Best of 2020, Not from 2020

My favourite anachronistic CONTENT CONSUMED over the past 12 months, regardless of date of manufacture.

Plus some new things. That are mainly revivals or homages of old things, admittedly.

They love being exposed to dangerously unfamiliar climates

You're welcome

Alrightgames: Scrabble

Scrabble

1938 (1988 edition) / Word board game / 2-4 players / UK

*****

I can't remember whether I'd already experienced Scrabble in the build-up to Christmas '92 (or was it '93?), or if I'd just seen an advert, but I remember being excited for its arrival, and it didn't let me down. This is about the only game out there (with the possible exception of Deluxe Pacman on the Amiga) that I'd arrogantly consider myself to be pretty good at, though not to tournament standard. Ch haven't, uh, committed the two-letter words to memory or anything like that, fy!

It's resilient as well, the only one of my childhood games on the shelf to have authentic continuity rather than a retro eBay proxy. Apart from a full letters transplant, which was cheaper than sourcing individual replacements for the eight lost to time. The notepad's getting thin, the board's scribbled on, the letter bag's missing its drawstring and obviously the pencil's gone, but I'll keep this Ship of Thesaurus sailing for as long as I can.

Alrightgames: Sherlock Holmes – The Card Game

Sherlock Holmes: The Card Game

1991 / Mystery card game / 3-8 players / UK

****

Worth a try for a fiver, I was mainly hoping that its commitment to source authenticity would give me (and maybe my daughter one day – no pressure) incentive to pick up the heaviest book on the shelves every now and then. It's already working.

Forming a coherent mystery narrative from a shuffled deck would be asking a bit much, so it goes for a sequential tropes runaround instead. The groove became comfortingly familiar after a few plays, so I'll stop before I get sick of it, but it's definitely one I'll try to force into my daughter's childhood nostalgia to make up for mine not having it.

Alrightgames: Star Fluxx

Star Fluxx

2011 / Party card game / 2-6 players / USA

***

The first and only time I played classic Fluxx was when appropriately inebriated during my first hostel stay in Venice, a few days into my liberating digital nomad lifestyle, so naturally it made quite an impression. Not enough for me to get around to buying a set until ten years later, but my subsequent digital hermit lifestyle didn't offer many opportunities for lighthearted icebreakers. Nor does my current sleep-deprived working parent lifestyle, so I've just been playing with myself. And then I played Star Fluxx, etc.

It seems to be basically the same as any other Fluxx set, the main difference from their officially licensed sci-fi themes such as the various 'Trek Fluxxes being that its generic, copyright-evading send-ups of hackneyed genre tropes are actually pretty funny and not as banal as 'Scotty + Transporter = Beam Me Up Scotty' or 'Picard + Bridge = Captain on the Bridge,' which they actually put on the boxes because the sort of people who buy those things have no standards.

And while you're wising up, stop buying '[Franchise] Monopoly' and other desperately tenuous cash-ins that have nothing to do with the thing you like and those shit plastic dolls that are all exactly the same, you corporate cretins. Merry Christmas!

Alrightgames: Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game

Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game

1994 / Collectible card game / 2 players / USA

***

I've never actually played this game, and I'm not hugely interested in doing so even if it turns out I have enough cards in my budget Common sets to form workable decks, because playing Ensign Taurik when I need engineering expertise would just draw attention to my lack of commitment. I just wanted to finally fulfil a modest junior Trekkie dream and have a bunch of these to look at now and then for the lowest possible stake.

I did once buy a starter pack of Deep Space Nine cards as a teenager when feeling particularly extravagant, but the early Next Gen sets are where the mythical nostalgia's at. If I'd had the disposable income of the Warhammer kids growing up, I might have considered collecting these to be a viable hobby, but I was already committed to splashing whatever I did manage to scrape together on two-episode Star Trek videocassettes. Twenty years on, one of those commodities has proven a better long-term investment plan than the other.

These cards still do surprisingly well on eBay as if time's stood still, sellers tearing through the ever-dwindling surplus of vintage booster boxes to flog sets and individual rares at competitive prices you wouldn't think were worth the effort of the enterprise.

As for the video market, I recently asked an eBay seller if he'd consider selling me his empty Borg Box video boxset with the unsaleable tapes removed, planning to use it as decorative storage for Star Trek cards and other junk. He agreed, then decided to send me his whole stock, at a loss to himself, because he was desperate to get rid of the things. Now I have to buy enough Star Trek cards to fill them, I suppose.

