My Puzzling Year

 Even better than the first one, lots of different paths and approaches to take, even integrated a comic strip story into the decision making....excellent!

 Something I've been meaning on and off to pick up for some time, and finally spotted this volume in Strange Apparitions for a fiver.... Absolute bargain. Slice of life done right, evocative, entertaining, and heartbreaking by the end.

 Liked it a lot although vaguely annoyed by the ending perhaps not tying in with the underground scenes used for narration throughout?   More annoyed by the rest of the series no longer being on iplayer...

 Perhaps I should check if this series was prematurely ended at 12?  The ending of chapter 11 is blinding, really brilliant Saga-mid-point place....and then....rush rush rush rush rush rush end. Lots of comments about it maybe ending early, implication in interviews is sort of that more was expected....

 Usual refrain. Shout at the television -- how can people be so stupid. Even those playing it right, ie playing dumb until the end, turn out to just be dumb in the end. Game is cracked at this point though, isn't it? Faithful -- suss out a Traitor and don't tell anyone until the murders are done. Traitors -- make a proper pact with one other Traitor and stick to it.

 Keeps up the pace and the interest, loving the multi time stream approach, feels like it should be much longer series -- after this book there's just four chapters to go.

 Better on a second read than the first -- I don't even remember this ending, implying I gave up on it partway through.  This time -- it's very very good.

 Very good, very tight, 77 minute run time, leaves stuff for viewer to figure out -- very close in feel to Locke, both great great movies.

 Quite fun, but it's definitely third in relation to BackStories and FateFlip...

 Threatened to break out of solid middle ground into something special right at the death, but I guess Lemire had to put the toys back in the Marvel box and so story-wise reverted to status quo. Perfect example of why work-for-hire is so much less fulfilling as a reader than own projects, I'm hoping his Animal Man and Green Arrow were allowed more latitude.

 Couldn't finish it, it was just boring.

 Same as v1 really -- and being away from Marvel books for some time really hammers this home: presumably some editorial decision to have an interconnected universe because it drives reader engagement?  For casual readers, it's a total turnoff -- the story is constantly dragged down by what feels like forced references to "current" continuity.  Which of course reading several years after publication is long since gone and replaced and irrelevant. Never felt so much that Marvel is pointless.

 Initially quite confusing, referring events that aren't really explained anywhere -- although gradual flashbacks fill in some details, it almost feels you have to be immersed in whatever the Marvel continuity was to get the most -- Female Thor, Female Hawkeye, Avalanche the villain dead somewhere -- making it a fish out of water but if you're unfamiliar with the water then the effect is lessened. Fast read-- interesting read -- old Steve Rogers?  

 Interesting read and insights, although earlier chapters repeat similar information often, almost as if it's more of a compilation of writing or interviews elsewhere, brought together and not edited very well.  Some interesting omissions in details -- some projects get deep dives, some get barely a word -- Sentient where art thou? The book could easily have been twice as long and still been interesting and the cutoff is at an interesting point -- just before Absolute Flash and all that stuff, which considering much of the book is criticising Marvel and DC policy and setup, and superheroes in general (consider Black Hammer series allows Lemire to do everything he wants in the superhero field, but...here comes Flash (shrug emoji)).... It feels like there's some undercurrent here we're not being told -- something financial perhaps?  Very little on Phantom Road, which is also weird....

 The first of Lemire's books, this is the Top Shelf reprint of the original with readable lettering. Yes it's rough, and yes it's dark -- really dark from even a few pages in. Good, though.

 Sweet, cosy, just plain NICE with an interesting sympathetic lead.   Enjoyed it a lot.

 Absolute genius. A story told in a deck of card, bringing in poker cards, Uno, Magic: The Gathering, business cards -- the creators must've had a blast in writing and designing this, and it shows throughout. Probably the best "comic" of 2025.

 Bought this when originally published in 2022 and hated it -- couldn't work it out, it didn't resonate. Thought I'd try it again after starting 10,000 Ink Stains and wanting to give Lemire a deeper read...made much more sense, really enjoyed it.

 Hoped hoped hoped that this would be a lovely this narrative thing, a page a day style game, or at least something interesting per day. But it isn't.   Roll some dice a few times for each month, and at the end of the month there will be a small piece of text to develop the story -- such as it is. Problem is, the dice rolling is boring.  The daily task is boring.  The story element is too little, too late.

 Veered from being terrible to ending up intriguing -- essentially a replay of series four but instead of as per TV putting together each narrative strand so that each episode follows a number of people in different places, in this you are a new character and pretty much follow one other character (with opportunities to switch who you are tracking). So do you want to see what happens entirely from the point of view of Eleven and the only knowledge you have of what is going on in Hawkins comes second hand at best?  You can do this.  Wanna follow Nancy throughout -- no problem. This does mean that there is a huge amount of repetition in the book, and little that is original -- a few minor linking scenes perhaps -- and there aren't a lot of choices to be made (essentially what choices there are end up driving you to follow someone else).   But...it's....ok.

