaves little room for joy (the covers of the books show their respective tones well, with Showtime's featuring most of its figures in states of joy, while Three-Ring Circus has Shaq, Phil Jackson and Kobe making serious faces).  Even when these Lakers are doing well, it's clear that they are only one second away from a complete meltdown.  These Lakers were absolutely brilliant on the court but off the court they were a hot mess featuring a bunch of egos that could never truly co-exist.  There are no heroes in Three-Ring Circus.  Everyone seems to have some level of regret and frustration, and showing the remaining contempt in full detail is one of the book's great accomplishments.    With all that said, the book's handling of Kobe is the one thing that brings it a level below Showtime.  Coming into this book the one thing I knew about it was that Pearlman went too hard on Kobe.  That's not my problem with it.  Yes it is true that Kobe gets a ton of shit throughout this book from pretty much every person interviewed.  If this book has a villain it is undoubtedly him.  My problem is that in his villainy, Kobe... isn't interesting and is the least fleshed-out major character in either book.  Every now and then we hear something about how Kobe was socially awkward or something along those lines to draw a bit of sympathy but it's completely drowned out by passage after passage (some seemingly written by Pearlman alone with no outside insight) about how much of a selfish douchebag he was.  What's especially weird about this decision to make Kobe some two-dimensional asshole is that the book shies away from that portrayal at the end while Kobe is dealing with his rape charge.  If there's any time to make Kobe look bad, it's during that time, and yet that is Kobe appears to be the least-hatable.  I don't have a problem with making Kobe the antagonist to Shaq's protagonist.  I don't have a problem with printing dozens of negative comments about Kobe's demeanor and playstyle.  I don't even have a problem with portraying Kobe's 2004 season in a manner that isn't totally anti-Kobe.  But there needs to be something to connect all of these sections.  As it stands, the lack of depth in Kobe's portrayal for the majority of the book makes it slightly worse than it otherwise could have been.    Despite everything I said in that last paragraph I'm still a huge fan of Three-Ring Circus and think that every basketball fan should read it.  I will absolutely check out more of Pearlman's sports books in the future. 

 This is a very short (a little over 100 pages) novella that functions as a capstone to N.K. Jemisin's ‘Inheritance' trilogy.  Jemisin is someone who specializes in grand themes and huge plots and I wasn't sure how that style would translate to a novella but I was pleasantly surprised here.  Jemisin's creativity once again shines here as she weaves a tale about Shill, a godling meant to replace Sieh from the trilogy proper.  As it turns out, Shill is not Sieh, and a decent amount of the book is spent with her internal conflict regarding that.  Ultimately, this is a story about choices and expectations and I think Jemisin does a really solid job exploring those themes in such a short space.  It's a really fun, quick read that I would recommend to anyone who liked the three books in the main ‘Inheritance' trilogy. 

I wanted to like this book so badly. This is the 10th Leigh Bardugo book I’ve read. Before reading this she was batting a perfect 1.000 for me. Of the nine books I had read by her previously I would say that I enjoyed every single one. What’s even crazier is that I felt like she had been getting better. Her two most recent books (Ninth House and Hell Bent) were my two favorites. To top it off, it’s a historical fantasy book set in the time of the Spanish Inquisition, which is a really interesting time period and one rife to do fun things with from a fantasy writer’s perspective. To say that I went into The Familiar with high expectations would be an understatement. I didn’t just think that I would like it. I felt like I already knew that I would like it.

And yet I didn’t. I waited for the moment for the book to click for me and it never did. I don’t think The Familiar is totally irredeemable. Bardugo clearly did a ton of research into the setting, there are some really cool set pieces and some of the supporting characters are really cool. There are really only a couple of criticisms that I can make about the book. Unfortunately they are pretty big mistakes.

The first is that I just don’t find the main characters to be interesting at all. Here I’m mostly talking about Luzia and Santangel, who are easily the most prominent characters in the book. I just can’t bring myself to care about them, which is a really big problem because the book really needs you to be emotionally invested in them and their love story. Luzia is just boring and when she’s not boring she’s antagonistic to the point that it makes it hard to root for her. Santangel is a cardboard cutout of ‘edgy male love interest’ to the point that I could believe he was a character in a Twilight knockoff. When you have a romance between these two characters and have that be one of the biggest storylines of your book, the book isn’t going to be good. A novel can survive having boring or unlikable side characters. But even the best worldbuilding, supporting characters and pacing cannot save a book in which the two main characters just aren’t compelling. What’s so strange about this criticism is that I know for a fact that Bardugo can write characters like this extremely well. Alex from Ninth House and Hell Bent shares plenty of similarities with Luzia on paper but she’s actually great and is a huge part of what makes those books so good. Nikolai from the Grishaverse has some stuff in common with Santangel but he was easily compelling enough to carry a duology by himself. If a writer who I didn’t have as much faith in wrote these characters I’d be more forgiving but once again I know that Bardugo can do better than this and that’s what makes this criticism so frustrating.

While most of what I dislike about the book comes down to the fact that I just don’t care about Luzia and Santangel, it also has to be mentioned that this book has some weird pacing issues. I feel like it’s way too long and yet somehow feels rushed at various points as well. There is a lot of stuff going on throughout this book and I feel like a few sections or subplots could easily be taken out and make the book better.

For an NBA player, shooting 90% from the free throw line is exceptional. 90% gets you at least an A- in most classes. For a writer, having 90% of your bibliography be amazing is very worthy of praise. I still like Bardugo and consider her to be one of my favorite authors today. But this book is a notable miss for her.