Best of 2018, Not from 2018

Tasty morsels I've digested in 2018, most not made in 2018, most not literally food.

Ranking the Mike Myers films

I enjoyed Wayne's World superficially as a child, but seeing it again as a teenager newly baptised in rock was a revelation, and it usurped Holy Grail for a while there as my favourite film.

It's slipped down a bit since, but it still stands up. That's what she said. (Tidies hair behind ears under cap and beams to comrades in satisfaction, mouthing further celebratory remarks inaudibly and fidgeting about). I know it does, because the entire thing's permanently branded on my memory. But do Mike Myers' other films stand the test of time and my own, highly debatable maturity? Will Austin Powers be funnier now that I get it?

Here are my The Top 9 Mike Myers Movies. This only includes those he wrote, directed/produced or otherwise had the major role in, but not voice-over work so I don't have to watch Shrek. Unfortunately, it doesn't get me out of The Love Guru.

Ranking the James Bond films

I've never sat through a whole Bond film before. I've read one of the Fleming books, but it wasn't my sort of thing. I thought the films would be a bit Top Gear, and passionate endorsement from Alan Partridge didn't do them any favours.

Still, I've always been superficially interested in the Doctor Who-esque line of succession, and I'd enjoy the sense of contrarian superiority if it turned out I liked one of the underrated ones the best. It just means putting in the hard work of watching a load of entertaining films to get there. Let's crack on.

Here are my The Top 026 007 Films.

Alrightreads: Finales

Last words.


Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

1997 / Audiobook / 219 pages / USA

***

Burning through an author's most popular books first means the remainder of your relationship is probably going to be a drawn-out disappointment. So it goes, ting-a-ling.

This isn't a bad book, but it is a self-confessed failed novel that compensates by semi-fictionally deconstructing the abandoned earlier version of the novel while giving a weary old man the opportunity to muse and vent about things worth listening to.

Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook, Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale – The Final Chapter (Book Two)

2010 / Ebook / 354 pages / UK

****

I'd figured this was the sequel to the entertaining archive of email and text correspondence between the former-minus-one Doctor Who showrunner and some other guy that I read a few years ago. Turns out it's a generous second edition of that same book, bulked out to double the length with another year of chat. So I didn't read the first half again, even if doing so would be more entertaining than rewatching most of the episodes it excites over in glorious anatomical detail. Revealing and insightful, I eagerly await Steven Moffat's tell-all.

Iain Banks, The Quarry

2013 / Audiobook / 336 pages / UK

***

I didn't read all of the remaining intervening mainstream novels like I meant to this year, so I don't know if this one's uneventful minimalism is unusual. Banks says he wrote it before knowing that life was imitating art, but context is everything in this peaceful epilogue.

Alrightreads: Debuts

First words.


Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

1952 / Audiobook / 296 pages / USA

***

Vonnegut's early short stories didn't stand out to me, and since I've never come across any impromptu praise for his isolated debut novel, it's stayed on the virtual shelf for a decade or so.

It's not completely featureless, but it's more Philip K. Dick than the fully-formed Vonnegut of The Sirens of Titan. Its requiem for honest labour in the face of automation remains current; the sexual politics and retro technology less so.

Dan Simmons, Song of Kali

1985 / Audiobook / 311 pages / USA

***

Dan Simmons' longer novels have alternately fascinated or bored me, but this is your bogstandard horror debut, controversially warping real Hindu deities into Lovecraftian nightmares.

What makes it stand out is the exotic setting of Calcutta, described in such detail and with such seething resentment for the culture and customs that I can only assume he had a bad experience. Daydreaming a nuclear solution out loud on the opening page of his literary career probably wasn't the wisest decision in hindsight. Should have vented in a blog.

James Acaster, James Acaster's Classic Scrapes

2017 / Audiobook / 320 pages / UK

****

Enough literature, it's been too long since I've read a stand-up comedian's attempt to convert their live material into prose. This doesn't seem to be the case here, which is more a thematically-skewed autobiography. You haven't heard all of them on WILTY.

