📚 No Man’s Land by Kirsten Beyer and Mike Johnson

64/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Somehow I missed the bit in the blurb telling me this was a script for an audio play, so that was a bit of a surprise, though not a bad one. Short and quick, this follows Seven and Raffi just after season one of Picard as they deal with saving artifacts and a senile historian from a Romulan…though it’s really more about the first steps of their relationship. Fun to read, and I’m somewhat tempted to find the audio production to see how some of the more visual elements of the script translate.

Me holding No Man’s Land

📚 Failure to Launch: A Tour of Ill-Fated Futures edited by Kel McDonald

62/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Really good anthology of short comics about historical moments, ideas, and efforts that were unsuccessful. I’d forgotten the premise between the time I ordered this one and when it arrived, so it was a peasant surprise to discover it was all non-fiction, and while a couple of the stories I’d heard of before, much of these little tidbits of history were new to me.

Me holding Failure to Launch

📚 Uncanny Magazine Issue 60 edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Michael Damian Thomas, and Michi Trota

61/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This issue’s standouts were “The 6% Squeeze” by Eddie Robson, “A Stranger Knocks” by Tananarive Due, “¡Sangronas! Un Lista de Terror” by M. M. Olivas, and “A Menu of First Favorite Meals” by Jo Miles.

Me holding Uncanny 60 on my iPad

🎥 Murder Mystery 2

Murder Mystery 2 (2023): ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ridiculous and amusing. Adam Sandler always makes my skin crawl, but Jennifer Aniston makes up for it. Ridiculous, over-the-top characters and situations, but kept me laughing, though sometimes it was with and sometimes it was at. Still, it joins a small, very select group of films that star Adam Sandler where I don’t feel like I need to take a shower after watching.

🎥 The Fall Guy

The Fall Guy (2024): ⭐️⭐️

How is this getting at all decent reviews? The worst part is that you can see a fun movie in there, and there is one sequence in particular that stands out because it works, it’s clever, and it’s hilarious. But the rest of the time it drags, is confusing, and just doesn’t work as well as you think it should. At the very least, it needed to be tightened up a lot in the editing room. Mostly an uninteresting, occasionally slightly amusing mess, with one great split-screen scene.

📚 What Fresh Hell is This? Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities, and You by Heather Corinna

59/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

While I wasn’t born with a uterus, roughly half of the people I know and encounter throughout my life were (including my wife, who handed this book to me after she read it), and as most of the ones I’m most familiar with are within a few years of my age (51 as of this moment), this seemed like good info to have. The book is great; very readable and often quite funny, with a wealth of information. I certainly had no idea how much research into menopause has only been done in the past couple decades; I’d guess that even people who think they know what’s up are likely to find something new. This is an excellent, informative, and likely quite validating resource for anyone with a uterus who is approaching or experiencing menopause, who is planning on yeeting their uterus and facing sudden menopause, who never had a uterus but values understanding (as much as possible) what those who do are going through. There’s also a postscript chapter addressing what trans women may expect as they age.

Me holding What Fresh Hell is This?