Books I've Read 2017

I am not a big reader, it’s one of those things that I’ve always wanted to improve about myself but seemingly never do. My desires to read can come in very sporadic bursts, I remember about 5 years ago I was in sixth form college, having no friends and insanely bored I decided to just go to the library whenever I was free and just read. Within a year and a half I read roughly 20 books, including all of A Song of Ice and Fire and boy howdy are they looooong books! But ever since then I’ve read maybe a couple of books a year. However this past year I noticed myself improving and reading roughly a book a month, now this is nothing to boast about as some people out there can read over 100 books a year, but still, for me, this was a pretty good consistency and I hope to continue it into 2018-if not improve it-so, I thought I’d celebrate by giving quick mini-reviews of all 12 books. Also remember, I am not a book reviewer, so if my analysis seems uninformed or repetitive…well that’s why. Let’s go!

Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing With Fire – Derek Landry

The second book of the Skulduggery series, I was recommended these books by my two best friends and after reading the first one last year and enjoying it a fair amount, it had highly creative, had witty dialogue, likeable characters and a unique fantasy world, I was looking forward to the sequel, which my friends told me was even better. Which, they were right. It continued the great traits of the first book, that being the entertaining characters and dialogue but improved upon them, giving our protagonists more depth, particularly with our main character Stephanie/Valkyrie and her slow estrangement from her own family; as well as dealing with darker themes and having better described action sequences. My only real quarrel is that the main villain is basically the same as the one in the last book only…eviler, because reasons. But in my mind this was an improvement of an already good first book and I’m told each book in the series just gets better and better, I’ve already purchased the next two books in the series so hopefully I’ll be reading at least one if not both of them next year.

The Colour of Magic – Terry Pratchett

I have never read a single Terry Pratchett novel, everyone always says he’s one of their favourite authors, so I felt it important for me to get round to him sooner rather than later, starting with his most iconic series, the Discworld books. With just the one book I can instantly tell why Pratchett is often chosen by people as their favourite author, the man seemingly has endless creativity, his craftsmanship for the medium is impeccable as these are stories that can only truly be told in book form (Though apparently the adaptation isn’t half bad). His worlds are distinct, his writing is funny, and if it wasn’t for the fact that there are over 40 books in the Discworld series (Not including spin-offs by other authors) I would love to read more of the series. I probably will return to it sometime in the future, but it’s a bit too daunting for me right now. Nevertheless if this book showed me anything, it’s that Pratchett certainly had a talent and deserves the praise he got.

Nerd Do Well – Simon Pegg

Something I discovered about myself this year is that I really love autobiographies, particularly in audiobook form. They have such a vulnerability to them as people reflect on their lives and have to try and structure random and interesting events into some form of a narrative, and in order to do that they have to truly dig deep into themselves and expose the good and the bad. Simon Pegg does this through a spy parody taking up half his book to create somewhat of a funny narrative that reflects on the difficulties writing a book of such magnitude; and the other half is delivering on said promises. Though if I’m being honest, it’s been nearly an entire year since I listened to the story so I’m struggling to recall particular events that stuck out to me, I just remember how I felt, and how I felt was comfort. Comfort in someone I could connect to through pop-culture and nerdy goodness while also having him describe it in such an intellectual and sophisticated way. I remember chuckling at the silly anecdotes of this dorky comedian and his deadpan delivery, proving to me that audiobook was definitely the way to go.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – Phillip K Dick