Alrightreads: lol

There are plenty of fascinating and exciting books out there, but it's not so easy to find a genuinely funny novel that makes you laugh out loud. If you're me anyway, with my clearly superior sense of humour.

Here are 1,000 pages' worth of books that are supposed to be good for a wheeze.


Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

1940 (pub.1967) / Ebook / 212 pages / Ireland

****

This isn't the most poignant eschatological voyage in literature, but it is notable for devoting a substantial chunk of its page count to surreal comedy sketches. It's a shame no publisher would touch it in the author's lifetime, or we could have got more.

David Nobbs, The Death of Reginald Perrin (a.k.a. The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin)

1975 / Ebook / 287 pages / UK

***

I haven't seen the TV adaptation that followed the novel, but picked up the idea that the frustrated bloke abandoning his obligations and walking naked into the sea was regarded as something of a nonconformist hero. A middle-aged Neo for the 1970s.

Reading the actual story and Reggie's selfish and thoughtless thought process, he comes off less favourably and it's a bit like being stuck with the unpleasant narrators of Lolita or American Psycho again. But funnier.

Robert Sheckley, Options

1975 / Ebook / 158 pages / USA

***

There comes a time in an experimental artist's career when they have to decide whether to stop messing around and be sensible now or to keep pushing boundaries and audiences away.

Robert Sheckley's first novel after an extended leave admirably takes the latter option, though it's not clear whether all the jarring false starts leading to frustrating dead ends are trolling tomfoolery or a genuine breakdown and failure hidden in a postmodern cloak. I like to think it's both.

Alan Moore and Steve Parkhouse, The Complete Bojeffries Saga

1983-91 (collected 1992) / Ecomics / 79 pages / UK

***

Moore's miscellany will keep me going for a few decades yet. This is one of the odder odds and sods, his take on an Addams/Munsters macabre sitcom that starts out brilliantly but runs out of ideas after the introductory tale. The remainder is mostly stock gags and a weird musical, padded out with mock activity pages to justify releasing the paperback.

It's a shame Alan's enthusiasm fizzled out, but it's not like he wasn't busy revolutionising the medium and churning out loads of classics at the time, so it's forgiven.

Viz, The Viz Bumper Book of Shite for Older Boys and Girls

1993 / Ebook / 81 pages / UK

**

Viz has probably made me laugh more than anything else in print, but I always optimistically forget how low the hit rate is. It's worse than ever in this Ripping Yarns-style special, which lacks the curated quality and quantity of the regular comic annuals by presenting bespoke weird content.

Most of the stories are longer, duller and more outlandish than the norm, sending characters to space or flashing back to their teens, and the mock educational articles in-between are a complete waste of time. The sole story that tickled me was Jack Black and His Dog Silver foiling a wallpaper counterfeiting ring, that earned a star.

Steve Aylett, Bigot Hall: A Gothic Childhood

1995 / Ebook / 160 pages / UK

***

Lint is one of the funniest books I've ever read, but like Sheckley and many other writers, starting out with Aylett's most popular one was a foolish decision that was only going to cause downhill disappointment.

Another kooky, ooky sitcom, this is pretty funny in a satisfyingly sick and twisted way, coining idiosyncratic phrases all over the shop and never committing the sin of being realistic. It's begging for ghoulish doodles to accompany every thousand-word sketch in the family album, but white space is provided if you want to scrawl your own.

Fave: The one where the mad scientist wires his nervous system to the greenhouse so he can feel what's going on, inadvertently ensnaring the creature that haunts their nightmares.

Ranking the Orson Welles films

A non-film student's philistine opinions on some of the Greatest Films of All Time® after a single watch-through (in most cases), based on fickle whims rather than years of research and contemplation.

Here are my The Top 13 Orson Welles Films. Does not include co-directions, unfinished films, trailers, narrations to camera or amateur home movies of student plays, I'm not obsessed.

Alrightreads: Space Bars

Sub-genres get quite specific sometimes.


