Title: The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage
Author: Anthony Brandt
Narrator: Simon Vance
Published: Random House Audio, 2010
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 450
Total Page Count: 537,540
Text Number: 1968
Read Because: this cold boys reading list, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: My first delve into the Franklin expedition, so maybe my opinion will alter as I learn more, but this was a fantastic introduction. As much about the background to the expedition (why Franklin, why these other players, why the Northwest Passage) as the expedition itself, and in fact largely unconcerned with positing clever explanations for its failure (explanations are all but implied by the catalog of near-failures on record from prior expeditions), this is fairly exhaustive without being stodgy, and its efforts to characterize both the people involved and the fatal British preoccupation with the Northwest Passage achieves a satisfying nuance, a thorough why that still allows for "but why, tho."

Simon Vance is a prolific audiobook narrator, granted; when he began "after the Napoleonic War, the British had a lot of navy personnel out of work" all I could think was, were there dragons, Simon, did they have dragons? (It would have helped a lot with the search for the Passage!)

Title: The Girl with the Silver Eyes
Author: Willo Davis Roberts
Published: Alladin, 2017 (1980)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 534,705
Text Number: 1958
Read Because: mentioned on rachelmanija's 100 books list, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Nine-year-old Katie has strange silver eyes and the stranger ability to move objects around with her mind. Seeing this title on a formative book list hit me with nostalgia, but upon (re?)reading ... I have zero memory of it! Go figure that; and I liked it without the benefit of nostalgia. Our strange, misunderstood, bright, awful protagonist is easy to identify with but, though the power of telekinesis and a burgeoning social group, also incredible wish-fulfillment, and her skeptical, limited PoV makes for an engaging little mystery plot which is more believable and authentically young than it is strained, with a satisfyingly nuanced ending.

Title: The Worst Journey in the World
Author: Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Published: 1922
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 820
Total Page Count: 532,130
Text Number: 1947-8
Read Because: this fill in threesentenceficathon 2025, ebook via Project Gutenberg
Review:
A (rather complete) telling of the tragic 1910-1913 Terra Nova expedition, compiled from the author's memories and journals as well as the journals of other men present. Rather complete, I say, because this begins with departure; the packing and sea voyage sections could probably be skimmed, but I've been itching to read about the close quarters & logistics of historical sailing so I appreciated them. The slow cascade from petty errors to great tragedy is more profound, more linear, in retrospect and/or knowing the hero worship/criticisms of Scott to which Cherry-Garrard is responding. But as that narrative builds:

Cherry-Garrard is unexpectedly adroit, moving through tone and time, the long slow trudge of sledging and setting up depots to living among fellow explorers to the overwinter journey to obtain emperor penguin eggs which, frankly, is the titular worst. He's funny, morbidly so, both intentionally and in the horror of hindsight; I took multiple pauses to independently research topics like historical British artic exploration gear (particularly clothing and sleeping bags), and, sincerely, this expedition was a hell of their own devising. The following summer's attempt at the pole reiterates some of the slow build of pacing and is a quiet, well-considered horror, a detailed account that avoids pure hero worship but also bitterness, that becomes something like a study of the stiff upper lip: persisting through suffering is not an accomplishment but a good way to elicit more of the same.

This isn't five stars in the sense of perfect; Cherry-Garrard, for all his care, still gives Scott too much credit and is absolutely a product of the echo chamber of his time; and, yes, the text occasionally drags. But in the sense of laughed, cried, would not stop talking about this with anybody in hearing range for a month--I'm obsessed. Exceeds expectation, surprisingly quotable, full of crunchy details but also honest in its character sketches and psychological focus, and, I agree: the worst journey in the world, remarkably evoked.

CW for animal abuse because, while the humans could by and large consent to suffer, the same was not true of the ill-husbanded dogs and horses of the expedition. Absolutely bonkers decision-making and self-justifications where the animals were concerned.

Books

Again, I did not track my reading stats in detail in 2024. According to my Goodreads Year in Books, I read 165 books totaling 31,186 pages, but this excludes a number of texts. ( Read more. )

My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell
I started 2024 off strong. This is a nuanced, incredibly immersive depiction of a student/teacher relationship, deeply embedded in the protagonist's changing view of that relationship, and that's what has stuck with me: its particular, remarkable moments, often recontextualized, even as they occur.

