Susan's Favourite Media of 2017

[spindizzy]

We made it through 2017! Somehow, without even realising, I managed to consume a lot of media this year, so I thought I'd pick out some of my favourites. Not the best, necessarily, but my favourites!

Books and short stories

The Fifth Season (Review) and Obelisk Gate (Review): The Broken Earth Trilogy is a harrowing story about oppression and the end of the world on both a global and personal level, and while I don't want to give away any spoilers, it's definitely recommended.

A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa Wong: Phenomenal cosmic powers: check. People ending the world for the ones they love: check (with bonus points for a) it being girls doing this for other girls, and b) siblings!). Time loops: CHECK. Review

The Imperial Radch Trilogy (Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy) by Ann Leckie:

For those who have managed to miss it: Breq used to be a spaceship, a troop carrier controlling thousands of bodies. Now, she's only one single human body, with a mission of vengeance. (Review)

Knit One, Girl Two by Shira Glassman: It's a cute romance about an artist and a yarn dyer who fall in love over inspiration, cats, and fandom; it's lovely. (Review)

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo:

The plot of Six of Crows is very simple! The teenage lieutenant of a street gang has to take a six-person crew to break into an impenetrable fortress and rescue a man who could throw the balance of power (politically and magically) completely out of alignment. If they fail, they die – or worse, they don't get paid.

It's exactly the sort of story I want.
(Review)

Spectred Isle by KJ Charles: I know sometimes I joke about books being pretty much written for me, but hello my darlings: this is a book about a disgraced archaeologist(!) falling in love with a professional arcanist(!) while investigating a magical mystery in 1920s England(!!!). It is ridiculously my jam. (Review)

Yona of the Dawn Volumes 1-9 by Kizuho Kusanagi

After the assassination of her father, Yona is rescued to the wilderness by her bodyguard, Hak; from there, she chooses not to go into hiding, but to gain the power she needs to protect herself, Hak, and her people. And it's the choices that Yona makes throughout this series that really sell it for me? Yona chooses – and keeps choosing – to respect people and help them and keep learning about the country she's the princess of, and to do whatever work she needs to do to be worthy of trust and to help people? It's amazing character growth from the sheltered princess of volume one! (Review)

Games

Abzû: I've been describing this to people as "Like Journey, but underwater and with more sharks" and that's not inaccurate! Abzû is a mostly text-free game where you swim around peacefully and try to bring life and sea creatures back to the oceans, which alternates between soothing, tense, and breath-taking in turns as you explore. My only issue was that I found the controls a bit wonky, but that very well could be me and my wonky controllers. If you like oceans and want something that will encourage you to sit and appreciate digital nature – at least for the early levels – then it's definitely worth checking out.

Oxenfree: Oxenfree starts off as your classic "teens go off to celebrate school ending and then Weird Things Happen" story – in this case, a group of teens go to a small island with a decommissioned army base on it, and it goes great. There are step-siblings meeting for the very first time, ghosts, and time loops, and I'm here for pretty much all of that! (I am absolutely invested in the relationship that can be built between the protagonist, Alex, and her new step-brother; it makes me really happy.)

I found Oxenfree pretty scary, although obviously your mileage may vary, and if you like horror this might not even ping for you. I think part of the reason it was so scary for me was because whatever horror happens, you have to activate it. You know something bad is going to happen when you tune that radio, but you have to do it anyway or the story won't progress! And if you find numbers stations or robotic voices asking you if you want to play a game in any way unnerving, this is not the game for you. But the relationships and the story were really compelling, even while I was freaking out, so I found I didn't want to put it down?

(I'm not a hundred percent sure I've finished it – I found out after I completed it that it might be a game with multiple endings, so I might have to go through it again and see if I can get a happy ending for everyone! Somehow!)

The Sexy Brutale: The Sexy Brutale is a murder mystery set at an improbable masquerade, where the staff are all killers and the building itself holds a series of elaborate death traps – and you get to repeatedly live through the same day over and over trying to save everyone!

I know, it's a murder mystery with time loops. I was always going to love it.

The conceit that you have to try to prevent murders while never being in the same room as any of the participants makes solving the puzzles an interesting challenge, the art style is novel, and the endings are fascinating in what they bring out as the themes of the game – it's a story about mistakes and forgiveness, and the way that it's handled is really interesting to me.

