Book Review: The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket

Title: The Penultimate Peril (A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 12)
Author: Lemony Snicket
Illustrator: Brett Helquist
Published: New York: HarperCollins, 2009 (2005)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 350
Total Page Count: 194,270
Text Number: 572
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The Baudelaires go to the Hotel Denouement, the last safe space, there to spy on a gathering of volunteers and villains. For its obsession with denouements, precious little is explained in this book. Old characters reappear, and ongoing themes of moral complexity continue—and while it's interesting to revisit characters with new expectations, and while the siblings's character growth here is especially poignant, this merely reiterates previous books. Meanwhile, there's only one significant revelation and no denouement in sight. As impressed as I've been by the larger narrative in the second half of this series, it's come to feel stretched thin by the 13-book gimmick. I hope the final book is better!

Book Review: Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

Title: Ancillary Mercy (Imperial Radch #3)
Author: Ann Leckie
Published: New York: Orbit, 2015
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 330
Total Page Count: 194,600
Text Number: 573
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Breq's efforts to reestablish Athoek Station are complicated by the Presger, a peculiar Ship, and Anaander's ongoing war. This is phenomenal, a reaction which is cumulative, based more on three books's worth of investment rather than this single novel. But the series as a whole deserves that praise, and this is a cumulative book both emotionally and thematically. Watching the unlikely cast and Breq's unique point of view evolve continues to be a singular pleasure—a pleasure that this finale emphatically indulges. The ending isn't particularly complex or unexpected, but follows the series's tradition by extending speculative themes and complex worldbuilding to a brilliant, inevitable resolution. What a fantastic series, and such a strong way to end it. I can't wait to do a reread someday.


I am haunted by unwritten reviews for books I read in March.

Book Review: Alex + Ada by Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn

Title: Alex + Ada Volume 1 (Issues #1-5)
Author and Illustrator: Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn
Published: Berkeley: Image Comics, 2015
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 130
Total Page Count: 194,730
Text Number: 574
Read Because: interested in the trope, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: When given an top of the line android, Alex names her Ada and is drawn into the underworld of android sentience. This first third of the story spends most of it time on worldbuilding; character development and interactions are limited as a result, and perhaps that's for the best as Ada is a non-character for most of this volume. The worldbuilding is what one would expect from the premise, the art is beyond bland, but the underlying concepts are interesting—especially the localized, personal focus on the creation of and interaction with sentience.


Title: Alex + Ada Volume 2 (Issues #6-10)
Author and Illustrator: Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn
Published: Berkeley: Image Comics, 2015
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 130
Total Page Count: 194,860
Text Number: 575
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: An android's awakened sentience makes for a complicated relationship with her former owner. This continues to be surface-level good: it engages promising tropes and is nicely human—especially Ada's curiosity and burgeoning sense of self. I'm a sucker for sentient android narratives, and while this brings nothing new to the table it still satisfies those desires. But the interpersonal narrative is predictable and uninspired, and its heteronormativity is all the more disappointing for the diversity hinted at by background characters.


Title: Alex + Ada Volume 3 (Issues #11-15)
Author and Illustrator: Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn
Published: Berkeley: Image Comics, 2015
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 135
Total Page Count: 194,995
Text Number: 576
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Alex and Ada are thrust into a political battle over android rights. I appreciate the scope of this conclusion, but otherwise it continues as it began: engaging tropes with unimaginative exploration. I wish this series had more creative worldbuilding, exploring AI personality construction and otherwise bringing to the foreground the teasing bits of information that make up the background (a sentient robot shaped like an egg! androids defying human gender conventions! androids switching off parts of their brains!). I also wish that the foreground cast were as diverse as the background characters; a star-crossed straight white cis pairing renders predictable the romance that motivates the story in lieu of interesting worldbuilding. Alex + Ada is consistently readable, and I wanted to love it, but what it does has been done better elsewhere; this is only mediocre, and I don't recommend it.