Blade Runner is one of my all time favourite films, however my main reason for loving it is mostly due to its visuals, not necessarily the plot, meaning reading the book it was based on, which is no visuals and all plot, I was a tad worried. I’ve stated before that stories that question intelligence in robots is a boring subject for me because often they all feel the same and ironically feel quite soulless. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is actually a fantastic book. Unlike a lot of stories that tackle this subject matter, Dick was able to personalise the story, have his audience connect to the characters before introducing the themes, even if you can see it coming from a mile away. While there are certainly a lot of differences between book and film, I don’t think they’re differences that hinder either product, but rather elements that aid one might not aid the other. In this case its having a second protagonist who suffers from physical and mental disabilities and is completely changed for the film, even though in the book he’s sympathetic and makes for a good read, but I can understand why they left him out of the film. Another example-and one of the best chapters in the book-is the torturing of a spider, a moment that is told in such excruciating detail that it was uncomfortable to read, and frankly I find it much more challenging to write about that than to show it, as a moment like that visually could come across as exploitative. It also strengthens the film’s narrative, it has you sympathise with the androids by asking why there lives are worth less than that of a crippled man or an animal, but never lets you forget, their main flaw is a lack of empathy and that makes them dangerous. I’m comfortable saying I love this book almost as much as I love the film and highly recommend it.

Mass Effect: Revelation – Drew Karpyshyn

Continuing the trend of exploring more work of things I love, Mass Effect: Revelation, written by acclaimed sci-fi author as well as writer for the first two Mass Effect games Drew Karpyshyn makes for a good companion piece to the main series, if you heard of Anderson’s history with Saren and wanted to learn more about it. It’s a fairly short read and has a fairly simple plot to follow, but it’s not meant to be the bulk of the series, just the equivalent to a side story. If you’re not a Mass Effect fan, don’t bother, even though they try to explain the world for any potential newcomers, this is clearly a book meant for people who are already fans. As a fan, I enjoyed it enough, like I said, it’s nothing too heavy to wrap your head around, so it was worth the read.

Where Am I Now? – Mara Wilson

I was never really a fan of Mara Wilson, I really liked Matilda as a kid but as an adult I mostly just liked her because she has a funny twitter account. She was never someone I cared much to learn about her life story, but boy was I glad I read it (Or listened too it, again audiobook). Hearing the stories of a child star and how being in the limelight can shape a person, it’s no wonder so many child stars go down a dark path and it’s a miracle that Mara never did. She also has such a way of recapturing her exact feelings during important moments of her life that I fully felt like I was there, both the good and the bad. My only real issues are that I found the structure of the book to be confusing, rather than telling the story in chronological order, or by topic she seems to just jump around at random, making it difficult to put everything into context at times. Also the amount of times she uses phrases describing how she started to cry become rather stale, I know it seems cheap to criticize things like that when she’s just telling the story of events how they happened, but the overuse of it weakened the effect for me.

Backwards & In Heels – Alicia Malone

Alicia Malone is someone I’ve admired for a long time, she’s always been very knowledgeable about film and has a clear passion for women in the industry, so it makes sense that her debut as an author is a book all about women in film. The book covers dozens of stories of some of the most prolific and important women to work both in front of and behind the camera, making for some fascinating stories that could probably take up an entire book, but putting them all back to back shows just how much these people helped shape the industry as a whole and often their work goes unrecognised, or even when it does the amount of personal issues they suffered along the way in order to get there. While granted having the book segmented like this does lead to some stories not being as interesting as others, also some of the stories I already knew about, but that’s not really something the book can account for. Overall if you’re interested in learning about an important part of both film history and issues still facing modern day female filmmakers then I’d say this is definitely worth the read.

The Martian – Peter Weir

This book can pretty much be split into two parts: The funny parts, and the science parts. The funny parts are great because-well-they're funny, no deeper insight needed there, funny is funny. The science parts are more hit and miss. They're hit when they're both interesting and educational-even though I have no idea which parts are accurate, they certainly feel accurate. They can also be quite intense, something goes wrong for our protagonist and you're not sure how he'll fix it, but of course he fixes it with science! Unfortunately, this gets repeated numerous times throughout the book that it became kind of boring and repetitive and by the end I just found myself going "Oh my god! Will things stop going wrong and get off this stupid planet already!". Which is also what the main character is feeling so...I can't honestly decide if that's a good thing or not. I'm sympathising with Mark Whatney, but at the same time, feeling frustrated is not usually a good thing you want to be with a story.

