The Ephemeric

It is somewhat ironic that Aaron Sorkin, a man who once played himself on Entourage and insisted that he would never want to become a director since he's a writer by trade, has actually moved into the realm of directing. If his first project, Molly's Game did not strike as wholly convincing, his latest film sure does. Trial of the Chicago 7 is a dramatisation of the events surrounding the real-life trial of the Chicago Seven, a group of anti-Vietnam war protestors charged with crimes in the wake of the 1968 riots. While I had no doubts that Sorkin could write his way through what might otherwise have been a relatively dry courtroom drama, what I did not expect was for him to be able to direct it in such an exciting, kinetic fashion. The result is a film at the peak of its genre and a highlight of 2020 cinema.

It may not be eligible for the Oscars, but you ain't in Hollywood anymore fella. These are the Debbies and here I make my own rules. Hamilton released back in the summer, an amalgamated recording of various performances of the now legendary musical featuring the original Broadway cast. That millions all over the world would be able to finally see this brilliant show for themselves would ordinarily be sufficient cause for celebration, but it is made all the more remarkable by just how well it comes across as a film in its own right. It is difficult to put a theatre performance on the big screen, I have never seen it pulled off with any great degree of success, but here they have managed something very impressive, capturing the energy and immediacy in a way that has defied many others. This is not just a visual cast recording for fans of the show, but two and a half hours of entertainment to be relished.


4. The Debbie for Variety Show Host of the Year 
Winner: John Krasinski, Some Good News










In a year where we could all do with a pick-me-up, few have stepped up to the plate to make it happen as much as John Krasinski. The former star of the Office (and now talented filmmaker in his own right) hosted Some Good News, a tragically short-lived webseries the sole premise of which was to celebrate the good news of the day from around the world, in contrast to the general news media's tendency to focus on reporting the tragic and awful. While this series was created as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, it's a premise that would have been equally valid in most years. It sounds so deceptively simple, almost shallow. But the way in which it was pulled off with genuinely good humour, clever celebrity cameos and remarkably heartfelt showstoppers makes this a very special creation indeed, well worth a Debbie.


5. The Debbie for Hollywood Rising Star of the Year 
Winner: Kingsley Ben-Adir










One name you are sure to be hearing more of in the coming years is Kingsley Ben-Adir. Two years ago, Kingsley was a largely unknown British theatre actor, but he has had one heck of a run and emerged as a bona fide one to watch. In just twelve months he has appeared in the well received Disney Christmas film Noelle, the hotly tipped Malcolm X story One Night in Miami, the hit HBO series Love Life and played Barack Obama in the the award winning political drama The Comey Rule. It's a hot streak of which any actor would be proud and I expect there's only more to come.


6. The Debbie for YouTube Channel of the Year 
Winner: Kurzgesagt, in a nutshell










YouTube at its best can be informative, entertaining, and address niche topics that most mainstream media will never touch. Kurzgesagt covers all these bases, with a series of slickly animated education videos that address topics as wide ranging as Designer Babies, automation, the healthiness of milk, and pulsar stars. Science, philosophy, politics, biology, health and safety, nutrition, this channel touches on so many different topics and approaches all of them with the same sensitivity and fact-based approached (indeed all data is sourced). There's something here to cater to any interest, perfect for anyone with some intellectual curiosity.

Music, Art & Theatre

7. The Debbie for Theatrical Production of the Year 
Winner: The Haystack(Hampstead Theatre)










I figured that this might be a tricky year for this award, given that the theatres have been closed for most of the year. Sure, there have been shows streamed online, but for the most part these have been recording of older productions, rather than actually new theatre. Fortunately I did manage to see a few shows in the first two months of the year, one of which was good enough that it would have been a contender even in an ordinary year of theatre. The Haystack tackles issues of digital privacy, GCHQ snooping, and all kinds of political intrigue and digital espionage that always feels uncomfortably close to reality. It makes for an enthralling, yet brainy drama with sharp writing, stylish directing and anchored by strong performances. Excellent theatre.


