by Tansy Rayner Roberts
My favourite new podcast is the Fangirl Happy Hour,
featuring Renay and Ana. Their love and enthusiasm for the material they
review is wonderful; their criticism is sharp and candid. The whole
podcast is a celebration of how fans don’t have to agree on everything,
don’t have to have watched/read everything SF in order to form an
opinion, and how much fun it can be to go against “acceptable fan
wisdom” and tread your own path. It doesn’t hurt that they often pick
works to review that are the same ones I have either read recently, or
desperately want to - more than once, I have hurried up to read a
book/comic or watch a show so I can listen to their latest episode.
Highly recommended!
My favourite TV watching this year is a cross between Agent
Carter and Jessica Jones, two excellently made seasons of television
which highlight two fascinating women of the Marvel Comics universe, and
also happen to be great drama. Both of them are stories which take
place in a superhero universe, but not the superhero genre - Agent
Carter is a post-war spy drama, and Jessica Jones is detective noir set
in the present day.
This is also the year that I fell in love with and watched
ALL of Leverage, a show that left me bereft when it was over, and
explains why so many other TV shows try so desperately to capture that
magical “ensemble of characters who become found family” dynamic. But
with heists.
I’ve immersed myself in comics more than I have in years
during 2015 - even taking on the online subscription to Marvel
Unlimited, which I highly recommend if you find yourself spending way
too much money on digital comics.
In the superhero world, my favourite new comics are the
Unbreakable Squirrel Girl (teen-friendly comedy romp adventures) and
Bombshells (a digital series based on World War II artwork of DC female
superheroes). I have high hopes for the All-New, All-Different Avengers,
which had a very solid launch.
In non-superhero comics I can’t recommend The Wicked and the
Divine enough - this fabulous story by Kieron Gillen with art by Jamie
McKelvie is a raw, magical, filthy glam rock teen coming of age epic
with amazing dialogue, characters, art, colours and gut-wrenching
cliffhangers. There are about 3 trades so far in the series so it’s a
great time to get on board.
Other comics for non superhero fans - Bitch Planet, the
harsh and gorgeous intersectional feminist masterpiece by Kelly Sue
Deconnick. (Basically Orange is the New Black in Space but without the
entitled middle class white girl in the middle of the story) This one
has its first trade out, but the individual issues feature amazing
feminist articles in the back matter, so don’t be afraid to hit up
digital single issues.
For those wanting something a little fluffier, the new Jem
and the Holograms comic is simply adorable, a great teen-friendly 21st-century reboot of the classic cartoon featuring girl rock bands, social
media, a cutie-pie lesbian romance and more.
Finally, novels - Uprooted by Naomi Novik is my favourite
novel of the year, a marvellous fairy tale adventure that felt like
Robin McKinley and Diana Wynne Jones got together to storyboard
something truly epic. I also really enjoyed Elizabeth Bear’s Karen
Memory, Zen Cho’s The Sorcerer To the Crown, and Aliette De Bodard’s The
House of Shattered Wings. I continue to enjoy Ken Liu’s The Grace of
Kings, but haven’t got to the end of it yet!
My absolutely favourite thing to read right now is
Tremontaine, by Ellen Kushner and her writing team over at Serial Box - a
new episode of this gorgeous, swashbuckle-and-spite prequel to
Swordspoint is released every week, and I’m getting to the point that I
anxiously await each one!
Tansy Rayner Roberts is an author, podcaster, blogger and editor. You can find everything she does at http://tansyrr.com/
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