Films and TV shows

Hidden Figures: I am still salty about the bathroom storyline being put in as an excuse for a white dude to look good, but apart from that Hidden Figures is great. It centres Black women in the space race, and watching all of these women contend with constant racist and sexist microaggressions while trying to put a man into space is frustrating as hell even as I cheer their competence and smarts. It's very good and brilliantly acted, and I desperately want to get around to reading the book. (Our own renay reviewed it here.)

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword: I'm going to be honest: I was sold on this interpretation of King Arthur from the moment the giant war elephants showed up. It's a ridiculous fantasy movie that moves quickly and manages to be fun and full of action and heists! It's pretty much exactly what I expected from the description "Guy Ritchie does a movie about King Arthur," so I loved it. (I also recommend reading sfbluestocking's review, because she digs into the film's depiction of masculinity in really interesting ways.

Leverage Series One: "They fight crime and also commit it" is my tagline for a lot of things, but in this case it's true. An assorted band of criminals use their combined skills (planning, stealing, hacking, grifting, and punching people in the face) to get justice for people with no one else to turn to, and it's great. I love so much about Leverage, from the found family dynamics to the sheer number of heists going on in one show, to the competence of everyone on the main cast, to the consistent villains of the series because evil white collar capitalists who prioritise profit over people! ... Maybe I should get round to finishing series two.

(Yes, I know, it's been my favourite media in other years, but you underestimate how willing I am to watch series one of Leverage on repeat.)

Moonlight: Moonlight is the most beautifully done film I've seen all year. I am awed by the acting (the three actors playing Chiron make him so recognisable!), the sheer amount of layers storytelling, and the gorgeous camera work. (Review)

Nirvana In Fire: I finished this series with about ten minutes to spare on 2017, but it is a late arrival to this list it's definitely earned its place. Nirvana in Fire is a really compelling Chinese historical drama full of politics and family. I am coming straight off a binge-watch where I put fifty-four episodes into my face in about a week so I am biased, but it's amazing. It's compelling, the sets and the costumes are gorgeous, the relationships between characters made me alternately shriek and cry into my crocheting, even the villains have understandable motives, the emotions are intense, and the plot weaves together so well.

It's a quest for justice, first and foremost; a former military commander using an assumed identity comes into the capital to get justice for the two noble families and seventy thousand troops that died due to accusations of treason... Which would be hard enough without the royal court being divided into factions and suffering from constant in-fighting over who will inherit the throne. I love it a lot – the plots and schemes are almost rhube-goldberg devices in the way things fall into place, which makes the points where smart villains appear really feel threatening, and the character work and the acting is exactly what I want. There are a few things where I went "Wait, no, what?!" and a lot of things where I wailed on twitter, but it's good. (... So please come and yell about it with me, I cannot be alone with these feelings.)

Wonder Woman: I'm not even going to lie to you: I have cried every time I've seen Wonder Woman. Seeing the Amazons riding into battle at the start, and Diana walking into No Man's Land in the middle, just makes me cry every time. I have some issues with Wonder Woman as a film (can we not with the culture clash, please), but I could not fault it at all for emotional impact and just... Diana's sheer joy at the world around her. Her wonder at ice cream and babies delights me, and love it for that.

Yuri!!! On Ice: I am still really invested in this ridiculous show about an anxious ice skater falling in love and doing his best, still, a year after it came out. I yelled a lot about it when I started watching it the first time, but I keep going back to it and falling in love with it all over again? It's a really good depiction of anxiety and slowly figuring out that your idols are flawed human beings too, and watching it is really good for me.

So that's me and my favourites of the year – what about you? What did you love in 2017?

Comments

[transcendancing]

What an excellent list and run down of favourites! I have done my favourite books of the year, but nothing else so far - I may or may not get to it, but we'll see.

[bookgazing]

Re Hidden Figures - read the book, Susan it's so good!

[whimsyful]

Yayy you liked Nirvana in Fire! It took the c-drama world by storm when it first came out, but I didn't watch it until last year. The ending was heartbreaking but amazing, and thankfully there are several fix-it fics floating around. The sequel is airing right now, and it seems to be pretty good so far (new cast of characters, but same production team and writer)!

[aoftheis]

Oxenfree is terrific! Complex interpersonal relationships, and amazing naturalistic voice acting — some of the best I've come across in any video game. I find it pretty scary too.