8. The Debbie for Album of the Year 
Winner: We Will Always Love You - The Avalanches
Runners Up: Shore - Fleet Foxes, Imploding the Mirages - The Killers










If there is one area of entertainment that has been relatively unaffected by global events over the past twelve months, it is music. As a form of media that is already mainly consumed at home or on one's own personal devices, the business of production required only a relatively smooth adjustment, with delays amounting to a few months compared to entire years as we saw in television and film. So there was no shortage of decent music this year. But in a year crowded with notable releases, one album stood above the rest: We Will Always Love You, the third studio album from elusive plunderphonics outfit The Avalanches. Introspective, but still bursting with the band's typical creativity and playful spirit. This is a sublime production that works well as a whole and as individual tracks, most notably the likes of Running Red Lights, Interstellar Love, and The Divine Chord.

Meanwhile it has been an impressive return to form for folk rockers Fleet Foxes, whose new album Shore ranks up their with the finest the genre has produced in recent years. Crisp melodies rendered with brilliant complexity and the spark of heat that was sorely missing from their last album, with great tunes like Can I Believe You, Sunblind, Featherweight, among others. This is top drawer stuff from a great band and easily a musical highlight of 2020.

For our second runner up, we must make honourable mention of The Killers, a band who in 2020 produced what has to be their best album in years, Imploding the Mirage. This is an album that hearkens back to the very best the band has produced. In My Own Soul's Warning they channel the Springsteen energy of Sam's Town. With Dying Breed they turn to that driven, electronic rock and roll style that typified Hot Fuss and Day & Age. Then there's the fantastic My God, a roof-raiser more in the style of Brandon Flowers' solo work.


9. The Debbie for Debut Album of the Year 
Winner: Hugh Harris - Hugh Harris
Runner Up: Your Hero is Not Dead - Westerman










This year's winner came as a surprise. When I heard that Hugh Harris, best known as the lead guitarist of British indie band The Kooks, was releasing a solo album, I expected some pleasingly breezy rock and roll tracks. What I was not expecting from his eponymous debut was a collection of such infectiously catchy tracks, with such a high level of consistency throughout. Curious Illusions and Earth Like You are just brilliant tracks, but check out also Icy Palace, a song that is guaranteed to get stuck in your head.

One name that I am sure we will be hearing plenty from in coming years is indie pop sensation Westerman. He was tipped for a big break this year and accordingly his debut album Your Hero is Not Dead was met with general acclaim for its breezy, introspective style. Key tracks like Confirmation and Waiting on Design bring to mind other low-fi artists such as The xx, but infused with a distinctly echoey 1980s flavour. Very promising indeed.


10. The Debbie for Song of the Year 
Winner: Queen Bee - Johnny Flynn
Runners Up: Become a Mountain - Dan Deacon, The One - Lemon Twigs










For perhaps the first time ever, this year's lineup of top tracks does not feature any music from our winners in the best album categories. It's always very difficult to pick out individual songs from an entire year of music. In such cases you need to learn to go with your gut and in this case my gut is telling me that Johnny Flynn's folksy Queen Bee is the standout piece of music from twelve months in which there have been many. Simplistic sounding on the surface, but intricate and playful with a certain timeless quality that ensures it will live long in the memory.

And now for something completely different: from charming folk music to the dazzlingly complex electronic stylings of Dan Deacon and in particular this year's Become a Mountain. As brilliantly experimental as we have come to expect from Deacon, his latest rumination on mortality and life manages to capture something quite profound and pensive, without stifling his soaring pop ambitions.

We close with yet another completely different genre, Lemon Twigs and their delightful slice of retro rock and roll, The One. Lemon Twigs have built a career on crafting punchy and enjoyable retro rock and roll heavily inspired by the bands of yesteryear like Buddy Holly, The Ramones, and The Beatles among many others. Their latest in particular apes on those Buddy Holly riffs and Beatles harmonies and the result is absolutely irresistible.


11. The Debbie for Live Performance of the Year 
Winner: Zucchero










For obvious reasons, 2020 has been a somewhat limited year for live in-person musical performances, instead we have mainly had to make do with online live-streams. Fortunately there have been a huge number of those, from casual Instagram moments to massive, choreographed benefit concerts. There have been some great artists performing live for viewers at home, but out of all of them, I think there was one in particular who stood out to me: Italian songwriter Zucchero and his soulful rendition of Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime performed as part of this summer's One World: Together at Home concert. A perfect capture of the melancholy of the moment performed with genuine heart.