Spider Robinson, Callahan's Crosstime Saloon

1973-77 (collected 1977) / Audiobook / 170 pages / USA

***

Callahan's can (allegedly) be found on Long Island, not Alpha Centauri, but it still attracts the occasional introspective extraterrestrial among the reluctant psychics and real-time time travellers. I'd listened to some of these tales before, and while they hadn't stayed with me, the congenial atmosphere had. These character-driven narratives must have been a bit jarring for Analog readers between the space battles and robots, especially as they don't always feel obliged to include sci-fi staples to stay on brand.

Faves: 'The Time-Traveler,' 'The Law of Conservation of Pain,' 'A Voice is Heard in Ramah...'

Worsties: 'The Centipede's Dilemma,' 'Just Dessert,' 'The Wonderful Conspiracy.'

Steven Brust, Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille

1990 / Ebook / 223 pages / USA

**

Rather than tall tales, this is a comedy sci-fi romance novel about a folk band's adventures across time and space in a TARDIS-like bar that keeps being mysteriously targeted for arson. These barely curious Sliders would rather drink, jam and be merry than bother investigating what's going on, and this lack of interest was sadly infectious.

Jerry Oltion, Star Trek: The Captain's Table – Where Sea Meets Sky

1998 / Ebook / 263 pages / USA

****

Pocket Books' Star Trek paperback crossover event for 1998 involved sending each series' captain to the pub to relate a space shanty. I only read the Picard trezer-hunting one at the time, which was one of the few Trek novels on my bookshelf that I actually made it all the way through. This one appealed to me too, since I've always been fascinated by what might have been if the series' (great) original pilot had been better received and we'd got more of the dour and introspective Captain Pike.

It's probably the best Trek lit I've ever read, not that the bar's set particularly high there. This grim tale of cyborg space whale carnage would be out of place in any of the proper series (pre-Discovery, anyway), but it fits in nicely with this hypothetically darker lost era. Pike > Kirk

Larry Niven, The Draco Tavern

1977-2006 (collected 2006) / Audiobook / 316 pages / USA

**

Larry's been doing these as long as Spider, but his tales from the watering hole tend to be more abrupt, less congenial and more straight-up SF: all presumably reasons why they didn't build the same following or inspire real-life imitations and a graphic adventure game. 

Most of these are just a few pages long and can't help feeling like filler as the bartender and his exotic patrons briefly discuss some aspect of alien culture. The better ones are when then go outside.

Faves: 'Smut Talk,' 'The Slow Ones,' 'Playhouse.'

Worsties: 'Grammar Lesson,' 'One Night at the Draco Tavern,' 'The Missing Mass.'

Alrightreads: Art Books

A picture is worth a thousand words and much quicker to read.


Patrick Woodroffe, Mythopœikon: Fantasies Monsters Nightmares Daydreams – The paintings, book-jacket illustrations and record-sleeve designs of Patrick Woodroffe

1976 / Ebook / 147 pages / UK

***

The psychedelic LP and sci-fi paperback cover are two of my favourite artistic mediums, so it's always nice to see those overlooked artists represented. I've come across this guy a few times, but can't say his work has ever stood out, apart from a daft Budgie album cover I found quite funny but it turns out was supposed to be serious.

A budget career overview rather than a lavish coffee table book you can pore over, you can still rip it up to decorate your walls.

Faves: 'Triptych: The Thousand-Year Roundabout,' Michael Moorcock covers.

Paul Scanlon, Michael Gross and artists, The Book of Alien

1979 / Ebook / 112 pages / USA

****

Alien is one of several films from this era – along with Blade Runner, Star Trek I and Conan the Barbarian – that I really like, but mainly as worlds to get immersed in that occasionally get annoyingly interrupted by a plot. In devoting itself almost entirely to production design, this vintage making-of classic is right up my disconcertingly organic alley.

H. R. Giger's biomechanical designs are the obvious stand-out, but they've been widely reproduced elsewhere. I was more pleased to see Chris Foss' prelimary tramp steamers and "frustrated engineer" Ron Cobb's pragmatic interiors, both of which would be satisfyingly ripped off in Red Dwarf.

