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20 in 10: KJ's Best of the Decade
How can it possibly be almost the end of the 2010s? Sometimes it feels like this decade has lasted a million years, especially the latter half of it. It's a cliche that time moves faster as you age, but it's one that I'd found to be true until 2016, the year that never ended and then somehow stretched into three more. But maybe that makes it even more important to look back on what we did and where we came from, and best-of-decade lists is one way to do that. Even if dates and quantities divisible by 10 are an arbitrary way to measure things, in the end. And it was a fun exercise to go back and think about the things I was enjoying several years ago.
This list isn’t meant to be comprehensive, or some grand statement of objective quality, just a list of works, from all genres and in various forms of media, that I really loved and/or that have stayed with me, released wholly or in part between 2010 and 2019. It's not really "best of", more like "favorites of". I limited it to 20 because otherwise this project could gotten way out of hand (see: my honorable mention list). Even when I feel like I'm not reading or watching as much, I still discovered some great stuff, and I hope some of them are among your favorites, too.
In alphabetical order:
Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Agent Carter -- Is it cheating, to come out the gate with my two favorite entries into the MCU as a single item? Too bad, I'm going to do it anyway. There were a lot of MCU entries I could have included here, including but not limited to: The First Avenger for introducing me to Steve Rogers; The Avengers for hurtling me into the fandom; Avengers: Endgame for being a more satisfying bookend to this phase than it had any right to be; Jessica Jones S1 for giving us Jessica, Trish, and their wonderful friendship; Agents of SHIELD for two really strong seasons and some really satisfying long-form storytelling. But ultimately I had to pick my two hands-down favorites from the series, my most beloved movie and TV show so far, starring my two favorite characters by far.
Cinders -- Although not the game I spent the most time on in the 2010s, because it was so much shorter than the AAA console games I play, it's easily the game I replayed the most times, eager to see every single outcome. I never quite got them all, but it was still a delight to discover a visual novel, based on Cinderella but featuring a heroine with more guts and more agency, with such a rich cast of characters and diverse set of story paths. It was also the first time I ever witnessed the birth of a small fandom (I was something like the second person to post a fic on AO3), and certainly the first time I know of that a canon creator linked to my work on social media. I recently revisited the game to refresh my memory enough to write a remix story, and it was wonderful to discover it all over again.
Critical Role -- There is no way this show wasn't making the list. It's certainly the content I've spent the most sheer number of hours with over the past ten years, between watching Campaign One twice and listening to most of it via podcast one more time, and keeping up with a new 3-4 hour episode almost every week, not to mention Talks Machina and all the one-shots. It takes some dedication to love this show, but love it I do, for all its twists and turns, for Matt's wonderful DMing, for everyone else's excellent acting and character development work, for the sense of joy at the table the entire team conveys. It's hard to recommend the series to newbies, given what a commitment it is to catch up and stay caught up, but I have hopes that the animated series will provide an easier point of entry to bring this great story to even more people.
Dragon Age II — Although my favorite game of the series remains Dragon Age: Origins, and I didn’t play it until 2011, it was released in 2009 and so isn’t really eligible for this list. But I’m perfectly happy to put DA2 here in its place. Probably the most common opinion I hear about DA2 is that it was hurt by rushed development; the seams show most obviously in Act 3, but parts of Act 1 are also rough, and I can only imagine what the game would have been with enough time to polish it and all the DLC originally on the docket (Exalted March, anyone)? If it had been anything like the brilliantly plotted and executed Act 2, I suspect this game would have topped many more "best of the decade" lists. That said, I still throughly enjoyed the game we got, and appreciated its different approach to game storytelling -- instead of an epic universe-crossing quest, your goal is to stay in place and make the world better where you are. Also some of the most engaging relationships, romantic and otherwise, I've ever encountered in a game, along with NPCs who have rich inner lives outside the protagonist. A game I wish got more of the credit it deserves.
The Force Awakens -- I liked The Last Jedi better in most respects, and it's certainly possible that The Rise of Skywalker will supplant them both. But TFA will always hold a special place in my heart for being the movie that brought Star Wars back. I know there are many folks out there who will argue that it never went away, and it's absolutely a fair argument. But for me, and for many others, it had slipped into memory and nostalgia, no longer a living breathing creative work. I will never forget the experience of sitting in a dark theater, holding my breath, seeing the words "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away" on the screen... and then hearing those distinctive chords ring out, letting me know that I'm home. Was it a perfect movie? Not remotely. But it was a fun movie, an entertaining movie, and a movie that sucked me right back in to the universe, and on that day in 2015, I couldn't have asked for more.
