One Sentence Media Reviews
This old classic hardly needs a review, I’ll just say on my second time through that it is impeccable and deep, and left me unsatisfied and antsy (as I think it was intended to).
Impeccably written and edited and researched, this approachable history of the famous Chinese telecom takes 2/3rds of its length to get interesting, but pays off mightily with a very nuanced and deep understanding of this important geopolitical situation.
I love this strange, poetic book because I'm a linguistics nerd and this is a linguistic nerd's idea of heaven, but also I must warn that it's pretty roughly written.
I guess I read this years ago after I last watched the Wire but anyway if you watch the Wire you ought to read Snoop’s autobiography, it’s short and heartfelt and raw and it’s fun to imagine the her character from the Wire reading the book to you, evidently she basically just plays herself.
Having just torn thru all three books in this fantasy story, I can say that I’m really glad I did - I’ve never read a genre book before that so expertly eschewed the hero’s journey archetype, all while retaining great entertainment value and emotional impact, and without seeming forced.
I don’t play many video games so take this with a grain of salt, but this creative and cutesy platformer had a bunch of neat puzzles and mechanics, and while certain segments seemed unnecessarily challenging, others were a lot of fun and the art design was consistently gorgeous.
A straightforward and solid entry in the Vorkosigan series - mostly lighthearted but full of action, builds nicely on the many books before it.
Powerful, engaging drama detailing the setup and coverup around the famous nuclear disaster, well-acted but I wish it had original russian dialogue instead of english with british accents.
Bujold brings back some of the darkness and sadness that so enticed me originally in this recently-written Vorkosigan Saga entry, but marries that darkness to the light comedic stylings that define the majority of the saga, resulting in a quick, fun, exciting, and unique entry.
Tremendous, brilliant masterpiece, but deeply harsh, made harsher by contrast with its many comedic moments.
After this my third watch of the entire David Simon classic, all I can really add is that it really rewards multiple viewings, as the depth and complexity of its characters unfurls like a flower.
I haven’t read a book about a video game in a while, and picked this up more for Watts completionism than anything else, and while I guess he does elevate the material to some degree, it’s pretty boring and two dimensional, consisting mostly of running and explosions and not a ton else.
I just can’t read this much about Iowa.
This entry deep in Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga manages to interleave some extremely piercing insights on self-esteem and love with some very fun romcom hijinks, without ever getting annoyingly cheesy - one of her best works.
It’s gotta be hard to write a history book about a CIA officer, since the available research is so lacking, and it really shows - this history of Robert Ames is overly vague and scantily sourced, and can’t decide if it’s a broad overview of the Lebanese civil war or a biography of this one spy’s life or some weird mix of the two.
the first half of this season tells a rushed but lovely action story similar to (but not quite as brilliant as) season 1, and could have been great as a full season arc, but then instead the second half is entirely a bridge to rogue one and that’s it and it’s less wonderful (altho fun if you liked rogue one).