12. The Debbie for Art Exhibition of the Year 
Winner: The Affordable London Art Fair










On a similar note: art exhibitions. For reasons we are all aware, this would be an otherwise impossible Debbie to award in 2020 with museums basically shut down. But instead of scrub this prize entirely for the year, I would like to use this to draw attention to the Affordable Art Fair Online. The Affordable Art Fair is a wonderful organisation that does in-person events in a variety of locations. In the absence of those fairs, they now have an online collection that's free to view and can be browsed for purchase. It's a great way to get started on building your own art collection without having to break the bank, and also to support local artists in this difficult time.


13. The Debbie for Book of the Year 
Winner: Daisy Jones and the Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid










As regular readers of this blog will recall (or should do, I mean I posted about this like a week ago) I had a shall we say long shortlist for this prize. But the winner was rarely in doubt. Daisy Jones and the Six is an excellent novel and I have absolutely nothing negative to say about it. This tells the story of a fictional band of the same name, allegedly based loosely on the history of Fleetwood Mac, in the style of a documentary film. The quality of the writing here really is excellent in many ways. Vivid and believable characters with motivations that are explored to just the right extent without feeling like forced subtext. The pacing in particular is just about perfect, never feeling like the story is dragging whilst also never feeling like it has to rush through it's plot points.

Business & Technology

14. The Debbie for Scientific/Technological Breakthrough of the Year 
Winner: Covid-19 Vaccine

CD Projekt Red have spent the last several years riding high on a wave of adulation following the almost universal acclaim that has been lavished upon their previous project, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Armed with new global renown and a AAA budget far beyond anything they had seen previously, the developer set its sights on adapting Cyberpunk, a somewhat known tabletop RPG whose original format dates back to the 1980s.

First teased back in 2012, this title has seen what can be charitably described as a protracted production cycle. Even when the game was finally given a release date last year, that date ended up being delayed repeatedly. A lot of people joked that this release would never come, but it has and we've played it.

Let's not mince words, the hype for this game has been stratospheric: a developer who was seen as incapable of doing wrong, a reimagining of an intellectual property with cult following, all packaged into an ambitious, grand open-world RPG package with endless possibilities. This wasn't just a new game, it was billed as a generational moment in the industry, a milestone against which future titles would be compared. Few could possibly have foreseen the shitstorm that came next. It turns out there was a reason for the frequent delays. Cyberpunk 2077 simply isn't finished. 

Let's step back a moment. Cyberpunk 2077 is an action RPG set in the dystopian near-future Night City, located on the American west coast. The world's governments have mostly collapsed, meaning that most power lies with corporations. Sophisticated, intelligent AI is a thing, and cybernetic technology has improved to such an extent that people can and do augment their bodies with regularity. These augmentations can include anything from the functional (think extra RAM or physically stronger limbs) to the superficial (like a shiny metallic gold body). 

It makes for an interesting setting as there is an awful lot to like about this future. This is a world where you can be whoever you want. The ability to completely customise one's own body has led to an explosion in self-expression, both through augmentations as well as fashion, hairstyling and gender fluidity. Then there are the obvious advances that this level of technology would offer. Ocular implants can project information within one's vision. The brain's operating system can jack directly into computer systems to transfer information. Technology may even be on the verge of digital immortality, which forms a focal point of the game's main story. In many ways, this is a technical wonderland.

But this is ultimately a dystopia, a world where corporate greed has created an unsustainable level of wealth inequality, where law enforcement and government is riddled with corruption and criminal gangs run essentially unchallenged so long as they play by the corporations' rules. Indeed, as with any good cyberpunk dystopia, it is the technical marvels that provide much of the tension in this world, with people abusing technology for their own nefarious gains, be it through the inevitable weaponisation of cybernetics, the unshackling of AI, or by direct brain hacking for various ends. 

Players will explore this world through the eyes of "V", a protagonist of the player's design who will begin from one of three starting points (nomad, street-kid or corpo) before becoming a mercenary for hire. This being an RPG, players will choose various stats for their characters that help determine their abilities going forward, but Cyberpunk 2077 never locks you into a particular path or class, allowing players a refreshing amount of freedom to vary their play-style at will.

