I feel a bit guilty. The world lurches back and forth toward the abyss, but I’ve had a pretty good 2021. The things I have control over have panned out pretty well. After a few rounds of Moderna (you should get yours, too), I’ve been able to largely return to something resembling life in the before times (yes, I’m still wearing masks, and so should you). Omicron hovers around us all, but with any luck 2022 will (give or take a midterm election) be even better still. On average. Moment-to-moment, things are still going to be occasionally rough. Let’s be kind to each other. Although, at this point it has become abundantly clear some of you are not interested in that.
I started grad school. There have been times when I’ve felt particularly silly being in my late-thirties trying to play at being a college student again, and there have been other moments where I’ve felt like I was a fish finally returning to water after a prolonged period of gasping and flopping about on land. I managed to get all As this semester, which will mark the first time I’ve been able to pull off that feat since the 6th grade. So take that, 1996!
I published a volume of flash fiction, including an audiobook available on Audible. Check it out, if you like. I’m pretty proud of it.
Podcasts continue to grow. The Holodeck is Broken has moved on to Star Trek: The Next Generation and we’re having a pretty good time of it, even if we’re only in season 1. Dear friends Z and Eris have concluded their run on As The Myth Turns, but the show will live on forever at partyapocalypse.com. New shows will be announced very rapidly after the first of the year, including the return of something I thought I might never come back to…
No. No spoilers. Not just yet, anyway.
I’ve written 119,660 words. A goodly portion of those may never be seen by the public, but a lot those were zeroed in on one big, persistent item on the to-do list. I started the trilogy-capping The Once and Future Orson Welles six years ago, and as I type this it is almost, so very, incredibly, astonishingly (the book will have fewer adverbs, I assure you) close to being in your hands. This time I mean it. Hell, just to make good on the promise, here’s the world premiere of the cover, from Bill Fisher:
Yes, I think it’s pretty great, too. You can pre-order your Kindle edition :checks notes: right now! Here in just a few weeks, I’ll have a whole trilogy under my belt.
And finally, we come to my reading list for the year. Yes, I’m still counting audio books (a) (including books Lora has read to me), and yes, after last year, I’m still counting graphic novels (c). If those don’t count for you, then… I dunno. Good for you. I might have read more (this is just how my mind works) but I got it into my head to read every issue of The New Yorker released this year. I started reading every issue cover-to-cover, and when that turned out to be a madman’s quest, I mainly stuck to the letters-to-the-editor, fiction, comments, film, and then any other articles which struck my fancy. I wound up the year listening to more than a few Tom Clancy audiobooks… And I just hate them, so, so much. But I can’t stop listening. Even now, with a whole new year well under way, I’m about an hour into Executive Orders and… I’m just lucky I can find them on Overdrive and I’m not having to pay for them. Libraries are magic, people. If anything, that’s the big takeaway from 2021.
I’d say I’ll completely steer clear of both Clancy and The New Yorker in 2022, but I think we all know better.
1. 1602 (c)
2. Burr (a)
3. The Groucho Letters
4. Rough Beasts of Empire
5. Rose
6. Hollywood Hellraisers (a)
7. The Day of the Doctor (a)
8. The Dark Veil (a)
9. Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 1 (c)
10. Batman - Knightfall Vol. 1 (c)
11. Yes, Please (a)
12. Tales from Development Hell
13. The Seige
14. Robocop vs. Terminator (c)
15. Van Gogh - The Life (a)
16. Master and Apprentice
17. Consider This (a)
18. The Trouble With Tribbles
19. The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway (a)
20. Bag Man
21. Iron Man - Season 1 (c)
22. The Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks - Vol. 1 (c)
23. Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? (c)
24. Welcome to the Monkey House (a)
25. Forged in Fire
26. Who Censored Roger Rabbit?
27. Letters From A Nut
28. Uncanny X-Men Masterworks, Vol. 2 (c)
29. Batman: The Adventures Continue, Season One (c)
30. Batman '66 meets The Green Hornet (c)
31. Batman '66 meets Wonder Woman '77 (c)
32. Assignment: Earth (c)
33. The Fellowship of the Ring
34. Paths of Disharmony
35. The Struggle Within
36. The Bully Pulpit (a)
37. The view from the bridge (a)
38. The Sirens of Titan (a)
39. Superman: A Celebration of 75 years (c)
40. The Road to the Thirteenth Doctor (c)
41. Jurassic Park
42. The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain (a)
43. The Two Towers (a)
44. Slaughterhouse Five
45. Batman: Epilogue (c)
46. Batman (c)
47. Batman Returns (c)
48. Secrets of the Force (a)
49. Foundations of Library and Information Science
50. The Library Book (a)
51. The One (c)
52. Slaughterhouse Five (c)
53. The Actor's Life (a)
54. Forgotten History
55. Dark Night (c)
56. Batman: Prelude to the Wedding (c)
57. Pity the Reader (a)
58. Batman: The Wedding (c)
59. Superman: The High-Flying History of the Man of Steel (a)
60. Taking Shape (a)
61. Contact (a)
62. Star Trek Movie Memories
63. Return of the King (a)
64. Bind, Torture, Kill (a)
65. Suicide Squad: The Final Mission (c)
66. If Any Of These Stories Goes Over 1000 Words, This Entire Book Will Explode
67. Doctor Who: The Ruby's Curse (a)
68. Batgirl: A Celebration of 50 Years (c)
69. Taking Shape II (a)
70. Q-Squared
71. Star Wars Novelization
72. Mary Shelley (a)
73. Wonder Woman, Vol. 2 (c)
74. Star Trek, Vol. 1 (c)
75. Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
76. IT (a)
77. Trigger Mortis (a)
78. What We See When We Read
79. Just Mercy (a)
80. The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay (a)
81. Library: An Unquiet History
82. Rogue Elements (a)
83. My Thoughts Be Bloody (a)
84. Clear and Present Danger (a)
85. Batgirl Vol 1 (c)
86. Congo (a)
87. Plagues of Night
88. The Return of the Pharoah (a)
89. From the mixed-up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
90. Red at the Bone
91. Postmortem (a)
92. The Sum of All Fears (a)
93. Red Dragon
94. The Organization of Information
95. Debt of Honor (a)