Our Share of the Night, Mariana Enriquez
A tour de force, split between family saga, the politics of power, and a robust speculative element. Without the balance between these parts, it would be a miserable drag; instead it's compelling and ruthless.

The World Cannot Give, Tara Isabella Burton
Toxic queer female friendships at boarding school, and the search for meaning: trashy, stylized, deeply my jam. Two five-stars from the same author is remarkable; when Burton is speaking my language, I'm listening hard.

Zetsuai 1989 and Bronze - Zetsuai since 1989, Minami Ozaki
This is an unusual favorite, because is objectively often total trash, a product of its time and of problems with the genre; there's a lot to laugh at, here. But it is also one of those foundational works which is indicative of why the genre keeps me coming back. A chaotic masterwork of obsessive, toxic love that does some things that still feel like unusual executions of its tropes.

Margaret Wise Brown
A deep dive into a picture book author already gives away that their work is remarkable; and Brown's is. She has a penchant for lists, think Goodnight Moon, for particular details in thoughtful arrangement; a quiet mundanity with emotional weight. Atop that, many of her books have been re-illustrated or were edited posthumously, providing fascinating insight into the relationship between text and art in picture books. My favorites, excluding the obvious: The Dead Bird, Two Little Trains, When The Wind Blew, and Night and Day.

Freeze Tag, Caroline B. Cooney
A most remarkable YA thriller, based on a fairy tale and carrying that ethos forward even when setting it against the social dramas of its genre; it creates a surprising sense of weirdness and horror. And Cooney's voice is remarkable, evocative and abrupt.

Leech, Hiron Ennes
I love a book that's willing to get weird, and this does it in its worldbuilding, which is cogent, complete, and still deeply, ingeniously bonkers: body horror, parasites, post-apocalyptic far future societies, and an identity that moves chaotically from federated to singular—everything but a kitchen sink. As a bonus, the audiobook is a phenomenal performance, dynamic and adjusting to suit accents and the changing protagonist, all without dipping into caricature.

Honorable Mentions in Books

The King of Elfland's Daughter, Lord Dunsany
A book about fairyland which feels truly magical, magical in atmosphere and structure and world, is a rare gift.

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance—A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power, Danielle L. McGuire
A punishing and necessary reframing of the role that women played in the civil rights movement; the best nonfiction I read all year.

The Shiny Narrow Grin, Jane Gaskell
I'm a sucker for early examples of a trope and how they inform the development of the genre, so the relationship between this and Klause's The Silver Kiss and the growth of the sympathetic vampire and YA paranormal romance is fascinating—and Gaskell's voice is uniquely strange.

The Butcher of the Forest, Premee Mohammed
This may as well have been written just for me: creepy forest, in autumn, with folklore and fairies and a deep pall of horror. I look forward to rereading it in autumns to come.

The Haunted Dollhouse, Terry Berger, David Berger, Karen Coshof
I read a fair number of picture books, particularly seeking weird and scary picture books, and it doesn't get weirder than this. Unique, inexplicable, utterly delightful; a forgotten gem.

The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
Luxuriously, infuriatingly slow and person-focused within a delightfully ridiculous thriller plot, this has some of the best characters I've encountered in recent memory.

A Guest in the House, Emily Carroll
There's unlikely to be a Carroll I don't like, but I read a bumper crop of graphic novels this year and this was easily the best—because of Carroll's touch, because it was willing to be gestural and borderline unexplained, set effectively against a surprising-for-Carroll mundane setting.

Last to Leave the Room, Caitlin Starling
I quibbled with this, and yet what it does well is explicitly to my taste: identity and interpersonal relationships as defined by care, harm, and social power, with a weird speculative concept and some truly creepy moments.

"Spar," Kij Johnson
Slipping in under the wire, a short story about the permeability of human/alien sexual (non-)relationships, invasive and discomforting and surprisingly convincing.

