The 2011 Fictive Speculator Awards

It's that time of the year when people create awards lists to celebrate the year gone by. I've always felt it was a little bit odd to name the best of the year when the year isn't even over yet, sort of like bands putting new songs on their greatest hits albums—a bit presumptuous. But I'm feeling compelled for some reason. And so I present to you the first annual awards given by my blog. There is only one criterion for selection: the nominees have to be new to me in 2011. That means if I see a film or read a book that is decades old for the first time in 2011, it is eligible. So without further ado (to borrow a cliché from awards shows):

Book of the Year

I had the book picked out, and then I went back and looked at my reading list and it turns out I read a lot of good stuff in the past year. It's just that they have become dimmed over time with the weight of books read later. Here are the nominees:

Horns Joe Hill
To Say Nothing of the Dog Connie Willis
Embassytown China Mieville
The Wise Man's Fear Patrick Rothfuss
Who Fears the Devil? Manly Wade Wellman
The Magicians Lev Grossman
Reamde Neal Stephenson
Bridge of Birds Barry Hughart

And the winner is Embassytown by China Mieville. All of these books have much to offer, but Embassytown edges out Who Fears the Devil? because of its taking the tropes of space opera and updating them, taking the subgenre to thought-provoking places it has never been before. The world-building is staggering and the implications are breathtaking. Embassytown should easily push Mieville over what little divide remains between him and mainstream acceptance, and it is a novel that should be read by fans of the power of literature, no matter their genre preferences.

Movie of the Year

I won't bother listing the nominees here, because only one movie stands out so much in my memory that I proselytize it to anyone who will listen. While The Muppets is a wonderful movie that I hope brings back a franchise, my personal movie of the year is 1951's People Will Talk, starring Cary Grant and Jeanne Crain. Cary Grant is my all-time favorite actor, and two of his movies seem to alternate for my all-time favorite movie (North by Northwest and His Girl Friday). Others of his movies stop me in my tracks when they are on, including Bringing Up Baby, Arsenic and Old Lace, and Only Angels Have Wings. I had thought I knew just about every one of his movies until Netflix offered up People Will Talk as a recommendation based on other films Mrs. Speculator and I had watched.

While it seems to have some of its roots in screwball comedy, it has a lot more heart than that. Grant plays Noah Praetorius, a professor at a medical school who also runs his own clinic. His bedside manner is non-traditional and disarming, and Grant's apparent easy charm comes through in spades, as nearly everyone he meets adores him. And yet a rival tries to drum him out of the school, leading to the most unexpected turn I think I have seen in any movie, or heard tell of. And Cary Grant pulls it off with savoir faire, so that the twist and the denouement don't feel ridiculous at all. I purely love this movie, and if you find yourself in the mood for an old-fashioned feel good movie, you should hunt this one up.

TV Series of the Year

The nominees:

Luther, season 1
The Hour
Justified
Fringe
Whitechapel, season 1
Sherlock

I think it's telling that this category is dominated by original dramas being shown on BBC America. I am constantly in awe of the chances these series take in their storytelling—most of which I cannot describe without giving away spoilers that would cause irate villagers to attempt to tear down my home with fire and pitchforks. Suffice to say, if you have not seen any one of these series, you need to do what you can to rectify that situation.

But, having said that, the winner is Justified, just edging out Luther and Sherlock. Created by Leonard Elmore and starring Timothy Olyphant as a federal marshal who must return to his home in rural Kentucky, the first season was eye-opening. But the second season went further, filled with stellar performances, two of which were nominated for Emmys and one that won (Margo Martindale). Walton Goggins is a revelation in every episode, and his conflicted character Boyd is a delight. Olyphant's Raylan is probably my favorite character on television right now (closely followed by John Noble's Walter Bishop on Fringe). Filled with the snappy dialog and deep and rounded characters one expects from Leonard, Justified is destination programming, and I am nearly counting the days until the new season starts in January.