Resistance is futile

Alrightgames: Not Alone

Not Alone

2016 / Strategy card/board game / 2-7 players / France

**

I was giddy from the first game session with my brother when I impulse bought this off Amazon based on optimistic reviews alone, fearful that the repetitive deckbuilder I'd ordered from America wouldn't arrive in time for our next one. The confusing setup turned out to be more fun than the gameplay, which wasn't my thing, even as a newcomer to games who's still learning what his things are (outside of repetitive deckbuilders).

I sold it on eBay at what ended up being a fairly disastrous loss, but I'm still happy for the buyer, who must have been pretty pleased with that price. Probably more pleased than they'll be with the tedious game.

Alrightgames: Ascension – Apprentice Edition

Ascension: Apprentice Edition

2013 / Deckbuilding card game / 2 players / USA

****

I hadn't planned on buying more Ascension when I opted for this budget starter as a sort of tribute to my time spent on the virtual game, and a way to introduce it to anyone unfortunate enough to cross my path. But those coquettish eBay sirens would soon come calling and render it superfluous in the collection.

If you view this as the generous, no-frills introduction to the game that was presumably intended, its folded plastic 'board' and ugly cardboard counters are considerate concessions to budget, and it easily gives you more cards per pound than any canonical set.

But then you make the mistake of looking up one of those proper sets, with their rigid boards and bloody jewels for counters (to really rub it in), and this feels more like a cunning ploy to draw newcomers in and make them upgrade out of shame.

It probably worked. I'll see if I can salvage most of these cards in my proper set when it arrives, unless that upsets the balance. I've given the counters to my toddler as play money. She hoards them like a dragon.

Alrightgames: Cthulhu Realms

Welcome to this new spin-off series in which a 35-year-old parent justifies or regrets his indulgent purchases of repetitive card/board games for himself.

For my family's sake, this had best be short lived, but maybe she'll want to join in when she's old enough. Two stars and under get (r)eBayed.

Cthulhu Realms

2015 / Deckbuilding card game / 2-4 players / USA

*****

If I'd played or been aware of Star Realms first, and not come across its evil spin-off when caught up in a Lovecraft phase, then several years later made it my first non-computer game purchase since primary school, no doubt I'd be less sentimentally attached. But even after logging more days on the spaceship game thanks to its stat-swapping expansions keeping things superficially varied, I much prefer this one.

Seeing the inappropriately jovial cartoon card art in person and playing against my patient brother rather than predictable AI has been a treat, and unlike some other deckbuilders, you don't have to spend more on expansions if you want to play with more people. Which is a good thing, really, since it wasn't popular enough to get any.

Free, pointless ebook: 2001 Books That I've Read

Dave Warburton, 2001 Books That I've Read

2015-20 (collected 2020) / Ebook / 303 pages / UK

**

The updated edition everyone's been waiting for, expanded with another year's worth of lightweight reading with lighter summaries and scraping the barrel to count more childhood books and other retro submissions not considered worth mentioning last time. Same time next year!

Download PDF

(2.17 MB)

Alrightreads: Z

Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell, Zenith Book One: Tygers

1987 (collected 1988) / Ecomics / 88 pages / UK

****

Pre-Animal Man, post-Watchmen, this saga of postmodern superheroes, occult Nazis, the Cthulhu Mythos, '80s British politics and wacky geometry will be more of the same by the time smart-arse comic nerds dig it out of the archives, but there's only a finite amount of the authentic stuff out there, so we should savour it.

Quentin Blake, Zagazoo

1998 / Ebook / 32 pages / UK

***

A sort of lighter Eraserhead.

Chris Van Allsburg, Zathura

2002 / Ebook / 32 pages / USA

**

The Jumanji sequel lazily follows the same template page for page, only with less interesting artwork and no girl one this time, because space is for boys.

Jon J. Muth, Zen Shorts

2005 / Ebook / 40 pages / USA

***

The first tale made me harrumph in indoctrinated pessimism, the second I've forgotten already, the third was a rejuvenating splash of cold water. It's a shame my school assemblies didn't branch out more from that Jesus feller, but at least I had Master Splinter.

Mark Richardson, The Flaming Lips' Zaireeka

2010 / Ebook / 144 pages / USA

***

It was good to learn about this band and their inconvenient album that I'll probably never get around to listening to in its intended DIY manner. Introductions aside, the book wasn't all that interesting, but maybe you're supposed to read all four chapters simultaneously to get the full impact.