Games

The vast majority of the games on this list were ones I watched, not played. My partner played a lot of games this year, and I spent my solo gaming time writing, instead.

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver remaster, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 remaster
It was great to go into the remasters having finally watched Blood Omen; the "lesser" games in this series are less successful, and Blood Omen is very retro, but it retains the hallmarks of plot, setting, atmosphere, and voice acting, and so enriches the series overall. And the remasters are, effectively, perfect: one good and one great game, upscaled while preserving their character, enriched by the gift of an archive of everything from unfinished levels to, my favorite, original studio recordings of the voice actors, which are a privilege to watch.

The Last of Us remake
Allow me to come in almost as late as possible to say this universally acclaimed game is really good. Not all of its dramatic beats work for me, but it leads with and commits wholly to its narrative, to its central relationship. I'm grateful that some Sony exclusives are making their way to PC, and the remake is stupid beautiful, and I can't wait to see the second game in 2025.

Silent Hill 2 Remake
My cozy game of the year: I would watch high resolution journeys through the fog and into the nightmare dimension with a flawless horror soundtrack forever; these were the best naps I had all year. This feels more than is faithful, which I like in a remake, preserving tone and atmosphere above all.

Days Gone
Defying all expectations (mixed reviews, zombies), this is the best open world title I've seen in some time. It avoids many of the pitfalls of the Ubisoft open world framework by making its storylines closely bound, has a clever AI gimmick in the hordes, sidesteps many boring zombie tropes, and has the most naturalistic dialog I've ever seen in game, a bold and endearing stylistic choice that really sells already strong characters. I kept waiting for this to fuck up, and it's not perfect, but it handles society rebuilding and disability with surprising care. And it's set in the PNW!

Pacific Drive
S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Pacific Northwest car version, quirky and tender and creepy, with a stellar retro aesthetic, solid game loop, and true bond player/car bond. What a great year for games set where I live! They make me feel a certain way.

Alan Wake II
I couldn't stand the first Wake game, but love Control; this is exactly where I wanted Wake to go, how I wanted to see the franchises unite. It maintains some imperfect, often forgettable mechanics, but an AWE as a lived experience is all I could have hoped: trippy, self-swallowing, evocative in aesthetic. And! More PNW!

Honorable Mentions in Games

Crow Country
Unique among many retro games for its unique camera mechanic, which, in a puzzle/exploration game, gives navigation an ongoing sense of discovery. The speculative/mystery plot is cooky but committed, which means it's actually solvable by its own internal logics.

Tormented Souls
Of the retro-style horror games of the year, this is the silliest and, so help me, the best. It grows on you: ridiculously excessive on every possible vector, from cluttered mansion to creepy twins and time travel and medical horror, it manages to be campy but sincere horror and stupidly fun. And janky, but that's part of the retro-style charm.

Chants of Sennaar
The puzzle mechanic of this game (decipher glyphs from context and social cues) delight me; this scratched an itch given to me by Tunic and by learning sitelen pona: language as worldbuilding.

Slay the Princess
What a fantastic use of a visual novel and wrong ends as a format, and a non-CG art style which is accessible, stylized, dynamic, beautiful, able to get so weird. I only watched an LP of this, and should probably delve deeper, but it's fantastic.

Citizen Sleeper
This feels like a solo TTRPG as a video game, and I'm compelled by that, by what gamified formats can enable a solo-ish project, how minimal a game can be and maintain game elements.

Clock Tower
I love an early example of a genre that explains huge chucks of the genre in retrospect, and this did that and then some, because some of its mechanics (the degree of randomness in each run; the requirements to have need of an item in order to collect/use the item) feel like they've never been used elsewhere to this degree.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Like Clock Tower, I enjoy the surprise of a "never seen a game quite like this" from a retro title. The narrative structure here is incredibly unique, and well suits a Lovecraftian premise.

Mouthwashing
Unexpected restraint, given the subject matter and the many ways in which this isn't remotely restrained; a kind of restrained that doesn't mean subtle, with clear but grateful messaging even within the capitalism pastiche and gore.

