CJ Moran

The Good Place: A Sitcom About Sitcoms

On October 18, 2017

WARNING: Spoilers, if you have not watched up to the episode of The Good Place that aired on 10/12/17.

We could be doing things differently.

We live in the golden age of television. Critics and viewers alike flock to ambitious, serialized dramas like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Lost, Stranger Things, etc. These shows have garnered the combination of enough praise and/or ratings to compete with more conventional dramas. The golden age of television hasn’t been as kind to sitcoms. Though ambitious, serialized shows like Arrested Development, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, and Community received critical praise and cult followings, they struggled with ratings and faced the threat of cancellation multiple times.

The Good Place is another one of these ambitious, serialized sitcoms. It’s an amalgam of philosophy, heart, wackiness, food-based puns, disturbing clown paintings, and phenomenal acting and writing that’s just plain awesome. Season two makes it increasingly clear that the show is also a deconstruction of sitcoms.

Review: The Land Across

By CJ Moran

On October 18, 2017

In All Posts, Book Reviews, Fantasy, Fantasy Reviews

Verdict: A must read

The Land Across by Gene Wolfe is narrated by an oddly passive young American who decides to write the first-ever travel guide for an unnamed European nation with a reputation for detaining foreign visitors. The narrator is arrested, has his passport confiscated, and is imprisoned. Out on day release, he encounters a haunted house and a mysterious man in black before being kidnapped to broadcast anti-government sentiment, and imprisoned again. He is released, and finds himself immersed in a conflict between disturbing supernatural forces and an authoritarian dictatorship. On the surface, The Land Across seems disjointed, bulging at the seams with everything from Vlad the Impaler to a charismatic dictator. Underneath, it is a searing political and provocative indictment of ignorance.

Review: The Rithmatist

By CJ Moran

On October 10, 2017

In All Posts, Book Reviews, Fantasy, Fantasy Reviews, Young Adult Reviews

Verdict: Recommended

The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson is set in an alternate, gearpunk imagining of the United States, where people with the ability to work magic through chalk drawings fight against wild chalklings—chalk creatures that kill humans. The story follows Joel, teenaged son of a cleaning lady, who does not possess the magical ability, called Rithmatics. That he was not chosen to receive the gift of Rithmatics is a sore spot for Joel, yet he manages to land an independent study at his school with a kindly Rithmatics professor, Fitch. After the mysterious disappearances of young Rithmatists, Fitch has Joel and his other student, Melody, help him unravel the case.

What’s the Point of Fantasy and Sci-Fi?

By CJ Moran

On October 10, 2017

In All Posts, Brain Soup, Fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien, PKD, Science Fiction

You hear this sentiment from literature lovers all the time, but not in so many words. They’re the ones who have read every modernist and post-modernist classic, though maybe they are lying about finishing Infinite Jest. When I tell them I read fantasy and sci-fi, they respond with an ominous “oh,” and that look, half distain and half dismay. Everyone knows, fantasy and sci-fi aren’t real literature, but poor pulpy substitutes.