Alrightreads: Yellow

Salman Rushdie, The Wizard of Oz

1992 / Ebook / 69 pages / India

****

It's always more interesting to get a proper writer's take on a film than a jobbing critic's, along with their personal insights that invite you to consider different interpretations and audiences. I wasn't so interested in the bit of fiction at the end, but the essay was coming up a bit short.

Reggie Oliver, Masques of Satan: Twelve Tales and a Novella

2007 / Ebook / 230 pages / UK

***

More resolutely traditional, ornamental ghost stories with a somewhat tonally misleading contents page.

Fave: 'Mr Poo-Poo'

Iain M. Banks, Surface Detail

2010 / Audiobook / 604 pages / UK

**

Up to his usual standard, but I'm just reading these to get it over with now, and I wasn't enthused about a bumper-sized one. With its VR war games and afterlife, this is more what I expected The Player of Games to be like, and was glad when it wasn't. You can jump in on any of these novels, because all the same things gets explained ad nauseam, as ever.

Charlie Sweatpants, Zombie Simpsons: How the Best Show Ever Became the Broadcasting Undead

2012 / Ebook / 81 pages / USA

**

I'd figured that the series' millennial decline was a combination of exhausting the concept, losing the best writers and the end of my own nostalgia. Fortunately, this short book was here to educate me in the writer's objective opinions. Even if he's right, he's the sort of tirelessly, tiresomely negative fan you'd leave a forum to get away from and detox your online activity, but since his forum was specifically founded on beating a dead Simpsons, I should have known what I was getting into. Move on. At least it's not a twelve-part "video essay."

Ensley F. Guffey and K. Dale Koontz, Wanna Cook?: The Complete, Unofficial Companion to Breaking Bad

2014 / Ebook / 433 pages / USA

****

A deep appreciation of the modern classic that clarifies and corrects some of the chemistry to an almost suspicious degree. That's just good value. If you're reading along on a first watch, the episode guide is spoiler-free, with enough trivia to keep you occupied before your next fix.

Alrightreads: Y

Harry Harrison, You Can Be the Stainless Steel Rat: An Interactive Game Book

1985 / Ebook / 176 pages / USA

*

So lazy and contemptuous of the "interactive" format – with its perpetual loops, arbitrary reasoning and forced choices – it might actually be a pisstake.

Sam Inglis, Neil Young's Harvest

2003 / Ebook / 121 pages / UK

**

An uninterested history and backhanded compliments about the pleb favourite, giving way to liner notes cataloguing personnel and versions when he runs out of things to say. Why didn't he write about something he actually cared about?

Rhys Hughes, Young Tales of the Old Cosmos

2011 / Ebook / 46 pages / UK

**

This uncharacteristically banal story cycle of personified celestial bodies and predictable Milky Way puns isn't strong or substantial enough to stand alone, so I don't know why he didn't incorporate it into The World Idiot or something. A couple of subsequent anthologies have taken the bullet and sunk their averages in the process.

Fave: 'The Pink Giant'

Samuel Bak, Your Move: New Paintings By Samuel Bak

2012 / Ebook / 47 pages / Poland

***

Battered chess pieces strewn over surrealist landscapes with unhelpfully cryptic titles. Work it out for yourselves, but you'll have to squint when we start compressing more pictures onto each page towards the end because printing's expensive. Can he do Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur next?

Rhys Hughes, The Young Dictator

2013 / Ebook / pages / UK

***

An aspirational children's novel for young psychopaths reliably goes off the rails when a vegan turns out to be from Vega and the horizons of conquest extend across galaxies, the afterlife and cyberspace. Someone should film these, I dare them.

Alrightreads: Xmas Stocking

Various, Star Trek Annual 1983: "The Wrath of Khan"

1982 / Ebook / 64 pages / USA/UK

*

British 'Trek Annuals reprinting shitty Gold Key comics were a staple of speccy seventies Christmas stockings, culminating in a more timely reprint of Marvel's adaptation of the first film at the end of the decade. I don't know whether the publisher knew there wasn't going to be a similar adaptation this time around when they reserved the slot, but it's unlikely they cared about the Genesis-style wave of disappointment rippling across the British Isles on Christmas Day when Wrath of Khan content proved to be no more than a couple of publicity shots in favour of more shitty Gold Key comics and worse home-grown puzzle pages. Those speech marks were telling in hindsight.