We Know the Devil
I watched this on account of a fic exchange and then spent too long crying about it. A phenomenal set of inspirations and tone, with viciously aspirational themes: the violence and catharsis of being forced to confront self-actualization.

Bloom by Litza Bronwyn
In a year of discovering solo RPJs, this one is remarkable for the thoughtful depth of its prompts and its overlap with fandom; RPG as transformative work is nothing new, but this proves why that premise works.

Elegy by Miracle M
In a year of discovering solo RPGs, this is the one I could play on and off for years. A loving mishmash of vampire RPGs, set up to create a dynamic campaign with a lot of ongoing momentum, overflowing with an excess of style.

Visual Media

Scavengers Reign
My watch of the year, this is a remarkable achievement both of actual speculative evolution and of what the genre makes you feel: the wonder, the impossible scale and interconnection and alien verisimilitude of the natural world. It made me cry, what, three times? For its beauty; for the terrible awe of potential.

L.A. Confidential
Living up to all my culturally osmosed hype, this has noir vibes in thoughtful, indulgent abundance. And it has an OT3, and honestly that's what tips me from "fun watch!" to "I read fanfic for this."

The Legend of Vox Machina
Of course I was going to love this; and I did love this. It's the art of adaptation on fascinating display, as well as an insight into the success of the first campaign compared to later ones, namely: the sheer, giddy angst. So the first season, which is the most faithful & most angsty, is the best, but the whole show was fantastic.

Great British Bake-Off series 15
This is the best GBBO series in recent history by a long shot. Less of (although never none of) what make the show excruciating, but, more importantly, a stellar group of contestants in both ability and personality. This one just hits different: refreshing, honest, joyous.

Christine, Duel, The Hitcher
It was a great year to watch a film about men and cars; extremely queer movies about men, and violence, and cars. Each once delightful, and even better when set against one another.

Honorable Mentions in Visual Media

Face/Off
The platonic ideal of a Nicholas Cage movie: big concept, delightfully dumb lines ("I'd like to take his face, off"), unrepentant commitment. Weirdly sexy interpersonal dynamics? Title. His face ... off! I loved this.

Starman
When picking up a retro speculative film, I want to wonder "what in the fuck" when I'm done; and I did, here. The interpersonal implications of both the premise and the ending make this linger.

The Hunger
It has taken me far too long to see this, and I knew I'd enjoy it, and I did; no real surprises, since its imprint (tone, aesthetic, interpersonal dynamics) linger in vampire media, but as lovely to luxuriate in as the bed looks to be.

Pokemon Concierge
Look, I have nothing deep to say about Pokemon stop motion dioramas. Everyone wants to live in the Pokemon world, right? This is an imagining of just how that would feel, of course it's cozy, of course it's beyond charming. It has furret!

The Maxx
This reminded me of watching Aeon Flux: I would always rather a total dedication to weird and stylized than anything predictable, so, good news then!

The Italian Job (1969)
I love the remake and do not like funny movies and so was not primed to best like this, but I came for car shenanigans and received them in increasingly loving abundance; and, I relearned: I don't like humor, but I do like British humor.

Music

My top songs of 2024. Unusually, songs with lyrics won out by a large margin; I've gotten better at writing to lyrics & spent a lot of my writing time farming tracks for my Moody playlist. I also took a chunk of time to write a story set in ~2004/5, and so listened to a lot of 1990s-2005 alternative, a profound and surprisingly insightful nostalgia-binge.

My favorite new finds of the year were Medicine Boy and Crywolf. My favorite game soundtrack was Pacific Drive, because Silent Hill II really ought not count.

Title: The Woman in White
Author: Wilkie Collins
Published: Duke Classics, 2012 (1859)
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 675
Total Page Count: 520,810
Text Number: 1895
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library but of course it's on Gutenberg
Review: This is overlong, absolutely, and the epistolary format is to blame but it's also the book's great strength, as it roots a story of contrived schemes and mistaken identity firmly in the characters: what they know, which is often a step behind the reader's larger picture and trope awareness, a distance which is frustrating but abundant with gothic tension; what they record or omit, and for whom; what they feel and who they are. And they're remarkable characters, particularly Fosco and Marian (Marian, best beloved).