Turtles All the Way Down – John Green
John Green is someone I absolutely love, I think he and his brother Hank have some of the best YouTube channels, podcasts, merchandise, etc out there that you can expose yourself to; but I'm not a big fan of him as an author. Don't get me wrong, when I first read The Fault in Our Stars I loved it, but after reading several of his books since then, they all feel very samey and uninspired. One thing I do like about his work is that his stories become less romanticised and more emotionally vulnerable as they go along. The best scene in TFioS most would agree is the gas station scene, and this book has several moments just like that, seeing the protagonist hit rock bottom, will full humiliation and consequences that come with it. It's also his most personal book, being familiar with him as a person through Vlogbrothers, I could see which parts of the story were based on his own life, everything from the location to the mental illnesses the protagonist suffers through. All of this certainly makes the book feel very honest and realistic, but the typical John Greenisms are still prevalent. The angsty teen protagonist who sort of loves and is belligerent to those closest to them, the awkward obsession over a romantic interest. If you don't mind those cliches then I completely get it, they're just personally not tropes or styles that I find particularly enjoyable. If you like John Green's other books then you'll like this one all the same, if you're like me then there will definitely be parts of this book you really enjoy, and others that are kind of a drag. Also I know they were always just a metaphor, but as a turtle enthusiast I am severely let down by the lack of turtles in this book.

A Life in Parts – Bryan Cranston

Well, out of all the autobiographies I read this year, this was certainly my favourite. Bryan Cranston-like many-is an actor I adore, he's been in plenty of things I love, most notably Seinfeld, Malcolm in the Middle and Breaking Bad, so hearing him discuss his time on those shows was certainly the initial draw; but it was everything I didn't know about him that I found to be the most interesting. Whether it be his discussion of his personal life and all the fascinating things that happened to him, including travelling the country with his brother, dealing with a psycho ex-girlfriend and saving a man's life after attempting suicide. Even more so was his analysis of his craft; he never took a job for granted, and never half-arsed it, he always tried to give a performance something unique to him. He never believed he was too good for anyone, and likewise never thought he was beneath anything, he was a man that you'll never hear the words "I can't do that" be said aloud. There are plenty of autobiographies that I can say are interesting, but there are few that I can say were inspiring. This book was genuinely motivational, endearing to read and made for what is possibly my favourite book of the year.

Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll
It shows how far I've come as a reader, the first Alice book-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland-despite being a short book, I read through roughly 2 years ago and it took me about 2 weeks to read. Through The Looking Glass however only took me 2 days. In typical fashion, the book doesn't stick to any traditional narrative, or even carry on plots, ideas or characters from the first book (Minus Alice) and is very much just Alice going to Wonderland, talking to different people in Wonderland, and then leaving Wonderland. Now granted while the first book I found to be rather enjoyable, this one for some reason dragged. It's hard to say why, it could just be because the concept was getting old at this point, or maybe the characters Alice interacted with weren't as interesting as a whole as the ones in the first book. Now there were certainly some characters that were entertaining, The Red Queen and Humpty Dumpty stand out in my mind, overall the charm of the first one just sadly didn't carry over into it's sequel.

So those were all of the books I read (Or listened) to in 2017, overall they were mostly good, some great, and my hopes are for next year to read even more, don't know how many exactly, but at minimum 13 would be a good number.

-Danny

Best Things Of The Year 2017

Did one of these last year, might as well do another one this year, where I just get to talk about my favourite pieces of entertainment that I was exposed to over the past 12 months, doesn't have to be released in 2017, I just have to have seen it for the first time in 2017. Let's get to it.