It is worth talking about everything that Cyberpunk 2077 does right, and to be clear there are a lot of things that the game does very well indeed. 

Night City might well be one of the greatest videogame settings of all time from a design perspective. The scale and level of detail in this city is simply unparalleled. It is clear that a great deal of love has gone into crafting this city, with every nook and cranny seemingly carved by hand and dripping with atmosphere. It's absolutely stunning to look at and surprisingly diverse, with an array of different neighbourhoods and landmarks, as well as a vast expanse of wild desert beyond the city limits to explore. 

If you are playing on a high-end PC (more on that later) then this is a visually spectacular game. From the breathtaking vistas, to the textures, lighting and character models, this is a beautiful game if you have the hardware to do it justice. Some spontaneous moments are so striking that they almost look like they could have been carefully framed by a professional cinematographer. I'm not a big screenshots of videogames kind of guy, but there have been moments here that I felt moved to capture, so impressed was I by the quality and composition.

A great deal of attention has also been paid to the sound, be it the ambient sounds of the city or the excellent original score. Night City even features a line up of radio stations full of completely original music. While that last component can feel inconsistent (seriously this is cyberpunk, why so few retro or synthwave tunes?) it's all generally of a very high quality and fits the atmosphere extremely well. Voice acting is also generally very good (not so much with the protagonist's voice actor) and pairs well with the high quality of writing, although I must say I did find the romance dialogue to be a bit sophomoric, occasionally bordering on offensive.

The attention to detail here is often insane. I noticed NPCs playing guitars with accurate chord fingering, shoes making different footstep sound effects depending on the style of shoe, amongst other things.

Between the audio and visuals, I don't think a game has ever nailed the atmosphere of a setting quite as well as Cyberpunk 2077. Both elements are put to excellent use in the game's story and questing system, resulting in certainly one of the better story campaigns I can recall in recent years. The quests in general are very good: well written, incredibly directed, and full of different player decisions and variants that create the strong sense of player agency that you want from an RPG. The main campaign, it has to be said, was disappointingly short, but the real star is in the many and varied side quests. Some of these have stories that are at least as good, if not better, than the main campaign and most will in some way affect the ending you ultimately achieve. For this reason it is well worth not rushing the main campaign and taking your time to complete all of these side quests.

So Cyberpunk 2077 contains an incredibly presented game world with quests that are excellently designed and produced. It is clear that the developers were building something truly remarkable here. But as we so often see, sometimes the interests of the shareholders can run against the interests of the creatives (somewhat fittingly considering the themes of the game) and it is clear that after many years in development and several delays, CD Projekt was simply not willing to give the developers more time to realise this vision. The result is a game that in many places feels half-finished, poorly tested, or filled with obvious gaps from where content has been cut at the last minute. 

This includes some obvious cut content such as ostensibly useless items left in-game which have had their apparent functions removed as well as defunct locations like an unused subway system that can still be accessed through glitches. It also includes some explicitly developer-confirmed cut content such as the ability to upgrade player apartments, rideable public transport and a third person camera view (seriously what is the point of all that character customisation if you never see it?).

It includes features that are still in-game but clearly half finished or unpolished, most notably the police/wanted system. Whereas previously police were intended to chase you in police cars and increase in intensity depending on the severity of your crimes, this all appears to have been replaced late on by a very rudimentary system. Police now spawn on foot right behind you as soon as you commit a crime, sometimes literally appearing out of thin air. If you hop in a car you're basically free because the police AI can't drive - strangely police driving AI does still appear to be in the game, it's just not used for some reason. Another example is the relationship system. Originally the plan was for V to be able to meet and enter into romantic relationships with characters, but at some point this was scaled down to just a single option per gender and orientation and is now entirely quest-based - ie, there is no actual relationship system, it's just an optional part of the quest line with no interactivity outside of these quests.

Perhaps the most egregious example of missing content is the lack of player customisation after the start of the game. A huge part of the hype over this game has been the extent to which you can customise your character (hair, tattoos, cybernetics, etc), yet for some reason you can only do this right at the start of the game. That's right, you can't change your hair style or colour, you can't get additional tattoos, and even though you can augment your body with cybernetics it doesn't actually affect your appearance at all.