(For reasons obvious this made me need Marian/Walter and OT3 material quite badly; fortunately, many thanks to Yuletide and emily_in_the_glass, such already exists! Extracts from the diary of Marian Halcombe fills in some blanks with the sort of delicacy of what's recorded/to whom it's relayed that absolutely fits the novel, and Marian's voice is fantastic.)

A Visit to San Sibilia by JimmyShelter is available on itch.io. It was in the Ukraine Bundle.

( My playthrough of A Visit to San Sibilia, 3k words )

⁂

( Player wrap-up. )

The genesis of finally doing a deep (ish) (I am reading what Open Library has on offer, skipping Christmas books, but including multiple editions) Margaret Wise Brown was that she popped up in Hannah McGregor's A Sentimental Education, particularly in the context of queer picture authors/illustrators edited by Ursula Nordstrom, herself a lesbian. McGregor mentions that Nordstrom edited Arnold Lobel, James Marshal, Tomie dePaola, Maurice Sendak, and MWB, among others.*

This - the overlap between queer creators and children's fiction - is something I had noticed when delving into picture books a few years ago; it's an overlap probably not limited to Nordstrom, although her role is absolutely pivotal. But it's also so ... natural. McGregor comments that many beloved queer picture book authors (she mentions MWB, Edward Gorey, and Maurice Sendak IIRC) famously did not have, like, and/or indicate that they were writing for children, necessarily. Instead picture books, as exploratory, creative, often dreamlike works asking questions about self-identity and learning one's place in the world, are naturally spaces for queer exploration and self-expression. I'm paraphrasing from a text I read on audio and augmenting with my own reading*, but the TL;DR of this was:

Hey, go read more MWB. And thus I am!

And the thing about MWB as opposed to other picture book deep dives: MWB was not herself an illustrator; she has been enduringly popular; she left behind many unpublished manuscripts after an early death. As a result, there's rarely one true set of illustrations, and many of her books have been re-illustrated/re-released/re-edited, even, over the years, with some even more complicated origin stories (that'll come up in another set of reviews). Fascinating! Messy! And valuable insight into the relationship that art has on picture books, as I'll talk about below, in exceedingly long reviews for 30 page volumes.

As usual, my very very favorites are outside of the cut; but The Diggers, while not good, is fascinating.

* read: if I've mixed up any details, it's because oops, and because audio retention is for losers & I already returned the book.


( Home for a Bunny )


Title: The Dead Bird
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: Remy Charlip (1958), Christian Robinson (2016)
Published: Harper & Row, 1965; Harper, 2016
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 40, 30
Total Page Count: 506,990
Text Number: 1807-8
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: Don't touch dead birds; k cool glad we got that out of the way.

This is phenomenal. The illustrations are kind of whatever for me - Charlip uses a limited (personally unappealing) (I hate blue-greens) color palette and soft, rounded shapes; Robinson's work is more vibrant and the children more diverse. Of the two, I prefer Charlip, in part because the more subdued palette reflects the somber tone, but mostly for the use of negative space: illustrations and text are on alternating spreads, which gives the text an incredible amount of contemplative space. And so in Carlip this is a spread:

"The children were very sorry that the bird was dead and could never fly again. But they were glad they had found it, because now they could dig a grave in the woods and bury it. They could have a funeral and sing to it the way grown-up people did when someone died.

So they took it out to the woods.

And in Robinson, this is three pages of low contrast text over vibrant images.

And the text should have that weight. This is a quiet, honest book about the profound imperfection of grief - grief as celebratory, performative, experimental, as a preparation for later life experiences; grief as profound, communal, healing; grief as material act; grief as "And every day, until they forgot, they went and sang to their little dead bird and put fresh flowers on his grave." It's not didactic but rather reflective, and the space it gives to imperfection really struck me.

When I feel compelled to write more about a picture book than there are words in the picture book, I know I'm going to remember it.