Films
This was a strange year for me in terms of cinema, I had somehow broken my previous record of most films watched in a year, with a total of 180. I got to cross off a lot of "must see" films that had been on my watch list for years, and overall I saw more good films than bad. But with that being said, I didn't see any films that blew me away. On one hand it makes sense, the more you expose yourself to, the harder you become to impress, but this was the first time this decade that I didn't see at least one film that I would have given a 10/10, and only two films received a 9/10: La La Land and Mudbloods. However neither of which I feel can claim this top spot. La La Land is a film I'm sure everyone has probably seen and has their own opinion on it. I personally loved it for it's beautiful visuals, brilliant acting, great soundtrack and one of the best endings to any film I've ever seen, but there's really no point in recommending a film everyone has already decided their views on. Meanwhile Mudbloods is a very personal film to me, it's a documentary exploring the real life sport Quidditch, a sport that I in fact play, and even though I've spent the last year studying documentaries and being told to question everything I see, I know from personal experience how much of the film is based in truth. With that being said, I can't imagine any non-Quidditch players getting that invested, they might find the concept interesting (Everyone always does) and be curious to know how the sport works, but I don't think that curiosity is enough to hold them for an entire film. However if you're one of those awesome people who does play Quidditch, definitely give it a watch, it's right there on Netflix for you to enjoy.

Television
TV had the completely opposite year, while I didn't see much, what I did see impressed me to no end, and the big takeaway was Bojack Horseman. A series that judging by the pilot, comes across as another crude adult aimed cartoon with little depth and mean spirited humour. Once you get passed that, I saw it for what it really was. An in depth analysis of depression and the various forms it can take, with different characters experiencing it to different yet equally valid degrees, whether it be co-dependency, denial, abuse amongst others. The show doesn't hold any punches, and has some of the smartest, honest and most thought provoking writing on the subject matter. In fact, the 11th episode of the show's latest season (4), I am firmly in the belief that it is the single most depressing episode of television I've ever seen. And the show does all of this, while simultaneously being a silly cartoon about a horse that can somehow make me burst out laughing every few minutes. It's truly a masterpiece of it's kind.

Music
This was the year I finally jumped on the Hamilton bandwagon, a stage play musical that I had heard nothing but rave reviews for, and you know what? It really is that fucking good, and I am now one of those annoying friends who constantly tells people to listen to Hamilton. Lin Manuel-Miranda is one of the most talented musicians of our time, his lyrical compositions are clever, his use of musical motif's for each character and blending them in different variations for each song are catchy and unique, and he somehow made a hip-hop musical about the American Revolution interesting for a British millennial who had no interesting in either hip-hop or American history. Again, talking about Hamilton feels rather redundant, because at this point, you either love it, or you're so sick of people talking about it that you've decided to never listen to it, and every time someone mentions it you hate it all the more. Oops.

Others
Let me paint you a picture of my life at the time of reading Giant Days for the first time. I was just about to finish my final year at university here in Sheffield, I had just spent the day hanging out with some of my closest friends, thinking it was the last time I was ever going to see them. Then I go home, I decide to read some comics, and I end up reading Giant Days. A comic about best friends who go to university in Sheffield...so I related to it quite a bit. While my experience to it was certainly a personal one, and who doesn't love it when a piece of media reveals itself to you at just the right time? Giant Days is a book I think everyone will love. It's one of the funnier books I've ever read, with hilarious and charming art work, likeable characters who are the perfect blend between realistic and cartoony, with genuine heart behind it all that makes you care about the characters. For the most part the stories are low stakes and endearing, but they can be so comforting that you just never want to leave, making it quite an easy read, and I blew through most of the issues within a matter of days. Also, it's just fun seeing actual places I've been to be in a comic book (And yes, walking up hills in Sheffield is a bitch).