TV Episode of the Year

"The Great Game", Sherlock
"Episode 1.6", Luther
"And Those We Left Behind", Fringe

"The Great Game" is the final episode of the first season for Sherlock and ends the season on a tremendous cliffhanger. Sadly, knowing that there is a season 2 indicates how the cliffhanger is resolved. "And Those We Left Behind" is another time-based episode on Fringe, where it becomes clear that time-travel is a tool for exploring the nature of relationships and obligation on that TV series, following as it does in the shoes of "White Lily" from the season before. But the winner is the unfortunately named "Episode 1.6" from Luther. All the issues that have been coming down on Luther's head through the previous episodes come to a crisis at the same time, and Luther has to rely on unexpected allies to help him through. Idris Elba shows his acting chops in this episode as a detective inspector who is ravaged by his own faults and the circumstances that those faults have created in his life. Alternately too trusting and paranoid, Luther finds out the cost of misplaced trust in a scene filled with such rage and sorrow as has been rarely seen on television. And, really did anyone see that conclusion coming?

Ongoing Comic Series of the Year

Fables
Unwritten
Batwoman

Nothing has excited me so much about the new DC 52 as Batwoman. The plotting and the art, and their masterful intersection in the hands of J.H. Williams III, is a signpost for what the very best in modern comics can do. And that it is being done in the superhero genre just speaks volumes about what Williams is capable of. Fables and Unwritten are strong contenders and should receive regular praise for what they bring to the table, but Batwoman takes my breath away in every issue. I really can't praise this work enough except to say that even non-comics readers should hunt down the first Batwoman collection once the story arc is complete.

And a music selection

I honestly cannot remember all the music that was new to me this year, but only one really jumps out at me as something that needs to be shared: Black Country Communion. If you are a fan of blues rock, you need to know about this band that describes what may have happened to Led Zeppelin had they remained together. Fronted by Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple, with lead guitarist blues master Joe Bonamassa, keyboardist Derek Sharinian, and drummer Jason Bonham, this band's self-titled first album rocks along the lines of bands that have been together for decades. They have a second album which is also particularly strong, but for me its lows are lower than the first album, and so that first album gets my pick. I'm astounded by the vocal range of Hughes in every track, and Bonamassa has already proven himself an artist in his solo work. But what also makes this album strong is their knowledge of the foundations of the genre they are working with. The style is always blues rock but the influences range from Led Zeppelin to Stevie Ray Vaughan to deep tracks of early Journey. I listened to this album for five days straight, and I desperately want ot see them live. I can think of no higher praise.

So, happy holidays to my readers, and I look forward to sharing more of my discoveries from next year. And who knows, given the political importance of 2012, maybe some political commentary might make its way here.

Strangely Silent: The End of the Year

I haven’t been blogging much in the past couple of months, and I thought I would offer some rationale for the remarkable silence.

First, Mrs. Speculator and I haven’t really seen many movies of late. All the ones we’ve seen, I’ve blogged about. Stuff would come and go, and we might be mildly interested in some of it, but not enough to make a really concerted effort to get out to them. We both regret that, but given the cost of movies and the proportional discourtesy among other movie-goers, we just don’t try really hard. There are a number of holiday movies we are interested in, and maybe some good stuff will come out in the new year, so there may be more movie posts. But I also gave Mrs. Speculator a 40-inch LCD TV for Christmas (thanks for the help Jeff!) and we are really rediscovering the joy of the good movies on our own in-home big screen. This past week we watched some of the best movies of last year, including V for Vendetta, Children of Men, and The Prestige, with the ability to rewind and pause and no one more rude than our cats walking between us and the screen. There is still much to be said about seeing movies on the really big screen, and I know we both want to get to more movies.

Second, there’s not been much on TV to be excited about. About four episodes into Heroes we decided that when the arc was done, we were done with the show. Perhaps I can expand that decision into a blog, but ultimately, I’m not sure the show is intended for people who already read and enjoy comics, but acts more as a lure to get people into the comic form. The show distills the tropes and clichés of the last forty years of comics so that it is very predictable and yet, somehow, ridiculously slow-moving. And, already being fans, Mrs. Speculator and I weren’t being excited by the stories (I especially despise the ridiculous use of Hiro’s time-travelling powers) and the characters just weren’t grabbing us. So we gave up. We watched the pilot of Bionic Woman and we usually try to give a show three episodes, but we couldn’t find a reason to really pay attention to this one for more than the first hour of the pilot.