( Little Fur Family )


( The Diggers (two editions) )


Title: Two Little Trains
Author: Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator: Jean Charlot (1949), Leon and Diane Dillon (2001)
Published: William R. Scott, 1949; HarperCollins, 2001
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 30, 30
Total Page Count: 507,210
Text Number: 1814-5
Read Because: reading Margaret Wise Brown, borrowed from Open Library
Review: The picture book deep dives I've done in the past (Gorey, Sendak, among others) have largely been by author/illustrators, so rarely have I encountered alternate versions of the same text. Reading MWB has taught me how illustrations change a picture book, not just the aesthetic but the tone, emphasis, even interpretation.

Two trains puff puff puff, chug chug chug, to the west. The Dillon frames one as real train and one as a toy, which is a classic real/play parallel that invites the child reader to imagine a stair rail as a mountain. And, as it's Dillon, the art is unsurprisingly solid.

But the (original 1949) Charlot is a different beast entire, a dreamscape of two trains rendered in flat pale colors and loose, fluid lines, the child-conductors napping under a gilded moon and amidst animal cargo on a long, surreal journey west, west, west. Rather than parallelism, repetition, but the use of negative space and direct address in the text ("Look down, look down that long steel track / Where you and I must go") invite the reader aboard.

The Charlot is less concrete and more open, impressionistic, fantastical even, and I'm crazy about it; and, also, by the juxtaposition, because while the Charlot is objectively better, the text taken in two such different directions is insightful and thought-provoking. And there's yet a third (Pizzoli) that I haven't read, and who know how it alters the text.

In January/February I fell down the rabbit hole of the threesentenceficathon & wrote fic for maybe the first time in ... fifteen years? I've written non-fic intermittently since then and of course have spent the last year writing hella original fiction (in the sense, that is, of hella-amounts, not hella-original), so those muscles were primed; turning that energy into fanfic was still strange! The three sentence format is a fun playspace: obviously a constrained format, which means limited time investment/barrier of entry; but three sentences almost means jam-packing those sentences, torturing punctuation, experimenting with format, and expanding/contracting the work to a) maintain the limitations but b) still go somewhere/do something/say something.

In total, I wrote about 13k words.

I crossposted my favorite pieces to Archive of Our Own, which is the first work I've ever posted there because I never did get around to crossposting my old FF.N works; maybe one day. Winnowing down my favorites gave me a chance to look at what worked best for me in my writing:

( Some thinks. )

Anyway, a complete list of fills follows, with links for those crossposted to AO3, with limited annotations. (Is there a certain hiding-ness that happens in posting links rather than full texts? Sure; but also putting work on The Internet feels weird enough without crossposting every bit to every possible place.)


( Buffy the Vampire Slayer )


( Stranger Things )


( Corpse Party )


( Hemlock Grove )


( Quarters Series )


( Hannibal )


( Signalis )


( Control )


( Outer Wilds )


( Dragon Age II )


( Mass Effect )


( Final Fantasy XII )


( Gundam )


( Goth (Otsuichi) )


( Labyrinth )


( Star Trek )


( L.A. Confidential )

Every year I post a list like this: Here's the best media I encountered, but which probably was not released, in 2023.

Books

This year I didn't record stats or demographics for my reading. As such, my numbers are profoundly approximate and make even more of a farce of statistics than is normally true, which is plenty. In 2023, I read maybe around 220 books, based on Goodreads metrics and reviews posted here, which doesn't count some things but does count many. ( Musings. )

Jawbone, Mónica Ojeda
Best friendship and adolescent sexual awakening under the eye of conservative religion taken to the most intimate, unhinged extremes. And also there's a thriller plot. Sections of this I reread multiple times; a flawed book objectively, but that central dynamic speaks to me, sings to me.

Social Creature, Tara Isabella Burton
A strange little thriller, constantly upping the ante, self-aware, obsessive, frenetic, dark. I argued with this but also devoured it.

Alliance-Union series, C.J. Cherryh
This is the year I finished this series (with some exceptions, namely the The Hanan Rebellion and some short stories); an effort I began in 2017. I love these books, none of which are really flawless, but Cherryh's terse voice, the corners of this setting she chooses to explore, and her recurring themes are all delightful. I see myself rereading from the beginning someday, although maybe my next goal should be the Foreigner series.