Then there's the bugs, oh lord the bugs. Let me say this up front: if you are planning on playing this on console, don't! The console versions are just broken,  unplayable to such an extent that the game has actually been pulled from the Sony game store. I can not stress this enough: if you have a good gaming PC, play it there, if not, then wait until they patch the current problems.

Even on the relatively stable PC build, this is a buggy game. This can range from the mildly irritating; lips not moving in cutscenes, invisible clothes, janky physics, people/vehicles spawning inside of things or falling through the floor; to the infuriating; on-screen notifications that won't go away, things exploding for no reason; to the downright game-breaking; missions getting stuck, unreachable objectives, save corruption. Often, things just don't work in this game and it's not like these bugs are hard to reproduce. There's no good reason for them to have not been patched out in development other than that it was rushed to market.

But I can forgive most of these issues. The quantity of cut content is disappointing when compared to what had been promised in the lead up to release, however I ultimately tend to think that what is in the game is more important than what is not. Many of these missing/cut features will no doubt be added post-launch anyway. I can even forgive the bugs (except for the broken console port, seriously DO NOT play this on a console), after all I've played and enjoyed many notoriously buggy RPGs over the years (the Bethesda RPGs come to mind) and these will surely be patched in due course.

Instead, the biggest issue for me lies in what is otherwise its greatest strength: the game world. While Night City may be absolutely beautiful to look at and listen to, it is a dead place, a piece of beautiful window-dressing with nothing behind the curtain. Right now, Night City serves mainly as a backdrop as you move from quest marker to quest marker, with little else to do. There are no activities, no games, no social life, no bars, very few shops. You can come across some repeatable "crimes in progress" events that basically amount to a bland shootout with cookie cutter badguys, but otherwise there really isn't much reason to explore this incredible place and that's a pity. 

If anything, playing Cyberpunk 2077 makes you really appreciate the incredible work that developers like Rockstar (Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption) have been doing when it comes to open world gaming. Those games have living, breathing, dynamic worlds and have done for years.

This brings me to a very surprising core criticism of this game. Far from the cutting edge revolutionary title it was tipped to be, Cyberpunk 2077 feels strangely dated in a number of ways. From the disappointingly lifeless open world, to the lack of avatar or vehicle customisation, to the poor AI (drivers in particular are very basic, just following a set path and unable to navigate around obstacles), to the rudimentary police system, to the bullet-spongy enemies, this just feels like a weirdly outdated game for something that was supposed to be so cutting edge. Production on Cyberpunk 2077 began seven years ago and it shows. 

Yet despite all these issues, I am loving this game. It's a mess in so many ways and a shadow of what was expected, but what is here is so engrossing and the RPG elements very satisfying. I think ultimately while this may be a poor open-world game, it is still a very good action RPG. If you are willing to appreciate this game for what it is instead of what it is not, then you can lose yourself in this world and get your money's worth (but only on PC).

So this is a difficult game to evaluate. It's clear that more time was needed, at least another year, in order to realise the developers' original grander vision. It may well be that this vision can still be realised post launch. For now, though, we are left wondering at what might have been.

This latest entry in the series the sort of globetrotting adventure one would hope for, but also recognises that both its cast of characters and its target audience are a little older and more mature than they were in the original trilogy of novels, taking a darker turn in its content, particularly as it pertains to the mental state of the novel's protagonists. A very fine work of fiction, albeit nothing as of yet as seminal as its predecessors. We will wait and see what the final book has to offer.


February - "The Guest Book" by Sarah Blake

Often delightful. The Guest Book traces the fortunes of a family of American aristocrats across three generations from the interbellum to present day, and in particular their life spent on the family private island and its guest house. Flashforward to present day and the family, now on harder times financially, is looking to sell the island and all the memories that reside within its grounds.

There's a lot to like about this novel. It tackles the topic of social inequality from a perspective not commonly explored in fiction and manages to weave its narrative across a broader story about family, nostalgia and loss. Unfortunately other than its themes, the actual narrative is a bit thin and one gets the impression it is drawn out considerably longer than is justified. The Guest Book also suffers from having, to be frank, way too many different minor characters. Most barely even figure into the plot, are mentioned once and then promptly vanish. I can imagine it being tricky to keep track of if you don't read it in a condensed space of time as I did.


