September 2019 Journal (Patreon)

Doctor Who and the Genesis of the Daleks (Terrance Dicks) - Owned this one for years; only got around to it now in honor of Uncle Terrance. He knew how to string together a novelization - these stories that sometimes dragged on TV fly by on the page. Dicks can write a Terry Nation story better than Nation could. Solid.

Transmetropolitan Vol. 7: Spider's Thrash (Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson) - Some rough stuff in this one - the child prostitution plot is... unpleasant to say the least. The rest is largely strong, descending into a nightmare hellscape of mental illness and political corruption that makes Transmet so readable to this day.

Simulacra and Simulation (Jean Baudrillard) - My introduction to hard postmodernists. I think Baudrillard has it wrong, treating the simulation as a force towering above the ruling class rather than a tool of it. Baudrillard is more interested in diagnosing capitalism than resisting it, and it makes the book a rather futile exercise. Add unreadable prose and I was left wondering why I didn't just read Society of the Spectacle again.

The Spirit of Terrorism (Jean Baudrillard) - Slightly better than S&S. Requiem for the Twin Towers is a fine work of psychogeography, and Baudrillard is more willing to take imperialism to task for its crimes this time around. Far from a classic, but a useful read. 

Sheffield Steel: Essays on the Thirteenth Doctor, Volume 1 (Sam Maleski) - Bit weird writing about this one, considering I'm friends with the author. There are plenty of good insights in this (Maleski's observation that Chris Chibnall treats Doctor Who as a function for its own sake rather than an engine for ideas is spot on, as is the entirety of the "Rosa" essay), but they can get buried under unclear prose. Nothing that a good copy editor couldn't fix, but the lack of clarity makes this something of a frustrating read.  

The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government's Secret Drone Warfare Program (Jeremy Scahill and the staff of the Intercept) - I met Scahill at a talk of his last week, so I decided to pick up one of his books. This is an excellent compendium of reporting, laying bare the United States' atrocious exploits in the Middle East and the lie of Barack Obama as a benevolent pacifist. Best read of the month.