2016 Year-In-Review: Books I Read

This year, I read 38 books, significantly more than last year’s 27 or the dozen-or-so in most preceding years. Emphasizing reading books rather than the internet, along with getting very few comics and new rpg books, meant that I was dedicating most of my reading time to prose.

By type: 16 Kindle books, 11 other ebooks, 11 physical books.

While speculative fiction was a heavily emphasized genre, there was also a bunch of modern drama and assorted movie-style books that Amazon gave me for free. I read nine anthologies/short story collections, three humorous memoirs, two non-fiction and two self-help books. I think the variety helped (especially reading “easy” books outside of my normal wheelhouse), and many of the short stories were read conveniently on my phone while ARR was playing nearby.

In terms of authors: Three Scalzi books, two L’Engles, one Pratchett, one Gaiman and one Carey. (Which my to-read list echoes for next year, actually.) Richard Roberts came recommended and I suspect I’ll read his remaining novels in the coming year. I’m also likely to hunt down more by Mary Robinette Kowal, Nalo Hopkinson, and/or Kelly Link.

Movie Capsule Reviews

Zootopia - I think we can say with some certainty that the genesis of this movie was someone accidentally saying, “bunny cop movie” when they meant “buddy cop movie,” then deciding that sounded cool. This movie is far better than it particularly needed to be, and impressively smart.

Doctor Strange - I feel like the stand-alone/origin Marvel movies are getting awfully formulaic at this point, but I did still enjoy it. (Especially the supporting cast.) The director and visual artists clearly LOVED Inception, as the “folding city” gets taken to new heights here.

Attacking the Darkness - Christopher Guest-style mockumentary that supposedly documents the creation of the "Dark Dungeons" movie. (And made by the same Zombie Orpheus crew that did The Gamers, etc.) It's cringingly delightful? Watch Dark Dungeons, and if you enjoy that, then this is also likely to be worth your time.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - This was the best session of the Star Wars tabletop RPG I’ve ever watched. (And the closest a movie has ever come to recreating The Empire Strikes Back.) They did a nice job dealing with it being an interquel that we knew the ending of ahead of time. I didn’t know in advance that Grand Moff Tarkin was going to be a CGI character, but the muppet-like movement of his mouth made it very obvious to me.

Also, Mads Mikkelsen is having a really good year, isn’t he?