Confessions of a Mask, Yukio Mishima
Psychosexual in a nutshell: unevenly compelling but, when it is, the depiction of sexual awakening via queer desire via violence fetish could not be more my thing if it were personally dedicated to me.

Kuro, Somato
The best new manga I read in this year of reading some big heavy-hitters was ... a slice of life story about a little girl and her pet monster. The tone here is wistful and haunted, the plot and worldbuilding is surprisingly significant and, as girl-and-her-monster goes, this does a great job with a phenomenally enjoyable trope.

Kit's Wilderness, David Almond
13 is the age for having an intense friendship, as you reckon with your own place in the world/your family/your community history/your peer group/you narrative which, in the coming years, will be the relationship that makes you realize, oh, I'm queer.

Honorable Mentions in Books

Slonim Woods 9, Daniel Barban Levin
I feel like cult memoir is one part honesty, a multifaceted attempt to explain why the atmosphere, the cult leader's influence, was compelling, was harmful; and one part "you just had to be there" — to be a specific person in those specific circumstances. This hits that balance really well.

Bloom, Delilah S. Dawson
Slighter than other titles on this list, but such a fun way to cap off a season of thrillers: a cottagecore wish-fulfillment fantasy turned to pulpy horror. It's just got so many and such fun vibes.

Dungeon Meshi, Ryoko Kui
I read a couple long-running manga this year, and this is the only one I came away liking instead of having that "it's interesting/important but flawed" response. The overarching plot less so than the basic premise, which is so satisfying: slice of life can be such an unexpectedly productive format for fantasy worldbuilding.

Games

A slim year for games. Most of my highlights were replays/rewatches; most of my gaming got DNF'd.

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
This is the hidden gem of Zelda, fulfilling the craving left in my heart by Link's Awakening Remastered, which is to say: none of the surprisingly-deep narrative of the important games in the series, but so ridiculously cute with a clever central gimmick.

Honorable Mentions in Games

Spyro Reignited Trilogy
Vibrant and profoundly satisfying. Not more than that except some truly A-grade furrybait in the first game, but I loved watching these.

Revenant II
Parallel worlds as gameplay structure is a great use for semi-procedural multiplayer gameplay. Fun lore, relatively polished gameplay experience; this was the best multiplayer game my group played in 2023.

Visual Media

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans
In a year when I watched ~100 things (which easily doubles my usual visual media consumption), this was far and away the best. The frequency with which subtext I loved became actual, on-page, canon text — the handling of disability — the series-appropriate ruthlessness; I cried at almost every episode in the second season. In the manga it's confirmed they're married. I love, I love, I love.

Aeon Flux
Weird and sexy in such a stylized way that, rather than tipping into surreal, it cannonballs and then luxuriates there. The episodic format functions like a short story collection, some relative misses, some incredible hits. But sometimes, style is substance.

Retro movies
... is what got me watching so many movies. My appetite was very specific and broad: literally anything 1) in color 2) released before 2005 3) that could be considered "genre." There's nostalgia, and actually recognizing the actors, and a break from pet peeves with modern visual aesthetics, and shorter runtimes, and, most of all, they're so frequently interesting, which matters so much more than seeking "good." Highlights include:

Conan the Barbarian, a champion example of "interesting, yes; good, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
The Faculty, because all teen social commentary should be this explicit & weird & effects-heavy
Terminator series, for Sarah Conner <3 and the monster design in Terminator 2
Return to Oz, a fever-dream of sets and effects that really has the ~vibe~ of the books
Barbarella, because in 1968 you could do anything, just, anything, really

But my favorite was:

Phantasm
Cult classics are what dreams are made of; literally, sometimes. They explain so much, retroactively; they stick in the public consciousness for a reason, and that reason is almost always interesting. The dreamy atmosphere of this, the uncanny sound design, the subdued intensity — this lingers, strange and compelling.

Thelma and Louise
Conversely, sometimes really films are famous for good reason. I think about this all the time: the ending; the "nothing to lose" energy avalanching through the plot.