-Danny

DC TV Weekly #32

Supergirl 'Reign' Review
Well what do ya know, they somehow took probably my least favourite episode of the season (The Faithful) and made it relevant. Granted, the idea that this one human religious fanatic somehow knows stuff about Krypton that an actual Kryptonian supercomputer doesn't is rather...dubious, but hey, it gave the character purpose, so I'll allow it. It also means Sam's story has finally had some relevance, I was optimistic about it as first, but as time went on it just seemed to be a generic origin story that was disconnected from the main plot. Now however, the two finally converge in the creation of the villain Reign, who is basically Krypton's Satan and boy howdy does she get one heck of an introduction. Her first real scene where she attacks a group of thugs was creatively shot in a way to actual strike dread in the audience, and her final fight scene with Supergirl was superb (Puns!). The lighting and ironic contrast with the music helped create an intense atmosphere, and the choreography showed Supergirl able to hold her own, but is very clearly outmatched, also the make-up and blood effects were probably the most visible damage we've ever seen Supergirl sustain. It's nothing gory at all, but I can't think of a time we've seen her that bruised and bloodied. They really did a good job selling the power and danger of this character, and considering Supergirl has never had a great main villain, I was rather impressed with this one. They took their time developing her, gave her a lot of great action in her change and leave it on a cliffhanger of what she's going to do after the mid-season break. Oh, there was also some stuff about James & Lena having a romance which is incredibly dumb, Carl Lumbly is back which is incredibly great, and Mon-El and his wife were...there. 8/10.

The Flash 'Don't Run' Review
Surely STAR Labs has enough resources to search for two people at once? Not to mention you have two super geniuses AND two detectives on your team. I understand the reasoning behind it as it makes for a good conundrum for our heroes to face, two of their teammates have gone missing and they can only find one of them, but it seemingly comes at the expense of logic. Also Wally is missing, again, for seemingly no reason. Oh well, a flawed set up, but with pretty good execution. Caitlin taken hostage by Amunet, a character I haven't really spoken much about, but I really like her. Katee Sackhoff is giving a delightfully over the top performance, making the character a ton of fun to watch, particularly in this episode where they also delve into her backstory, giving her a tad more depth. Likewise DeVoe still proves to be a strong villain for The Flash, giving himself a stronger new body while also framing Barry for a crime he didn't commit. Finally there is the storyline given to Caitlin, spending so long being afraid of Killer Frost and yet now apparently everyone loves her, making Caitlin feel rather obsolete. Also the image of Team Flash just hanging out with Killer Frost and having inside jokes is an image that is so funny, I desperately want to see it. But thankfully Caitlin is given a change to prove her own worth in this episode without the help of ol' Frosty. Put all that together and I think I pretty much described this episode, a flawed set-up, but with good execution. 7/10.

Legends of Tomorrow 'Beebo the God of War' Review
You think the writers of Legends reach a point where they just play madlibs to come up with their stories? "The Legends have to fight Vikings who now have a Stuffed Toy as their new god" I can't think of any other scenario where you come up with this plot. This episode starts off with a young Martin Stein being chased through a store for the hot new Christmas toy, then cuts to nice Leonard Snart trying to help the team grieve with a Martin Stein puppet (Where did he get that!?) and then we go back to young Marty who has now been captured by vikings who mistake his toy for a god...fuck it, it's Christmas, go nuts. Everything about this episode is just silly goofy fun, up until Damien Darhk shows up halfway through the episode...with no build up whatsoever. I've already said my piece about Damien, but seriously, it's like they realised the Beebo thing only gets them so far so they just throw Damien in there, it's rather jarring. Thankfully the second half is saved with some underlying emotion as Jax is finally able to grieve over the death of Martin by getting to say goodbye to his younger self, and comes to the conclusion that he himself needs to move on and leave the team. I don't know if his departure is permanent, if so I understand why, it's a good place for his story to end (Unlike Wally West who keeps getting thrown to the side). Oh, and John Constantine has an appearance, is he going to become a team member? Unlikely, but I sure am excited to see him make a return, because Matt Ryan is superb as Constantine, and you can tell the DC TV team wants any excuse possible to use him, so I look forward to his adventure. At this point you know what you're getting with Legends, if you like it when it gets super silly, this is just the episode for you, even if the second half isn't as strong, it sticks the landing with a solid arc for Jax. 7/10.