 One of the quotes on the movie poster calls this Magical. It is.

 50th anniversary for this movie last year, been on BBC iplayer for a little while now, finally got around to making the time for it. Brilliant. Created so many tropes, so many quotable lines, great plot. Shit shark. But I forgave it. Memory played weird tricks on the two "scary" bits -- I remembered the dismembered leg sequence perfectly.  But the head in the boat I remembered as popping up through a port hole underwater, not through a gash in the hull of the boat.  And the head looked different to my memory -- whilst the leg bit was identical. Weird.

 Pretty dire. Which is why I unsubscribed when the current one runs out. Cover story is on Tom Baker's MBE -- unmentioned throughout is how poorly he looks. Major features inside though are on The War Between The Land And Sea and more stuff on Sea Devils and Silurians -- much as I enjoyed the mini series I found slogging through pages upon pages of fluff and "oh jolly hockey sticks isn't it all wonderful and fun" to be tedious beyond belief. The comic strip -- touted as the next all-time classic -- was terrible. And I gave up watching the combined episode The Sea Devils because, frankly, it was shit.  Old Who was Shit.  Terrible acting, stupid plot, ridiculous contrivances -- and every time "the old guard" tout Old Who as being universally brilliant, well.  They also vote Reform for sure.

 My god, total Harlan Coben.  i.e. everyone has a secret, everything is convoluted, nothing really holds together too much, people do stupid things to move the plot along, but it's an enjoyable ride nonetheless and like the rest of his shows I will have forgotten most of it within the next week.

 The sort of program that is enjoyable but essential to disengage your brain first. Plot holes galore, ridiculous character choices, contrivances throughout to keep having the bad guy get away, what was the point of Ruth going after the hard drive, it wasn't needed at all in the end and felt like an excuse to bring back Richard Armitage for a quick hurrah, and Hana's sister. Enjoyable fluff.

 Weird hybrid beast of young writing tone coupled with more adult subject matter "hey kids, let's see some kids being eaten by the Demogorgon"... Breeze to read, worth the three quid it cost in sales, would not have been worth the originally priced 13...

 Simply put, superb. Maybe not every gag hits, but even the worst leaves a smile.

 Oh my. A companion piece to the disappointment that was The Passenger, and it comes across as a poor man's The Whalestoe Letters by Mark Z Danielewski -- the one thing in this book that's sort of kept a mystery for most of the runtime (who is her secret love) is not exactly a mystery at all, obvious from so early on.  Maybe because of reading The Passenger first, but that's the recommended reading order anyway, so pffffft. It just sort of peeters out into nothingness -- no great revelation, no real musing on anything interesting, no real point to any of it other than passing the time in thank god only 189 pages instead of 381.  

Remains funny -- if more in some patches than others -- and what's maybe now gratifying about TM is my 12 year old has discovered clips of it on Youtube and is mind-flown that I've watched 20-plus series of this thing. This pair of episodes sort of proves once again that being clever is actually a handicap in TM terms, and scoring is almost entirely arbitrary -- not so important over a ten episode series, as random swings in GD's mood would even themselves out, but in two episodes it is what carries the day.

 Rather more educational -- and I'm afraid to say, less fun -- than FateFlip, although quite similar in concept except here you in theory have more choice because you are choosing locations from an ever-expanding map, but it's very linear.  In FateFlip there's an element of randomness and you have three stats to keep above zero, here there is just the one stat at a time to worry about, so less of a balancing act, and you are sort of railroaded into particular directions. It's still an interesting way to while away an hour or so, but coming so soon after FateFlip it's just not good enough.

Quite a straightforwards Reiner Knizia puzzle game, placing tiles in varying orders on a deck of 50 levels of increasing difficulty to meet certain placement requirements. As usual, you speed through the first ten or so levels with barely a hitch and then the brain burning starts to get worse and worse.   Hope to revisit another set of levels in short order.

 Hugely impressive in less than 70 oversized cards, so many options and endings all contained in the deck; a logical progression through the plot taking you in all sorts of directions in convincing manner.

 Really this should be for the whole series, as we rewatched everything through to the end and although vaguely ridiculous and plot holey and really some of the protagonists should've been killed off but whatever, it's a popcorn series, it was thoroughly entertaining and funny, highs and lows, nice emotional touch at the end and a good little look -- what happens after you beat you bad guy, what happens next. I love Frieren for its approach to this, and a lengthy coda here helps cement the series as being a real favourite.

 Funny. Hard to figure that it took two cracks at the first few episodes of season one to really get into this show, but it just seems to get funnier and funnier, and although it's a little route one, it is funny, enjoyable and just plain entertaining and there's nothing wrong with that.