Wayne Douglas Barlowe, Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV

1990 / Ebook / 192 pages / USA

*****

Barlowe's infernal and extraterrestrial art has made for decent desktop backgrounds in the past, but reading these extensive 'notes' to each painting – in the form of speculative evolutionary fiction tying all of these fantastical fauna together in an extensively detailed ecosystem – is really enriching context.

It's my favourite bit from Cosmos expaned to book length and rendered like the dinosaur paintings that captivated me as a child. First-rate sci-fi world-building and even better art, all done by the same guy.

Faves: Emperor Sea Strider, Groveback

Walter Isaacson, Leonardo da Vinci

2017 / Audiobook/ebook / 600 pages / USA

****

This best-selling biographer knows how to economise a life and its works just right. I could do with less of the former, really – reading about the visionary genius murdering animals so he could draw them better and buggering teenage apprentices in his downtime is complex characterisation I didn't crave. I was here for the painting commentary and flying machines.

Fave: Lady with an Ermine > Mona Lisa.

Alrightreads: Old New Borrowed Blue

I've wanted to read more Gene Wolfe for ages, but committing to another dense tetralogy I might not be sufficiently invested in has been putting me off. Better to go with a themed smorgasbord.


Gene Wolfe, Storeys from the Old Hotel

1967-88 (collected 1988) / Ebook / 331 pages / USA

****

I prefer my Gene Wolfe brief, concentrated and to the point, even if that point is often elusive and more about atmosphere and justifying a pun title. Most of these tales, specifically chosen for their obscurity, are less than 10 pages in length, making this the perfect no-overlap companion to the longer shorts of The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories. There's even a fourth doctor/death/island permutation as the author continues to stubbornly mine that seam and still finds gold.

Faves: 'Slaves of Silver,' 'Westwind,' 'To the Dark Tower Came,' 'A Solar Labyrinth,' 'On the Train.'

Worsties: 'Continuing Westward,' 'The Packerhaus Method,' 'A Criminal Proceeding,' 'The Choice of the Black Goddess.'

Gene Wolfe, The Urth of the New Sun

1987 / Audiobook / 372 pages / USA

***

This was the last book I read in a year when I read a few too many books, but it was oddly one I had absolutely no memory of. Particularly strange, since I made it sound incredibly appealing.

Listening again, I can see how it blurred into the rest, but it might be my favourite of the series just for being more exotic. Twice through and I still don't really understand what's going on. I should stick to junior sci-fi.

Gene Wolfe, A Borrowed Man

2015 / Audiobook / 304 pages / USA

**

I'm all for a good convoluted excuse to blend genres, but this future noir is only appealing in style rather than substance, and not very appealing at that.

The premise of cloned authors being loaned out in a post-book society is too bizarre to be credible, and since only literate nerds are going to be reading this in the first place, it doesn't need the patronising explanations to excuse the corny in-character narration, in case we thought Gene can't write.

Gene Wolfe, On Blue's Waters

1999 / Audiobook / 384 pages / USA

**

I'm sure it has its devotees, but this wasn't my sort of thing at all, so I'm glad I didn't commit to the entire Book of the Short Sun as planned.

As a sci-fi fan, I appreciated the strange new worlds, new life and new civilisations, but downgrading from a spaceship modelled on a boat to an actual boat, and bringing in actual mythological creatures (or the Clarkeian next best thing) was too much standard fantasy for me, dismembered cyborgs excepted. The chronicler's a lot less likeable than Severian too, which is some achievement considering the other guy tortured people for a living.

Alrightreads: Rural Gothic

Green and unpleasant lands.


William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul

1789/94 (collected 1794) / Ebook / 56 pages / UK

****

I was too innocent and inexperienced to really appreciate Blake's classic double album when required to study it for A-level, but he still left more of an impression than any of the poets I studied at university, Milton aside. Maybe it was the pretty pictures.

I get it now. Admittedly, some of the Songs of Innocence are overly infantile, dependent and Bible-thumping, but others paint mournfully nostalgic scenes before Experience comes stomping in with the weight of years. It's the fearful symmetry that makes it.