Various, Star Trek: The Next Generation Annual 1992

1989-90 (collected 1991) / Ebook / 64 pages / USA

***

Thunderbirds was my scene at the time this scrapbook of American things was compiled for nerdy British kids (though I was mysteriously gifted a 1701-D bubble bath at some point; my destiny was predictable). The comic feature is a random but decent pick from the DC run, the rest being in-universe and behind-the-scenes features mercifully provided by Starlog's TNG magazine rather than letting home-grown writers pad it out with the usual generic puzzles and an unappealing board game in seeming contempt for their audience.

Nicky Hooks and Sharon Burnett, Red Dwarf Quiz Book

1994 / Ebook / 216 pages / UK

***

When these fans got the green light to write the official quiz book for their favourite programme, they didn't half arse it. There are far too many sections of far too many inane questions for anyone to really bother getting through, but the crosswords, word searches and other puzzles would pass the time on a commute. It fortuitously catches the franchise immediately before its decline, so you don't have to slog through the post-Grant years to brush up on your Kochanski laundry trivia. The only really interesting part was brief questionnaires filled in by the cast and creators that give some insights into their personalities circa 1994.

Various, Doctor Who: The Brilliant Book 2011

2010 / Ebook / 132 pages / UK

***

A bit of an odd choice to package the de facto Official Series Five Companion as a 'family' annual, but if it wasn't for those disposable stories and fluff features between the episode guides, interviews and behind-the-scenes insights, they'd struggle to pass this off as more than a souvenir magazine.

Various, Doctor Who: The Brilliant Book 2012

2011 / Ebook / 164 pages / UK

***

Cutting down on the stories to make it a more respectable counterpart to the child-oriented Annual, but keeping the other superfluous padding between the episode write-ups, now with more of an educational angle about real and pretend history. I don't know whether they continued making series companions in some other unsatisfying hybrid form, it took me long enough to work out what these were.

Alrightreads: X

M. P. Shiel, Xélucha and The Primate of the Rose

1896-1928 (collected 1994) / Ebook / 30 pages / UK

***

I don't know why Tartarus' reprint of the old Arkham House collection only got as far as the second story. Maybe they had trouble tracking down some of the others like I did. The first one's more interesting for its sci-fi ponderings and faux-antiquated language on the right side of the centennial to be acceptable.

Various, Dimension X

1950-67 (collected 1970) / Audiobook/ebook / 351 pages / USA/UK

**

Five novellas, seemingly chosen for length rather than theme or quality, from what history judges to be a mixed bag of prominent and obscure writers. Some consistency or some kind of point would have been nice.

Fave: Robert A. Heinlein's 'The Man Who Sold the Moon'

Mathew Lemay, Elliott Smith's XO

2009 / Ebook / 124 pages / USA

***

A nice counterpart to the Celine Dion book in the series, this reclaims the dead artist's album from semiautobiographical gossip by obsessing all over it as a piece of art. I'd love for this level of attention to be lavished on an album I actually care about.

Kathleen Olmstead, The Untold History of Television: The X-Files

2016 / Ebook / 35 pages / Canada

**

More a chapter than a book, and not so much 'untold' as widely published in the readily available reference works summarised. The observation of how the world changed around and influenced the series during its run was the only worthwhile contribution. The synopsis reads like a child's book report.

Various, The X-Files: Secret Agendas

2016 / Ebook / 360 pages / Various

***

Probably the best or at least most consistent of these anthologies, alternating light and dark entries, tastefully incorporating more mythology elements and with better characterisation, especially for Scully. Titles like 'Perithecia,' 'Stryzga' and 'Kanashibari' are as authentically X-Files as the time stamps.

Fave: Jade Shames' 'Give Up the Ghost'

Alrightreads: Worlds

Carl Sagan, produced by Jerome Agel, Other Worlds

1975 / Ebook / 160 pages / USA

***

The usual Sagan summary, padded out with blurry black-and-white space pics, Diane Ackerman's space poems, vaguely relevant classical quotes and New Yorker funnies. A fun retro curio, but get one of his proper books.

Mike Pattenden, James Wallis and Tony Takoushi, Stay Sonic: The Ultimate Guide to the World of Sonic the Hedgehog

1993 / Ebook / 92 pages / UK

*

The Sonic writer's bible, spruced up with the bare minimum effort (variations on the same black-and-white sketches, boss tips and 1993 minor celebrity cameos) and sold to well-meaning parents. Sonic the Comic would retell these origin stories in more palatable comic form.

