Things I found and loved this year

Inspired by a tweet, I made a list of all the things I found and loved this year. This is mostly fiction: Prose and anime. There are a few video games, too.

Prose fiction and one review thereof

1. Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. It's a damn fine story—a new entry in my top 10 for science fiction and general fiction. The audiobook version I listened to is excellently narrated by Jefferson Mays, who does a great job of capturing the characters and nuances of speech. If you read one story on this list, make it this.
2. cripes does anybody remember google people by qntm. Suitably creepy in a fun Twitter-like format. Love how this is based in Google's services graveyard.
3. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. Refreshingly strange and not like I would have expected, even having listened to one or two stories from Norse mythology. A lot of fun.
4. Drawing of the Three by Stephen King. A delightfully fun and wild romp. I couldn't get a handle on where it was going and I didn't want to.
5. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett. An excellent Sam Vimes story. I'm often surprised how Terry Pratchett can weave a serious story with great humor. This book is no exception.
6. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller. Unexpectedly funny in part 1, and oddly profound. I haven't yet finished part 2 let alone 3.
7. Deserter by Junji Ito. A manga, essentially a collection of 12 short horror stories. Sharply drawn and thought-provoking.
8. Rock Falls, Everyone Dies. A sentient rock levels the world in its quest to level up. Comically merciless.
9. I Only Summon Slime. Deranged in the best way. Escalates quickly, but knows when to quit. Relatively short.
10. A book review of Name of the Wind and The Children of Hurin. This was a reread. I still find it a really interesting exploration of entertainment, art, and what art can be.

A movie

(I don't watch a lot of movies.)

1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. A thoroughly fun movie. The second half ought to be interesting.

Anime and one TV show

1. Only Murders in the Building. The one TV show. Has a lovely morbid sense of humor.
2. Inuyasha. Very 90s anime, but works well. A pretty good adventure/romance.
3. Spy x Family season 1. Fun premise executed quite well. Some great situational (is that the term?) and reference humor.
4. Steins;Gate. A bizarre show but a fun one, and thought-provoking. I'm expecting to finish (most of) the original series this week and then move on to the movie(s?) and prequel series.

Video games and one game

1. Kyle Is Famous. If you read the end of Stephen King's The Gunslinger and thought it made too much sense and was too serious, this is for you. Strange, disgusting, and delightful.
2. Hades. Lovely Greek mythology fanfiction. Oh, and a pretty good game, too, I guess. :)
3. ROUNDS with friends, heavily modded with r2modman. Wild. After ten rounds, we're lucky if the game is still running at any reasonable framerate, because of all the unbalanced card mods we've installed and stacked to create completely silly broken characters.
4. Risk of Rain 2 with a friend. Oddly relaxing, except for when I ended up running around the map trying to survive long enough to kill the challenge-enhanced double bosses.
5. The Curiosity Game. The one that's not a video game—it's an Authentic Relating game, with no prep or materials needed except a countdown timer. I played it with someone I'd never spoken to one on one and found it worked really well. It was fun.