March - "The Supernova Era" by Liu Cixin
To quote the old football maxim, "it's a game of two halves...". The Supernova Era has perhaps one of the best set ups to a sci-fi novel that I have read in many years. A nearby supernova bathes the Earth in radiation, dooming the planet's adult population and requiring a sudden and urgent training of children in order to keep the world running in their absence. 

The first half of this novel is brilliant. As with his other work (notably the Three Body Problem), Cixin has a knack for setting up an outlandish premise and following it through to its logical conclusion, imagining what one might actually do in such a situation and how it would play out in a manner that is extremely believable. Unfortunately about half way through, the novel takes a complete left turn into the realm of the unbelievable and nonsensical. It's an example of an author who clearly wants to make a satirical point, even at the expense of a coherent story, and it's a pity.


April - "Daisy Jones and the Six" by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This is a brilliant novel and I have absolutely nothing negative to say about it. Daisy Jones tells the story of fictional band Daisy Jones and the Six, allegedly based loosely on the history of Fleetwood Mac, in the style of a documentary film. The quality of the writing here really is excellent in many ways. Vivid and believable characters with motivations that are explored to just the right extent without feeling like forced subtext. The pacing in particular is just about perfect, never feeling like the story is dragging whilst also never feeling like it has to rush through it's plot points.

I wouldn't surprised to see this one pick up a Debbie in a few days time. If you read one book from this list, I would make it this one.


May - "This is Going to Hurt" by Adam Kay

I remember seeing a live performance by Adam Kay at Imperial College freshers week (where he had studied medicine, before quitting medicine to become a comedian). While I thought he was hilarious, he somehow managed to deeply, deeply offend both my female friends and my LGBT friends who were with me that night. That should give you some clue as to the type of wit to expect with this novel.

This is Going to Hurt serves as a memoir of the ever irreverent Adam Kay's days in medicine. A series of moments and snippets in a diary format that range from rolling in the aisles hilarious to tragic and some that are just downright nauseating, but always entertaining. It seems Kay may have finally struck the right balance between edgy and funny that allows his particular brand of humour to go mainstream, a TV adaptation is expected to land sometime next year.


June - "Men Without Women" by Haruki Murakami

A collection of short stories penned by legendary Japanese surrealist author Haruki Murakami on the topic of relationships. Inspired by and sharing a name with the similar collection of short stories by Ernest Hemingway. As with any collection of short stories, the quality and tone of each tale varies, but the quality is as consistent and immersive as one would expect from the author.

One often gets the impression that Murakami is inherently suspicious of women, as indeed the female characters in his novels often turn out to be hiding mysterious, often duplicitous sorts and sometimes these gender biases can grow a bit stale. Fortunately the short-form nature of this collection allows a greater variety of devices to be employed, including some that break refreshingly from the typical Murakami tropes that one might expect.


June Bonus - "An Average War" by Mike Peyton 

Confession time: I had already started reading the previous entry last year. So by way of recompense, I added another (much shorter) novel to this month's reading list. An Average War is the autobiographical tale of somewhat noted illustrator Mike Peyton and his adventures during the war.

One can tell from the quality of the prose that Peyton is not a professional wordsmith, but he has much to say and does so in an engaging fashion. These are stories that range from the exciting and adventurous to heartbreaking, often told with dark humour. Some incidents are so farcical as to be scarcely believable, but that only serves to highlight the tragic reality that at the end of the day these wars are just fought by regular people in all their flaws and idiosyncrasies.


July - "Agent Running in the Field" by John le Carré

The final work of the recently deceased espionage legend. Le Carré's career spanned six decades and includes such seminal pieces of work as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Night Manager and The Constant Gardner. 

Agent Running in the Field, to be quite blunt, is le Carré's Brexit novel, inspired by the real life events of the past few years and in particular the Russian intelligence efforts behind Trump and Brexit. Le Carré makes no apology for his frank and to the point political commentary, but one wonders if his desire to explore contemporary politics has come at the expense of the story itself. This is a good novel, but undeniably among the more simplistic and straightforward in the le Carré bibliography. Still, the opportunity to see a master of the espionage genre tackling such current and relevant events is a treat you will not want to pass up.


