Lucas Blogs About Books

So, what's this book's deal? You know how rad dinosaurs are, right? Uh, they're only the raddest! This is a book about that. . . well, really about how Dinosaurs evolved in Triassic Period, came to dominate multiple biomes in the Jurassic, and went extinct in the Late Cretaceous. It's written by Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist with a specialty on Theropod dinosaurs, which you may know as the forebears of modern birds (or, more accurately, avian dinosaurs). Rad! Yeah, it's rad. And you know what's really rad?   What's really rad? The fact that advancements in science mean that we know a lot more about dinosaurs now than we did when I was a kid. For example? Well, I should say that advancements in science and recent discoveries mean that paleontologists can say things like, "Dinosaurs had feathers for a long time before birds evolved flight," or "Tyrannosaurs may have possessed chimpanzee-like intelligence." Two thin...

Oh, another inductee to the name much larger than the title on the spine club. So, what's this book's deal? Well, Hypothetical Reader, The City in the Middle of the Night  is Charlie Jane Anders's follow-up to the stellar: All the Birds in the Sky . Oh, right! You fucking loved that book! You're damn right I did! What did you think of this book? It's good. Not as good as All the Birds in the Sky ? Not as good. Although it is also notably, an entirely different genre of speculative fiction. While Birds  was a blend of urban fantasy and near-future sci-fi set in San Francisco, City  has more of a New Wave Science Fiction vibe. It's set on January, a tidally-locked planet whose day and night sides are equally inhospitable to human life, leaving only a narrow band of twilight with a few settlements. It's been a long time since humans first came to January, following an ecological disaster on Earth, and now the technology that's allowed th...

Hey, so the trailer for The Green Knight dropped today, and since the Oddaptations about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight  and Adventure Time  is my most viewed blog, I thought I might engage in some shameless trend surfing. Looks dope. I definitely know what I'm seeing the weekend after F9 . Anyway, the movie is directed by David Lowery, stars Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Barry Keoghan, Ralph Ineson, and Sean Harris. It will be released by A24 on May 29, 2020.

I'm not sure if you can see it from here, but Sunny looks pretty cool with sunglasses. Happy 13th of the month, readers (both hypothetical and otherwise)! You know what that means: it's time for me to revisit another entry in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events! Sticking with that intro? Yes. All right. SPOILERS  ahoy! So, in our last outing you declared that The Grim Grotto  was pretty good because it sidelined the villains and brought back a sense of narrative momentum. Yes, but Lemony Snicket's author-ly tics were still starting to rub me the wrong way. Fair enough. Anyway, let's jump into: Book the Twelfth: The Penultimate Peril So, what do you remember about this book going in? Well, it involves Kit Snicket, sister of Jacques and Lemony, a pregnant V.F.D. volunteer and former paramour of Count Olaf. Eww, is the baby— His? Almost definitely not, also you don't learn about their previous relationship until the next bo...

Uh-oh, what caused you to deploy the inOpportune cOntent rePlacement proceSs this time? Well, I was gonna finish up this week's post over the weekend, but then I added several hours at work. That's a passable excuse. Also, I've been binging Star Trek Discovery . That's . . . less of a passable excuse. So, how is it? Oh! My! God! Discovery  is so dumb, Hypothetical Reader! So dumb! Then why are you still watching it? Well, you know how you're watching a dumb show and you think, "Well, this can't possibly get any dumber, rigth?" Yeah. Watching Discovery  all I can think is, "I can't wait to see how much dumber this show gets." That doesn't make any sense at all. Nope. It does not. Live long and prosper, HR. P.S. Don't worry, I'll definitely have the penultimate A Year of Unfortunate Events up on Thursday.

All the chapters have these neat semi-medieval looking illustrations by  So, what's this book's deal? Remember that book The Inquisitor's Tale ? Indeed I do. Well, this book is also aimed at teaching kids about medieval history and the role of religion therein. You know kids today just can't get enough medieval history and theology. Anyway, it follows the adventures of the eponymous Boy, a hunchbacked child who loves animals (and is able to conmmunicate with them). Boy is also deeply ashamed of his different body and believes himself to be a monster. He works as a goatherd at the estate of Sir Jacques, a knight who suffered a severe brain injury in a tournament. Anyway, one day a pilgrim named Secundus passes by and asks Boy to help carry his bindle (you'll find out why later). After essentially buying Boy's services from the estate's Cook in exchange for a promise to pray for her at a pilgrim site, Secundus proceeds to treat Boy with nothing...