2021 Year-In-Review: Books I Read

If I thought last year’s book list was disappointingly short, it has nothing on this year: 15 prose books, one of which was an RPG rulebook that I skimmed big chunks of. Some of that was getting a ReMarkable and reading scads of comic book pdfs. Some of that was my up-and-down moods as the year’s covid headlines played themselves out. And some of that was not having the time or energy to read much during the Dance of the Seven Contractors.

By type: 3 Kindle books, 3 other ebooks, 9 physical books.

The most common genre was sci-fi, then a smattering of fantasy and two memoirs. Seanan McGuire was the only repeat author, as I read two Wayward Children books.

Recommended standouts of the year included: The Martian by Andy Weir, How to Invent Everything by Ryan North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North and Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke.

Special recognition goes to Leah's Perfect Christmas by Catherine Beck, for both being a book I really enjoyed and also my wife’s first published novel.

On that comics front, I read the BOOM Studios Best of 2020 Bundle (18 volumes), a stack of physical trade paperbacks I bought (12 volumes), Moebius & More Presented by Humanoids Bundle (17 volumes), Back to the 80s with IDW Bundle (13 volumes), Hasbro Crossovers Bundle (10 volumes), Millarworld Bundle (12 volumes), and a full run of JSA from the late 90s that I pulled from my comics collection (10 volumes). So roughly 92 trade paperbacks or around 450 pamphlets.

I have no idea how 2022 is going to go, reading-wise. I’ve got a batch of new books I’m excited about and then a pile on my backlog that will hopefully catch my interest again.

2021 Year-In-Review: Puzzles!

In late 2020, we got into jigsaw puzzles and family reading time as a way to spend our evenings, since we were getting Zoom burnout but still couldn’t go anywhere. Then I got my dad into jigsaw puzzles, which meant I got a steady supply of them, so we kept up the trend. I slowed down over the summer as things opened up again, but I suspect I’ll carve through a bunch more over the winter months.

We did seven 3D puzzles of various types: Crystal Dragon and Crystal T-Rex, Puzz3D King Arthur’s Camelot, a wooden Marble Climber, a wooden Asian Dragon, five cardboard Color-and-Assemble kits, and a wooden Stegosaurus.

We did thirteen 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles: Underwater Pokemon, 90s Comic Covers, Outer Space, Batman Covers, Pokemon in Boxes, Spider-Man Covers, Super Friends, Broadway Musicals, Superman Covers, Fads, Children’s Books, Jigsaw Breakfast Cereals, Pokemon Showdown.

We did three 500-piece jigsaw puzzles: Pokemon Starter Evolutions, Eevee-lutions, Drive-In Theater.

We did four 300-piece jigsaw puzzles, three of which came from the same set: Water Starters, Grass Starters, Fire Starters, and a separate general Pokemon picture.

So, that’s 20 “real” jigsaw puzzles. I also did speed-puzzle runs of three 100-piece jigsaw puzzles: Superman Covers, Wizardology, and Pokemon. I now have opinions about jigsaw puzzles, as there are some brands that actually try to make the puzzles interesting and fun (the officially licensed Pokemon puzzles are great at this; Springbok is also generally a very good brand) and plenty that just grab a random picture and layer a standard jigsaw grid on it, so you end up with a lot of smudgy, muddy colors and pieces that can almost fit in lots of the wrong places.

I also did nine Paint By Sticker paintings and one comics sticker puzzle. Those I can generally do in under and hour; but they’re pleasant and kinda zen.

2021 Year-In-Review: Video Games I Played

This was another big year for replays, but in a somewhat different manner than 2020—more of the games I replayed this year were hacks or randomizers so at least there was something new going on.

I did a noteworthy video game project: What the heck is on this $10 Retro Game handheld? Let’s find out!, an exploration of a cheap Chinese famiclone handheld and the 500 games installed on it.

I officially logged 19 new titles and I replayed 13 games (either the original or a hack of some sort), though that’s a little muddy because of where I drew the line of an updated game being “new.” I played an entire Steam bundle of point-and-click adventure games and a dozen other short games from itch.io bundles. I also did playthroughs of 14 other emulated NES and SNES action games, usually with cheats. I didn’t make any particular efforts to cull my various lists.