July Bonus - "Superman: Red Son" by Mark Millar

In most cases I might have included this among the "for fun" items that don't make the list, but Superman: Red Son is one of those graphic novels that is so sensational that is genuinely merits consideration among more traditional forms of literature. 

Red Son is an alternate telling of the Superman mythos: what would have happened had Superman's spacecraft crashed in then Soviet Union instead of the United States, and he then grown up into an ideological soldier of communism rather than the posterchild of the American way of life. It's a great premise and Millar makes the most of it crafting, for me, one of the best comicbook stories of all time.


August - "Once Upon a River" by Lorian Hemingway

This one sounded good on paper. A mystery tale set against the backdrop of towns along the river Thames, a period setting, a tapestry that touches everything from folklore, to science, magic and myth. Unfortunately the execution is far less wondrous than the pitch.

The story itself is not bad, but it is paced so excruciatingly poorly, with everything stretched out and packed with unnecessary filler. After the enticing opening scene, the novel takes a drastic detour and doesn't return to the main plot for more than 100 pages. Dozens of pointless and irrelevant characters are introduced and their backstories fleshed out for no apparent reason. It's meandering, plodding, and ultimately not worth sticking with to uncover its deeper meaning.


September - "Exhalation: Stories" by Ted Chiang

A series of short stories by renowned author Ted Chiang, who you may know as the author of the short story on which the Oscar winning film Arrival was based. The stories contained within Exhalation cover a variety of topics from mankind's place in the universe, to the nature of humanity, free will and technology.

On the whole I found this collection to be less impressive than his first anthology, but still well worth reading. Most stories are good, some are brilliant, and only one felt like it overstayed its welcome.


October - "Utopia Avenue" by David Mitchell

David Mitchell is known for his dizzyingly ambitious works of fiction, most notably Cloud Atlas. Notoriously obtuse, multi-layered and often with a strong underlying link to the supernatural and metaphysical. By contrast, Utopia Avenue almost seems oddly traditional by his standards. This made for odd reading as, on the surface, the novel bore many similarities with Daisy Jones, concerning itself also with the story of a fictional band in the 1960s. Indeed for the first half of the novel it follows many familiar story beats. But don't you worry Mitchell fans, persevere and eventually it starts to get every bit as weird as you would expect.

I actually loved this book. I felt it had the perfect balance between a rich, traditional story and the classic David Mitchell weirdness, making for one of the more accessible entries in his bibliography. Certain parts can make for difficult reading and you will certainly gain the most from this text if you are familiar with the man's work, but this is very much a worthwhile novel.

November - "The Invisible Life of Addie Larue" by V. E. Schwab

Addie Larue makes a deal with the devil to live forever, the trade-off being that no one will ever remember who she is and thus she is unable to ever form any lasting relationships with anyone. Then one day 300 years later she meets someone who does remember her, but why? 

This was a pretty good one. Takes a fascinating premise and runs with it. Often these high concept stories peter out when they can't think of a reasonable justification or resolution, but Schwab packs enough interesting twists and turns that the plot never becomes stale and impressively manages to find a satisfying conclusion that neither succumbs to trope nor banality.


December - "Migrations" by Charlotte McConaghy

For my final book of the year I decided to pick something from the annual best sellers' list on Amazon, place my luck in the wisdom of the crowd. The result was Migrations, a novel set in a not-too-distant future where most animal life on Earth is extinct due to pollution and mankind generally being a bit shit. Our protagonist manages to talk her way onto a fishing vessel to allow her to follow perhaps the last ever avian migration, only she has ulterior motives...

I sometimes get the impression that there are novels out there that succeed not because of their quality but because of their statement, and this is one of those novels. It's not bad by any means, the quality of writing is strong, with an absorbing sense of atmosphere and place. There just isn't a huge amount there beyond "humans bad". Most of the novel is spent filling in the tragic backstory of our protagonist, which is serviceable enough, if emotionally manipulative, and nowhere near as interesting a setting as its initial premise. Just about worth reading but there are better novels on this list.

So there it is. Twelve months in books. Do I dare take on the challenge again next year? Only time will tell.

Music Makes Me High