(Wait for it.)

So far, I’ve only had time to skip around (as opposed to read straight through), but I will say that “Black Bush” by Gemma Files and “Incident at the Geometric Church” by David McGillveray are both thoroughly awesome stories. Plus there’s a thing I wrote in there. So you should buy a copy, if only so you can see me get zinged in the contributors list.

(It’s true; I do!)

My favorite movie this year was Super.

You think you know this movie because you know Kick-Ass, Rainn Wilson, and Ellen Page, but you don’t know a damned thing. Every scene is a total surprise. It’s dark, hilarious, and strange. There’s something about seeing people get hit in the face with a plumber’s wrench that makes you shriek, not necessarily with joy, but not joylessly either.

Honorable Mention: Rubber (IMDB is telling me it came out last year, but I refuse to believe it.)

My favorite book this year was The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie.

It would be easy to see the title of this book as being ironic, just as it’s easy to describe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy as “the anti-Lord of the Rings” (which I’ve heard several times). Neither is inaccurate, but both are reductive. The Heroes is seemingly modeled on Michael Schaara’s The Killer Angels–the narrative follows several soldiers in opposing armies over the course of a three-day battle–but it’s not so romantic by half. Abercrombie’s angels are killers, and losers, and liars, and cowards, and whiners, and weaklings. I suppose the term “antihero” applies, but that feels like far too much of a pigeonhole. They are heroic, at least in their dogged (and quite doomed) attempts to be heroes (a term that means drastically different things to everyone involved). The book is bloody, grim, and vivid. You’ll never go more than a page without hitting a delicious hard-boiled one-liner. Abercrombie’s voice and worldview are infectious. I read this one months ago, and I still find him taking over my inner monologue from time to time.

Somebody give me a goddamned barbarian name already.

Honorable mention: Occultation by Laird Barron (I know this one came out last year. I just don’t care.)

My favorite album this year was Domesplitter by Direct Hit!.

The whole album is suffused with amphetaminic anxiety. It’s funny and energetic, but not without serious helpings of smash-bang-smash. The songs are diverse–there are songs for dancing and songs for raging–but the whole thing is cohesive, held together by a charmingly addled sensibility that is utterly unique (the closest comparison I can think of for these guys is Hickey, but that closeness is not close at all).

Honorable Mention: Sodom – In War & Pieces,

My favorite TV show this year was Downton Abbey.

Duh.

Honorable Mention: The Hour. I need to get less British.

As an aside, the story does in fact include a flashlight. How’s that for synchronicity? (Am I using that word wrong?)

(Just to warn you, there is a correct answer.)

That last bit is a lie. But the rest is true! I’ll let you know when it can be listened to.