Rhys H. Hughes, The World Idiot and Other Absurdlings

1993-2011 (collected 2011) / Ebook / 99 pages / UK

****

If you were new to Rhys Hughes, this would be a cracking sampler. If you've been following along, it's odd. The new stories and obscure magazine/chapbook reprints are conventionally good, but the other half's reappropriated from some of his best-known collections where those stories already worked perfectly by design. It's as if Pink Floyd had plonked some Dark Side of the Moon tracks onto Momentary Lapse of Reason to make it better. Maybe they were out of print at the time.

Fave: 'The Macroscopic Teapot'


Jo Storm, Approaching the Possible: The World of Stargate SG-1

2005 / Ebook / 523 pages / Canada

***

A middle ground (tonally, chronologically and geographically) between the serious '90s Star Treks and the rainbow zaniness of Farscape and Doctor Who, this isn't a show I've ever felt compelled to revisit or even to finish, but this look back at the early years was still nostalgic. The first 100 or so pages could stand alone as a slim overview of the series and fandom, then it gets into the meatier episode guide, albeit overly concerned with shipping. Only getting as far as season eight, for eternal want of an update, that's still further than I made it.

Michael Jan Friedman, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Peter Krause, Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection: The Worst of Both Worlds

1993 (collected 2019) / Ecomics / 168 pages / USA

**

I had quite low expectations for this non-canonical sequel to the rather popular two-parter, but its bogstandard alternate universe plot still managed to underwhelm. I'm surprised it never had a collected edition back in the day regardless, Borgs were the Daleks of the '90s.

Alrightreads: Five W's

John Dougan, The Who Sell Out

2006 / Ebook / 131 pages / USA

***

The rock operas and youth angst speak for themselves, so this is quite rightly the album that could benefit from some explaining – a mission this chronicler embarks on to an overly digressive degree before finally getting around to the tunes.

Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel, What to Expect the Second Year: From 12 to 24 Months

2011 / Ebook / 512 pages / USA

*****

Trustworthy and reassuring guidance to keep parents on the ball, setting realistic expectations of what we can look forward to and less so. The gun safety interruption was no less chilling the second time around.

Raymond Briggs, When the Wind Blows

1982 / Ebook / pages / UK

****

Animating a comic always seemed like the most pointless of adaptations to me, but I'll go with the film for this one, not that I'd ever want to watch it again. I don't remember Briggs' comic panels being so cramped from childhood, maybe it's a Wagon Wheels® thing.

Unknown, Where's Sonic Now?

1996 / Ebook / 32 pages / UK

**

They got away with it, so the second barefaced rip-off is even cheekier in appropriating the Wally sequel's title without any of the skill. Sonic consumers will be happy enough just seeing those familiar zones from a couple of games ago being rendered by an anonymous artist. Say what you will about the Ladybird Sonic canon; they stuck to those comfort zones more than any of the other cash-in crap.

Sue Gerhardt, Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain

2004 / Ebook / 256 pages / South Africa

***

I didn't need quite this much scientific and anecdotal evidence to persuade me to follow my instincts, but the non-controversial title is determined to justify itself. Parents hoping for handy blog-style bullet points will have to go through and make their own. Don't be a Victorian is a good start.

Alrightreads: W

Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

1963 / Ebook / 40 pages / USA

****

Not being American, this wasn't part of my compulsory childhood reading, but I understand the lasting appeal. I probably get even more out of it as a lit graduate parent than I would have back then, though it would've been fun to be scared.

Kevin Jackson, Withnail & I

2004 / Ebook / 96 pages / UK

***

Another BFI writer taking the redundant novelisation route, it's at least interspersed with the making of and relevant autobiographical details, though the books he sources from are presumably better for that.

Jennifer Hallissy, The Write Start: A Guide to Nurturing Writing at Every Stage, from Scribbling to Forming Letters and Writing Stories

2010 / Ebook / 160 pages / USA

**

Naturally, this is going to be a focal area at the expense of other development (as soon as she stops viewing stationery as confectionery), but this primer was largely useless. You'd get as much from skimming the chapter headings as you would reading on and having their concepts and activities patronisingly explained to you.

Bryan Charles, Pavement's Wowee Zowee

2010 / Ebook / 153 pages / USA

**

A narcissistic autobiography of how the author came to appreciate and write about the album, nagging its creators with inane questions in the process.

Hank Shteamer, Ween's Chocolate and Cheese

2011 / Ebook / 176 pages / USA

***

Prosaic defence of a former novelty band starting to take themselves seriously, distinguishing the edgy and existential from the inexcusably daft.