2017 Year-In-Review: Books I Read

My “read” list of books numbered 42 this year, up from 38 last year; though three of those were rpg books and three were graphic novels, and I didn’t count either of those last year. So the real total is 36 prose titles. (That’s also a rather random subset of the graphic novels I read, basically the three that I bothered to put on my to-read list and therefore also put in the completed list. The actual total of graphic novels is probably at least three dozen.)

By type: 16 Kindle books, 7 other ebooks, 13 physical books.

Common book types include seven sci-fi books, six short story collections, five humorous memoirs, and five fantasy books (of which three were the Great Way trilogy). I read a lot less of the free Amazon stuff and much more that I deliberately seeked out, and actually culled four free books that I was unenthused with.

In terms of authors I was a bit less concentrated than last year, though I did read four Scalzi books, and a trilogy by Harry Connolly. Also two Richard Roberts, one L’Engle, two Pratchetts, and one Gaiman. Next year will likely include some Mike Carey (two books in queue), more Richard Roberts (two books remain in the Don’t Tell My Parents series), and at least three more Scalzi novels that are on the shelf.

Recommended standouts of the year included Anna Kendrick’s Scrappy Little Nobody, Erica Kudisch’s Don’t Feed the Trolls, and James L. Kugel’s How to Read the Bible.

2017 Year-In-Review: TV I Watched

What did I watch in 2017? A lot of Netflix, that’s for sure. Here’s the good stuff by genre:

Cartoons: I watched two seasons of Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc., three seasons of Voltron: Legendary Defender, and four seasons of Steven Universe.

Sci-fi: I watched three seasons of Dark Matter and three seasons of Black Mirror, and re-watched assorted random episodes of Star Trek Voyager. I suppose the second seasons of Sense8 and Stranger Things also belong here.

Superheroes: I watched a season each of: DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, The Flash, Marvel's Agent Carter, Marvel's Luke Cage, and Marvel's The Defenders.

Comedy: Four seasons of Brooklyn 99, all of The Guild and the marvelous first season of The Good Place.

I saw three movies in a theater: Wonder Woman, Thor: Ragnarok, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I also managed to get vaguely current with geeky movies via steaming services, watching Mad Max: Fury Road, Ghostbusters (2016), Ant-Man, Lego Batman, Logan, Moana, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Spider-Man: Homecoming.

And honestly, pretty much everything I just listed was worth watching, though I’d generally recommend the cartoons and comedy series before the spec-fic stuff.

I also watched a bunch of crappy sci-fi movies and several less-than-impressive Netflix series, but I think the overall bulk of my tv watching time was spent on things I actually enjoyed. I culled off half a dozen tv series that didn’t win me after an episode or three.

I think I’ll want to cull down my TV watching a little in 2018 in favor of things that are more active, but I am also looking forward to the next seasons of everything above that’s still running.

2017 Year-In-Review: Video Games I Played

I officially logged 47 games this year, and more than half of those were PC titles. (Which, again, excludes a couple of games I didn’t finish but played several hours of; and anything I could finish in two hours or less.) 200 other games were tried, tested and/or culled.

It was definitely a year for rpgs, as I played 10 KEMCO titles and 10 other rpg titles of various quality. Other heavily represented genres were point-and-click/hidden-object puzzle games, and other kinds of puzzle/casual games.

Stardew Valley was the game I spent the most time on, at 44 hours, but I also broke the 25-hour mark with Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, Adventure Bar Story, and Bravely Second: End Layer. And I came close (23 hours) with Grandia II. (I also played some uncountable number of hours of Cookie Jam, and to a lesser extent Weapons Throwing RPG 2 and Gemcrafter: Puzzle Journey. Usually in ten-minute bursts.)

Jethrien and I finished playing Child of Light together, and played Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens. ARR was generally more interested in games on his tablet or on NickJr.com than the ones I attempted to introduce him to, but I’ll work on that.

I suspect my exhaustion and general malaise this year informed a lot of my play choices—action games felt more like work, and I was generally interested in relatively mindless play experiences, often while also watching tv. I suspect that puzzle and rpg games will feature heavily in 2018 as well, as they make up a significant percentage of my backlog, but I’m hoping to play a few more of the longer, more engaging ones. (I’m pretty much through the giant collection of KEMCO games at this point, but there’s still plenty of RPGMaker Steam games in the queue. I suppose we’ll see.)

By genre, the games that I would say, “This is genuinely good, you should try it if you like the genre,” are:
RPG/Simulation: Stardew Valley (PC)
JRPG: The Amber Throne (PC), Bravely Second (3DS)
Beat-Em-Up: Hyrule Warriors Legends (3DS)
Tower Defense: Defender’s Quest: Valley of the Forgotten (PC)
Shooter: Mad Bullets (PC)
Casual/Puzzle: Weapons Throwing RPG 2 (Android)
Visual Novel/Story-Based: Gone Home (PC)