Arrow 'Irreconcilable Differences' Review
Huh, what do ya know, all those one off villains weren't...one off. Instead of having just one big villain this season, we apparently have a whole gaggle of medium villains; I guess that's different? Although this episode barely focuses on them, but rather the internal conflict between Team Arrow. Curtis begins having doubts joining the Team was the best choice for him, Rene is forced to sell them out over blackmail, Dinah kept a fairly large secret from them, and Oliver begins spying on the others, yeah, those are all good conflicts. Mind you, the thing with Rene I feel should have been established prior to this episode, or at least hinted at, as it feels like it came out of nowhere. There's also some long overdue development between Lance and Laurel, which certainly intrigues me on where that's gonna go. Also hey, Thea's actually in an episode, and actually does something, even hinting at Roy's return, which I am very excited for. Finally, I enjoy the fact that the first 10 minutes of the episode is just the team hanging out at Oliver & Felicity's reception, it makes for a refreshing change of pace seeing them in such a normal and happy situation. Summary: Good emotional conflict between the team, one off villains teaming up doesn't make for an interesting team, and out of all the mid-season finales for DC, this one feels the least impactful, so, 7/10.

-Danny

Crisis on Earth X - DC TV Weekly #31

I really don't know where to begin. I guess a plot summary? Yeah, a plot summary is good. Barry & Iris are getting married, which means all the superheroes from across the shows are coming together. However, evil parallel versions of them all crash the wedding, revealed to be from an Earth where the Nazis won, thus, a fight ensues between our heroes and an army of Nazis. Because no matter what, you can always rely on Nazi's to be the definitive evil, awful, no redeeming, no guilt over punching in the face bad guys. In this crossover's case we get to see a group of gay, bi, black and/or Jewish superheroes get to beat up Nazis, so yeah, that's pretty much everything I could ever hope for.

One criticism I heard about last year's crossover is that each episode felt very segmented to it's respective TV Show, that is not the case here, apart from maybe the supporting cast of each show appearing briefly, this flows like one continuous narrative, and that each show and cast blend perfectly together. I know it's already a cliche to say this crossover was a better Justice League movie than the actual Justice League movie, but it was. Each episode featured a lot of fantastic action sequences, taking advantage of the different fighting styles of each character. The entire cast got a decent amount of screen time, and that includes the guest stars who only appeared in one or two parts of the crossover. We got to see new interactions between characters we don't normally get to see. We even got some new characters, including The Ray and Citizen Cold, in what is quite possibly the best performance Wentworth Miller's best performance as Leonard Snart, he's still behaving the exact same way, but is a good guy now, the contradiction between script and performance is hilarious. Speaking of performances, Paul Blackthorne, I swear to god this guy has been waiting to play an over the top Nazi his entire life, every line he delivered with such ferocity and pretty much ate the set, that's how much scenery he was chewing.

Thing is, this crossover very much could have gotten away with just being a big fun crossover event, hell, that's what last year's was, and it looked like that's what this one was going to be. Although, they actually went the extra mile by having major plot points occur, some obvious things like Barry & Iris do in fact get married, but so does Oliver & Felicity. But the biggest event was Martin Stein dying, which saddens me, true, we all knew he was leaving because the actor is busy on Broadway, but with the way his character had been written this season, I just assumed he was going to retire so he can spend time with his family, to actually kill him off (Thankfully dying doing something heroic), and getting some great performances from Victor Garber and Franz Drameh, it added a lot more depth and purpose to this crossover than what last year had.

Basically, I look at this crossover event, and I see everything that an event comic should be, but doesn't. It gives itself a purpose in existing, makes good use of it's entire cast, is well paced, has plenty of great moments of action and levity, tells a large scale story, proper impactful moments that will effect the status quo after the events over, give dying characters a heroic sacrifice and emotional goodbye; it is an ideal example of what a good crossover is supposed to be. Sure, there are plenty of things I could nitpick about this, like I'm upset Martian Manhunter wasn't in it, or that Reverse Flash is becoming even more of a confusing paradox with each appearance, or that the explanation for why it's called Earth-X is stupid. However, in terms of actual criticisms? Things that matter, that would be a hindrance on the story? Or one episode being the weak link? No. Also, final note: So many awesome shots of superheroes standing together and looking badass!

Yeah...it was a really friggin' good crossover. 9/10.