The most popular genres this year were classic RPGs and Metroidvania games, though there was a health variety beyond that. Gems of War once again accounted for the vast, vast majority of my casual game time and also virtually all of the gaming time on my Android tablet; but I drifted into a decent amount of Dr. Mario on my RG350, too.

Most of the games I played through were short. I only played more than 30 hours of two games: Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age (Switch), and my replay of Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows (PC). The former caught up with my Hyrule Warriors record from last year, with 85 hours logged. (Plus another 50+ hours of ARR’s playthrough.) I got 20+ hours out of Super Smash Brothers: Ultimate Edition (Switch) and Gemcraft: Labyrinth (PC). The former actually saw significantly more playtime total in my house, because we played it as a family and ARR plays it with his friends.

The Switch remained our champion system. In addition to the games I already noted, ARR played a ton of Pokemon Shield and his own play of Dragon Quest; and we attempted New Super Mario Brothers U Deluxe for family game night but it fell flat. ARR also made very good use of my 3DS, playing Pokemon Y and Pokemon Ultra Moon. Everything else I played was either on Steam or an emulator.

ARR continued playing Minecraft Java edition, both with friends on Realms servers and solo. He also continued periodically playing Minecraft Dungeons (and various Lego games) and Letter Quest over Skype with my dad. He got a new Android tablet this year, which meant adding Plants vs. Zombies 2 to his lexicon along with a few less-notable casual games. He and his friends also really got into Among Us.

By genre, the games that I would say, “This is genuinely good, you should try it if you like the genre,” are:
• Classic RPG: Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age (Switch)
• Metroidvania: Timespinner (Steam), Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (Steam)
• Arena Fighting: Super Smash Brothers: Ultimate Edition (Switch)
• Puzzle: There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension (Steam)

2021 Year-In-Review: TV I Watched

In terms of TV shows, I had a decent spread across streaming services, with a decent number of seasons of shows on Netflix, but also entries from Hulu, Amazon, HBOMax and Disney+. I also watched a lot of movies with a similar spread (22 that I logged, but I know I missed a few) and haven’t seen the inside of a theater all year.

Things that stood out included:

Cartoons: The second season of Harley Quinn and the first season of Invincible were both terrific “dark” superhero comedy. Young Justice Outsiders was excellent. Disenchantment stayed pretty decent. I also started The Way of the Househusband, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, and Transformers: War for Cybertron: Kingdom. I’m not sure if I’ll necessarily continue watching them.

Superheroes: I watched two seasons of Black Lightning; and one season each of: DC's Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Titans, Doom Patrol, Superman & Lois, and Jupiter's Legacy. I also watched WandaVision and Loki. Jupiter's Legacy was a clunker, The Flash has gotten pretty dumb and Titans is uneven; but overall “superhero TV” was a pretty strong category this year.

Comedy: I finished out Brooklyn 99 and watched the second seasons of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist and What We Do in the Shadows. I watched all three seasons of The Santa Clarita Diet. I watched the first seasons of Schitt's Creek, Fleabag and The Sex Lives of College Girls. I may need to find myself some new sitcoms going forward.

The only thing outside those major categories was Shadow and Bone (medieval fantasy), which was particularly interesting because Jethrien was tracking where the show and the books diverged.

I’m coming into 2022 with three more seasons of superhero shows and several Star Trek spinoffs on my backlog. I changed phone plans so I’m losing my free Hulu subscription, so I’ll have to decide whether to let it lapse, maintain it or bundle it and get Disney+ (which I’ve only been watching when visiting various relatives). And yes, I’ve heard about Ted Lasso.

(In ARR’s limited Youtube time he watches a lot of Among Us gameplay. He watched a lot of Pokemon, Captain Underpants, Storybots, and Larva on Netflix; plus Pinky and the Brain on Hulu. We also watched more Avatar: The Last Airbender as a family but stalled out again mid third season.)