2012 review

Well I like to look back at the year and record some of the highlights anyway...

Books

I mentioned last year how there seems to be a lot of top-notch fantasy out there at the moment. My current passion is owned by Mark Lawrence's Broken Kingdom. I read and somewhat dismissed book one, Prince of Thorns, last year as a guilty pleasure, slightly simplistic and easy to read with some moments of greatness I wasn't certain would be capitalised on in future books. Well, book two, King of Thorns, was published this year and the main character was grown and written in such a way that going back to reread book one is now an exceptional experience. The author plays games with the reader to not allow too much knowledge (he uses flashbacks to fill in the gaps allowing for true explanations to be withheld until the climax) which is to my liking as non-linear story telling is a thing of mine but it does also make it hard to pick up on the character and story on the first pass. Basically, set in the remains of a once great empire, people battle to gain kingdoms and become emperor. It's a cut-throat world and our anti-hero Jorg is the cut-throatiest of them all. But book two is packed full of humour and has a much more mature (less prone to murder and mayhem just for the hell of it) Jorg who knows a little more about what he is up against this time. It was only a shame we didn't discover much more about the fallen Empire.

Patrick Rothuss failed to release book 3 (no surprise... I will look forward to it in 2020) but like clockwork, Brent Weeks followed up The Black Prism with a good second book but somehow it lacked in grit but was very enjoyable and, at times, thought provoking with a well-realised conflict between idealogies. Of course her Hobbness added to the Realm of the Elderlings with what I felt was an unwanted return to her dullest and most irritating characters but there is promise in her brief but expert depictions of Chalced. Okay reads were The Revsionists and Dodger.

I am really looking forward to this book this year:  Pantomime

Television

Only one show managed to tweak my obsessive side this past year. Discovered this year by UK tv which is behind New Zealand, of course, The Almighty Johnsons was the highlight to my summer somehow invading my mind. Once I caught up with the NZ showings, it was a painful couple of months of waiting a week between episodes. Like Outrageous Fortune, it captured the drama-comedy tone just right for me and threw in supernatural silliness and dark turns. Reincarnated Norse gods are rarely this much fun (or even angst).

In many ways though it was an unexceptional year but maybe the fault was with me for failing to enjoy it so much... But shows that should have blown me away failed. As brilliant as Breaking Bad is, it's now a pale shadow of the first three seasons. Still, it was a good enough season with a few brilliant moments and a stronger Jesse. The other brilliant US drama was Homeland. I saw most of Homeland's first season in 2012 and it was indeed wonderful but then the second season asked me to switch my brain off too many times and I honestly don't see what other people see in Damian Lewis- I watch for Clare Danes and Mandy Patinkin. Unfortunately Mad Men seemed to be treading water quite at lot this year, testing my patience and indeed my credulity when it came to the Joan arc. I fell out of love with Dexter a while back and this season almost succeeded in winning me back but the continued lack of character development if Dexter coupled with the character assassination of Deb stopped that.

UK offerings were typically strong for me, especially Sherlock at the start of the year which was, for me, an improvement on the patchy first three-part-series. Misfits and Merlin and Doctor Who were all as I have come to expect- good in their own ways but slightly troubled too.

Film

There was one film that clearly caught my imagination this year. I've seen it twice now and would happily watch it a few more times. Cabin in the Woods. I laughed hard throughout and admired its vision and uncompromised and unexpected ending. I also saw and loved The Dark Knight Rises, Looper and Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!. The two Marvel-related films I watched this year were disappointments to me.

Game

This year I discovered Portal. I know, I know- not released in 2012. But I am a bit slow when it comes to games and Portal is worth a mention. You use two portals to transport yourself or objects from one place to another, often using gravity to create excellent results as you could build up momentum by falling vertically and then change the portal location so you are then propelled horizontally across a barrier. The puzzles aren't stupidly ridiculous though some frustrated me by seeming to need more talent than I had. I still got through them with perseverance though and it made it all the more worth it. The main appeal though was GLaDOS, a hilarious computer overlord who promised me cake...

Stage

Rather ridiculously I found myself in the middle of a park in a Californian town watching a free production of Henry V and loving every single moment. It was oddly relevant and modern which seems to be true of many Shakespearean plays. That guy was kind of a genius at spotting universal and immortal themes. I also saw my first opera with the Magic Flute- exceptional artistic direction but the story was really very poor indeed as I hear is the case for all operas.

Journeys

Oh how amazing is Hawaii? I am in so much love with the place. I went to Big Island and Kauai. Big Island was by far my favourite with an actual active volcano and lava flows I got so very close to. I saw the observatories on Mauna Kea and then saw planets and stars and oh my word even a galaxy through a telescope. The hiking on Kauai was essentially the best ever with so many trails, all seemingly unique (I just scratched the surface in my few days there). The fruit was heavenly and I am utterly spoiled now after tasting the most exquisite papayas and mangoes. I hope that everyone enjoyed my flickr stream- Hawaii has to be the most perfect place on the planet. Now all I need to do is build a particle accelerator there. I also went to Israel and Jerusalem was quite wonderful even if there was a ridiculous lack of historic rigour to the religious sites.