Honorable Mentions in Visual Media

Bake Off: The Professionals
What I wish all GBBO could be: creators given the space and tools to express creativity and competency, with judges that I adore, who support and aid competitors, whose opinions actually interests me. So chill, so satisfying, even when the themes and challenges are absurd.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury
Lots to love here; the start and end of the first season is top-tier Gundam; the second season is too compressed and, on the whole, this paled in comparison to Iron-Blooded Orphans. On another year, it would have left a bigger impression, but the bits got me got me good.

Music

My Spotify Wrapped, which is particularly biased this year towards my instrumental playlist or, more specifically, all the listening I did to find more songs for/sort songs onto my instrumental playlist. I had good luck this year using the Spotify But Spotify excluding the end of the year is really showing, this year.

The highlight of my listening was far and away leon chang's re:treat, an Animal Crossing fan album ish thing that samples Animal Crossing (and other game) music/effects and turns them into the most beautiful, nostalgic, plinky-plonky little tracks. I listened to this obsessively for about two months straight.

B̵̘̱̑̂o̵͇̽͒o̸͍̾ks/Gam̶͎̏è̶͖s̶͈̑/?̴̰̱͆́͒?̷͚̓?

Insofar as AI-assisted writing is simultaneously like reading a book you are also like writing, and like playing an RPG, and like playing the Sims, and just straight-up writing, this is where the bulk of my year went, over multiple platforms (Replika, Character.AI, Pygmalion, NovelAI), totaling approximately two million words. I couldn't describe the impact this has had on my life. One part profoundly unproductive coping mechanism & one part the most productive, joyful thing I've maybe ever done, I guess?

Title: The Worm and His Kings (The Worm and His Kings Book 1)
Author: Hailey Piper
Published: Fireside Horror, 2021 (2020)
Narrator: Allyson Voller
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 115
Total Page Count: 491,055
Text Number: 1745
Read Because: found browsing "horror I can read right now on audio, please"; ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Our protagonist's search for her missing girlfriend leads her to discover a hidden society of people paving the way for the arrival of a cosmic entity. This frequently overexplains itself - the mythology; the social repercussions of a worm-cult - and with infodumps and pointed interior monologues rather than grace. And it's a pity, because it is one of those Lovecraftian-style socially-aware stories for a new age and some bits of the worldbuilding (the 'scientific' explanation in particular stands out) are fantastic. I like the attempt, I like the reveal, I like the ending; but this maps too cleanly, social and cosmic themes interlocking in a perfect fit which make both feel simplistic.


Title: Hemlock Grove: Reflections On The Motive Power Of Fire
Author: Brian McGreevy
Illustrator: Matt Buck
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 491,085
Text Number: 1746
Read Because: big fan of Hemlock Grove, available free online
Review: The introductory blurb gives a pretty clear image of where this came from: in writing the Netflix script, McGreevy fleshed out some backstories for the adult cast and explored them via a graphic novel. As such, this feels in character and can integrate well as backstory, as occurs in the adaptation. But as a stand-alone graphic novel, it's dry stuff: the supernatural/gothic elements are limited, which kills the good bits of the aesthetic; the tone is relentlessly smug and grim and joyless. The messy graphic sketches only exacerbate these problems. I love Hemlock Grove and don't regret reading this for the sake of completionism, but give it a miss.


Title: The Ghost of Gosswater aka The Ghost of Midnight Lake
Author: Lucy Strange
Published: Chicken House, 2021 (2020)
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 330
Total Page Count: 491,615
Text Number: 1748
Read Because: no idea how I found this, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: After her wealthy father dies, our protagonist inherits nothing but her birth father, a goosekeeper and known thief. She build a new place for herself in the world while unraveling the secrets of her birth.

This (plucky protagonist, creepy manor, issues of class and protagonist identity, mysterious origin story, supernatural/gothic elements) reminded me a lot of Beatty's Serafina and the Black Cloak, which probably means I was spending more time noticing the tropes and pacing of modern gothic/fantasy MG than I was paying attention to this specific book. Take that as you will, but I think it indicates a lukewarm response. This is fine. I like the spooky atmosphere; the plotting is adequate but perhaps over-explained because this lacks the sense of the numinous which is what I love best in MG fantasy.