Sarban, Ringstones

1951 / Ebook / 139 pages / UK

***

A latecomer to the Machen/Blackwood tradition of folk horror before the '70s brought its infatuation with techno-henges, this slow-burning novella is filled with pleasant Northumberland scenery, encyclopaedic digressions and ominous foreboding.

It's quite rare for these nerdy folkloric tales to be female-led, but with its oblivious and inept protagonist and bridled women pulling chariots, it's not exactly a step forward.

Thomas Tryon, Harvest Home

1973 / Ebook / 401 pages / USA

**

More Twin Peaks than an American Wicker Man, this pastoral soap opera takes its sweet time getting to the horror and a point. If you're daydreaming of a rustic escape, you might not mind that as much as I did.

Manly Wade Wellman, What Dreams May Come

1983 / Ebook / 175 pages / USA

***

I haven't read any of Wellman's other John Thunstone stories, and the fairly generic occult investigator hasn't charmed me into seeking out more.

A distinctly retro tale by this point, I preferred to imagine it was the novelisation to the non-existent '70s BBC serial I'd rather be watching, shot on low quality film stock with a Dudley Simpson soundtrack.

Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil's Day

2017 / Ebook / 368 pages / UK

****

That's more like it. Hurley's popular debut novel was a superb Gothic revival fringed by a bleak coastline, but this follow-up ventures deeper into the unforgiving landscape and is one of the scariest books I've read in memory.

A Devil isn't required to explain the various atrocities and general grim hopelessness, but the option's there if you prefer the comfort of laying the blame on the Owd Feller to the alternative. Full of nature and seasonal symbolism to keep lapsed English lit students happy, while crying.

Alrightreads: Me

My childhood dream that I was always too lazy to realise has come true. I'm finally a published... photographer?

The author of a book on Coastal World Heritage Sites asked permission to use one of my photos of South Korea's Jeju Island. That was nice, she could have just stolen it like the BBC and everyone else.

I've reproduced the extract without such permission:

Scraping the barrel: reviewing bog roll, hamsters, etc.

Dave's dooyoo stats

Reviews: 1,750 (Frankingsteins) + 136 (Brains)

Timeline: 27 June 2000 – 5 January 2011

Word count: ~1,035,000 archived (+ 275,000 lost or I didn't bother to save, so imagine how bad those must have been)

Earnings for all that: Maybe £1,300–£1,500, most of that in the year after graduation when I cranked out a £50–£150/month production line before getting steady employment. It helped.


Dave's dooyoo archive

Music reviews (Ab-Am | An-Az | Ba-Bi | Bl-Bu | C | D | E-H | I-J | K-M | N-Y | Offspring | Korn)
TV reviews (Sci-fi | Comedy | Kids)
Film reviews (Juvenile)
Book reviews
Game reviews
Internet/shopping reviews (Top 10 websites 2003 | 2004)
Edinburgh Fringe reviews
Misc. reviews (that's this page you're on now, idiot) [Classic Dave c.2004]

Bringing an end to my obsessive-compulsive filing of my old consumer reviews from a dead website that should have been allowed to rest in peace, here's what I thought about groceries, theme parks and other miscellany on the rare occasions I ventured outside my comfort zone or house.

Written for dooyoo.co.uk aged 15–24.

Old school music reviews: N-Y

It turns out my alphabetical archive is a bit top-heavy. Here are the rest of the album reviews I wrote at school and university, without a slightly older me to fill in the gaps any more. If only I'd delayed getting a real job for another year, I might have made it to Z. Or possibly starved to death.

Reviews of albums from bands in the second half of the alphabet written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2001–2007. Offspring reviews sold separately.

Old school music reviews: K-M

I wrote my last 50p album review at the start of 2009 (I got as far as 'Ma-'), tailing off due to a combination of reliable employment meeting my needs and unreliable to non-existent home internet. I always thought I might carry on and complete the alphabet one day, but then I started my copywriting career where I basically do the same thing, only writing repetitive descriptions about blockout blinds rather than Blind Guardian. And for slightly better pay. Not quite as enjoyable though. But now it's too late.

Reviews of albums from bands beginning with K, L and M written for dooyoo.co.uk (RIP) from 2001–2009. My angsty teenage Korn reviews were too toxic and have been quarantined in their own post.