One of the shows we really do like is Chuck. We really enjoy the goofy lead character and his best friend, Morgan (Organ). And while the individual shows are a little predictable, the arcs are not; and we really like the smart dialog and the geek moments. I about busted a gut after three episodes when I finally realized that the secondary antagonist was named Harry Tang. How they are getting away with some of the wordplay and scenes is beyond me, but we really look forward to every Monday. But now, with the writer’s strike, we have no idea when new episodes will be coming out. Fortunately, we have Lost to look forward to in the spring, but even its season may well be cut short due to the strike. As it is, we are down to about six shows a week, not counting college football….

Third, I made a really bad book decision. I was reading a novel that was getting huge reviews and I was tremendously excited about it. I tried for two months to read the book and ultimately gave up, less than halfway through it. I wonder if that would make a good blog entry, but I’m not comfortable giving a bad review to a book I couldn’t finish. Who knows—maybe that last two hundred pages were brilliant. So I started reading other things, but work has been insane. The last couple of weeks of the year, I was either pulling 11-hour days or coming home emotionally exhausted from the wear and tear of ridiculous corporate processes. I generally ended up being mindless: playing a computer game or just catching up on comics.

The good news is that my own book got finished up in that time as well. Eric did an awesome job with the layouts: I think Mark’s brilliant art was an inspiration for us both. I am actually terribly excited about the book’s impending release, just because I think everyone did a really bang-up job putting it together. My biggest hope is that people who already know Mark and his work will get a deeper appreciation for it, and that people who don’t know him will want to after reading the book. There’s a bit of irony, though; in all the material about the book on the Web, either at Amazon or on the publisher’s web site, my name has been left off the book. The cover being used in the online listings is not the final art. So, even if I link to the book (like this: http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=70&products_id=603&zenid=ad06dd5542972c5aa5a82be5a3d5c3eb), I can still retain something of Internet anonymity until you actually buy the book….

Finally, there’s comics. I read an interesting article on Absorbascon about the differences between Marvel and DC, especially how Marvel appeals to the part of us that likes serialized stories, while DC has relied on variations of the detective story. The article ends up by pointing out that the recent year-long crossover stuff from DC is more like Marvel than historical DC. Reading this brought clarity to my own misgivings about what DC was doing with their characters and universe(s?). Then I read an article on Lying in the Gutters about the bad feelings running rampant in the DC offices about the direction things are going in, and I realized that if the writers aren’t happy, the faithful readers weren’t likely to be either. Frankly, DC’s current direction relies on tight continuity between titles, which worked pretty well during the year-long 52 event. But Countdown has been a disaster. Stories are planned out and then have to be finished in annuals when the deadlines go unmet. Gaffes between the individual titles have been numerous, the most visible being the appearance of the old Aquaman in Justice League when he is dead in his own title. I felt like the return of the multiverse would have opened up the possibilities for story-telling in DC, but nothing is using that potential except Booster Gold, which remains a fun ride. The result is a convoluted impossible mess, which I am enjoying in tiny segments but the overall view just depresses me. I’ve been dropping titles a great deal recently and holding out hope that it gets turned around. I’ve never been an apologist for the current editorial staff for DC, but I also never lambasted them as I have seen on other sites. But now I just have to wonder if there really is a plan.

I think I may have made it clear that I favor DC far above Marvel. Even so, I was buying some Marvel titles for the writers and characters. But World War Hulk ended with the Hulk being moved to another title and not being written by Greg Pak any more. I picked up Incredible Hulk just for his work, and I dropped it as soon as he was gone; I’ll not read anything written by Jeph Loeb if I can help it. I was reading X-Factor because Peter David was writing it, and I loved his original run on the series. But his story-telling has become lost in the continual crossovers that detract from what he was doing, and then I found out that the cast was undergoing a wholesale change, so I dropped that one too. As for the other non-Ultimate titles I was picking up, I dropped almost all of them when the Skrull stuff started. I mean, if I cared about the Marvel universe, I might have an interest in finding out which members were really Skrull spies and which weren’t, but I don’t know the universe and so don’t care. I’ll probably look for updates as to who is Skrully in the next year, but I don’t care enough to spend my money there.

So, yeah, I’m still here. Circumstances have just gotten away with me and I’m not writing as much as I once did or as much as I might like. I’m going to see what I can do about fixing that in the new year. Speaking of which, happy holidays to those who come by. Things will pick up, you have my word.