Invisible Man Ralph Ellison Ralph Ellison 's  Invisible Man  is widely considered to be one of the greatest works of twentieth century American Literature. I, an American, lived 68 years without reading it. But recently I watched a TV show whose hero carries  Invisible Man  around with him (it was  Luke Cage ) and I decided the time had come to tackle it at last. I have read good books for much worse reasons than this. I am not going to say a lot about it, because so many people who know much more have already written so much. I will say, however, that although it is Great Literature, it is, as a novel, not good. The plot is more a series of events than a story. And there is only one real character -- the unnamed narrator. We get a very good sense of who he is and what he's like, but all the other characters are mere cardboard cutouts serving as background to the narrator's story. Indeed, they are, as the narrator eventually realizes himself to be, invisible. It's a goo

Constituent Service: A Third District Story John Scalzi Constituent Service: A Third District Story  by  John Scalzi  is a bit of fluff. It is not Serious Literature and doesn't pretend to be. It's just a bit of fun to keep you company on your next long drive or constitutional. It's an audible.com original. At the time of writing it was available only in audiobook format, free with audible.com membership, and it's only two and a half hours long, and  Scalzi  is a known quantity, so really, this was a no-brainer for me. And it was Good! Ashley is fresh out of school and takes a job as Community Liaison for The Third District, the City's only majority nonhuman district. The City, never named, is an Earth City, and the story takes place in some future time when, apparently, interstellar commerce is a thing and many aliens live on Earth. The world-building is sketchy, and that's OK, because it's not really the point. It is just an excuse to dream up office colle

The City in Glass Nghi Vo Nghi Vo 's  The City in Glass , which she describes as "my pandemic book, the thing I wrote while cooped up in my apartment with only my cat for company, and ... just about the hardest thing I’ve ever written." is the story of an angel, a demon, and a city. The demon is Vitrine and the city, Azril, is her city, the city she made. We never learn the angel's name. Vo  is a writer whose work I love, almost despite myself. She is very self-aware as a writer. Gotta tell the truth -- usually that annoys me. Writers who seem consciously to be trying to produce capital-L Literature strike me as pretentious. But I can't argue with  Vo 's results. She is the most versatile producer of varied and creatively told stories I can think of. And her language! Vitrine ... heard the sound of crying below. It wasn’t such an uncommon thing for someone to cry through Summersend, but giving the cat one last scratch, Vitrine wound her way like smoke into the

From the Wizarding Archive: Curated Writing from the World of Harry Potter J.K. Rowling, Evanna Lynch (Narrator), Hugh Quarshie (Narrator), Finlay Robertson (Narrator), Lara Sawalha (Narrator) Elizabeth Bennett's favorite color was yellow. This fact appears nowhere in  Pride and Prejudice . We know it because  Jane Austen  mentioned it to her friends and family. That Lizzie's favorite color is yellow is not in itself important -- but it *is* important that she had a favorite color. I suspect that most great fiction writers do this: they imagine their characters more deeply than is strictly necessary for the story. And you can feel it when you read; you feel these characters as more real because there is more of them than appears on the page.  J.K. Rowling  did this. She wrote pages and pages and pages of notes of background on the wizarding world and the characters of the  Harry Potter  books.  From the Wizarding Archive (Volume 1): Curated Writing from the World of Harry Potte

Luke Cage Cheo Hodari Coker, Marvel, Netflix The character Luke Cage first appeared on the small screen (as far as I know) in the series Jessica Jones . In the original plans for the Marvel Netflix series of serieses, Luke Cage was to be the fourth to get his own series, after Daredevil ,  Jessica Jones , and Iron Fist , in that order. However, the reaction to his appearance in  Jessica Jones  was so positive that he was bumped up to third place, ahead of  Iron Fist . This altered continuity has effects on the story. For instance, there are frequent references to "Danny" in the dialog. Danny is Danny Rand, AKA  Iron Fist . Indeed, Danny himself is a main character in one episode of  Luke Cage , and Colleen Wing, another of the main characters of  Iron Fist , shows up in another episode.  Unlike  Daredevil  and  Jessica Jones , which take place in Hell's Kitchen (I haven't yet watched  Iron Fist , so I don't know about that),  Luke Cage  takes place mostly in Harle

Elantris Brandon Sanderson ** spoiler alert **  The publisher's blurb is a fairly good summary of the plot. Until ten years ago the nation of Arelon was powerful because of the magic of its capital Elantris. Then, suddenly the magic of Elantris failed. The Elantrians were disfigured and the city decayed. Outside Elantris Arelonians revolted and took over. Arelon's rival Fjordell became powerful at Arelon's expense. When our story begins only two nations, Teod and Arelon, remain free of the Fjordell empire. Sarene, princess of Teod, comes to Arelon to marry its prince, Raoden, thus cementing an alliance of the free nations. But before she arrives Raoden is afflicted with the Shaod, as Arelon calls disfigured Elantrians. Raoden is sent into the dead city of Elantris and Sarene is told that he died. Sarene and Raoden are the main point-of-view characters. Sarene's story is a fairly typical political/palace intrigue tale of resistance to Fjordell outside the city of Elantri

Jessica Jones (2015-2019) Melissa Rosenberg, Netflix, Marvel Jessica Jones  is the Marvel Netflix series that followed  Daredevil . Like  Daredevil , it consists of three seasons of 13 50 min episodes each. It is not as good as  Daredevil , I am sorry to say.  The big problem is Jessica herself, who makes a point of being as obnoxious to everyone around her as she possibly can be. But it is not Jessica alone. Very few of the main characters are people it is easy to like. This is especially true of the female main characters. Obnoxious as Jessica is, she shines compared to the women surrounding her: her stepsister Trish Walker, her stepmother Dorothy Walker, her sometimes lawyer Jeri Hogarth, and her biological mother Alisa Jones.  Surprisingly, some of the men are more-or-less decent human beings: Jessica's neighbor Malcolm Ducasse, her building superintendent Oscar Arocho, and her later colleague/hookup Erik Gelden. It is true that when we first meet Malcolm he is an addict, that