Old school music reviews: I-J

A teenager's enthusiastic, inconsistent, interminable track-by-track odyssey through Iron Maiden, many of those tracks covered multiple times on various compilations, live albums and DVDs of those same live albums. Plus a handful of other bands.

Reviews of albums from bands beginning with I & J written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2003–2008.

Old school music reviews: E-H

The bloated and enthusiastic teenage reviews are intruding ever more on the concise adult summaries. Good. Fifteen-year-old Dave may be a bit of an idiot, but he generally has better taste. Stop listening to single-one-hour-long-song albums and stick some Green Day on.

Reviews of albums from bands beginning with E, F, G and H, written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2001–2008.

Old school music reviews: D

I had a job by this point in '08, which meant there wasn't as much free time to explore strange curios from the past and it was easier to earn my bus fare churning formulaically about the CD-Rs in my big box. The alphabetical adventure is picking up pace.

Reviews of albums from bands beginning with D, written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2001–2008.

Old school music reviews: C

Ten-years-ago Dave stubbornly persists with the entire Cannibal Corpse discography, assuming it must get better or at least have a different song at some point. I was getting lazier now, not bothering with the pun titles any more, barely exceeding the minimum word count and sticking to the repetitive metal I was bored with because I knew the context and the terminology, so didn't have to learn and experience interesting new things.

Meanwhile, teenage Dave underrates the Cure's masterpiece, preferring his goths to squawk unintelligible vampire poetry, and student Dave enters a crazy world. Reviews of albums from bands beginning with C, written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2004–2008.

Old school music reviews: Bl-Bu

The more enthusiastic side of 'B.'

Written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2001–2008. Spot the teeny bobber section, if it can even be distinguished amid the general immaturity. Sabbath still rules though \m/ \m/

Old school music reviews: Ba-Bi

Writing "consumer" reviews was my full-time job in early 2008 while I half-heartedly looked for a proper job, working through alphabetical band lists and committing blindly to discographies for better or (usually) worse. I can't say I've spared a thought for many of these artists in the decade since, apart from the ones I liked already.

Reviews of albums from some bands beginning with B, written for dooyoo.co.uk in 2007–2008.

Old school music reviews: An-Az

Today's letter is still somehow 'A.' This was my poorly-paying day job while I was otherwise unemployed and chasing ghosties at night, and I was committed for the long haul.

Written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2004–2008. Includes a literally old school review towards the end.

Old school music reviews: Ab-Am

I wanted to put all 750,000-ish words of my teenage and YA music reviews into one absurdly massive blog post where they could quietly gather dust and cause occasional mischief to anyone who accidentally opened it. Sadly, Blogger started crashing even before I'd got past 'A,' so I had to break it down.

Here are my reviews of albums from some bands beginning with A, written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2007–2008.

My long-term plan when freshly graduated and unemployed was to review one album per artist every few days, mixed between the TV, film, book and retro game reviews, but then the site changed its payment model to favour churning over community feedback and I adapted by spamming a discography a day to get my fiver for as long as it would take to get a proper job.

Old school TV reviews: kids' TV

"Not aimed specifically at the adult generation" – Me, 2004

21,000 words waxing nostalgic in far too much detail about a random assortment of children's programmes from the 1960s–90s, irrespective of quality or memorability.

Written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2003–2007 (aged 18–22. An adult, then).

Old school TV reviews: comedy

"Not only inexperienced, but also massively inept" – Me, 2004

60,000 words on sitcoms, sketch shows and stand-up DVDs, mostly written when I was still at school, if you somehow require this information.

Written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2000–2010 (aged 14–24).

Old school TV reviews: science fiction

"Reveal very little at a tediously slow pace" – Me, 2007

77,000 words on some sci-fi shows I liked and some I didn't, giving you the lowdown on the latest VHS releases and DVD boxsets, sometimes covering the same eras more than once across different releases at varying degrees of obsolescence, and closing by recommending you import cheap Chinese pirate copies like I did. It was definitely worth picking these out of the trash.

Written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2000–2011 (aged 14–25).