The Good Place -- I didn't start watching The Good Place until after the end of the first season, when I heard from many sources that the finale vaulted it from a good and entertaining show into something special. And boy were they ever right. I suppose most everyone is spoiled for that twist by now, but I'm not going to mention it anyway, just in case. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that one of the great things about this show is how it reinvents itself, its characters, and its premise on a regular basis. Also the relationships between the characters, and the acting, and even the production design -- it's a beautiful show, with so many perfect tiny touches. On top of all that, it manages to be consistently funny and thoughtful, tackling serious philosophical questions about what it means to be a good person. I really can't recommend it highly enough.
Fringe -- The show so convoluted, I had to make a flowchart. If you read my entries about Fringe, you will see that I had a number of frustrations with it, and I wish they had just ended with Season 4. But I still loved it enough to watch the entire thing twice, and I'd happily watch it all again. Some excellent alternate universe twists, wonderful family storytelling, and one my favorite screen romances (Peter/Olivia) in years.
Hamilton -- I have a feeling this one is going to be on a lot of "best of the 2010s" lists. With good reason, of course. I listened to the album pretty much non-stop for almost two years, I saw it in the theater (a touring production in San Francisco) twice, and it dominated the cultural conversation unlike any other single work of art during the last decade. Brilliant and important -- it's possible that this musical will better endure the test of time than any other item on this list.
Inception -- Because I didn't start making annual favorites lists until I joined
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ladybusiness, I had to dig back through my journal archives to remember when things came out and to remind myself of everything that I'd loved at the time but haven't thought about in awhile. Inception was released in 2010, which feels like a million zillion years ago now, and I loved it instantly: the convoluted plot, the twists and turns, the way the characters and the audience were forced at every moment to question the nature of the film universe's reality, the stunning visuals. I might have forgotten the date of the movie's release, but I certainly haven't forgotten about the movie. I also still listen to the soundtrack on a regular basis.Leverage -- I almost feel like this show came along too soon (it ended in 2012), before we knew the true depths of depravity to which late-stage capitalism would go. Watched now (I started in 2014 and have watched it over again a couple of times since), it feels almost prophetic. That's not the main reason I love it, though -- I love it because it's a new heist every week, and it features a beautiful found family, and they found tremendous guest stars and recurring characters, and the OT3 is the best.
Lock In -- The fact that this is the first book on the list is more an artifact of the alphabet than anything else (although I have been reading less and watching more in recent years), but it's also the only single book (as opposed to book series) that made the top list. It's only natural, I think, for a series to be more likely to stick with me than a standalone piece of media (though it does have a sequel -- I really liked it, but not enough for it to break onto the list). I suspect one of the reasons that Lock In was my favorite book of not just the year, but the decade, was John Scalzi's deft handling of the protagonist whose gender is never revealed. When I realized what was going on, I was really impressed, and that feeling never really went away. Of course, that's not all this book has going for it. I've always enjoyed Scalzi's conversational writing style, and it's particularly well suited to this story. Add to that some crunchy concepts around identity in a world where physical bodies are often made irrelevant, and you have real KJ bait. I know everyone is all about The Interdepency right now, and those books also pretty great, but for me, Lock In is the best Scalzi book so far.
The Memoirs of Lady Trent -- There are other book series on this list, but I think Marie Brennan's rose the highest into the pantheon of my all-time favorites. Styled as a memoir written decades after the fact, gentlewoman naturalist Isabella Trent tells of her life spent studying the natural history of dragons all over the world, detailing her stunning discoveries and desperate adventures. An engaging story, both overall and book by book, with one of my all-time favorite protagonists. Stunning illustrations, too. And the most recent book, which stands alone and is set many years later, serves as the perfect grace note to the series.
The Murderbot Diaries -- No other series quite took my corner of SF/F fandom by storm quite like Martha Wells's Murderbot novellas. I suspect it may be the relatability of the protagonist, who just wants to be left alone to watch the future equivalent of Netflix but keeps getting dragged into relationships and corporate bad behavior and caring about people instead. The forthcoming novella may be my most anticipated book of 2020.
October Daye -- Although this book series has had its ups and downs, I find it the most engaging of the ongoing series I'm reading right now, and it's my favorite work by Seanan McGuire (although Wayward Children is also excellent). The twists and turns are often breathtaking, including at least one reveal that upended the entire meaning of everything that came before. Toby is a great character, and I enjoy her relationships with people, her friends and her family and her rivals and her love interests.
Person of Interest -- You think this is going to be a police procedural with a twist, maybe with a touch of commentary on the surveillance state, and then it turns into one of the best creative works ever made about examining the nature of artificial intelligence. I have a post in progress that will go into much more detail, if I ever get around to finishing it.
Persona 5 -- After Dragon Age, my most exciting AAA videogame discovery of the decade. I'd never played any other Persona games, despite being curious about them. I forget why we picked this one up; maybe the strength of reviews. It took a little while to get rolling, but once it did, wow was it an amazing ride. I still need to go back and revisit earlier titles in the series.
Russian Doll -- I have a weakness for time loop stories, and this may be the greatest example I've ever seen. I've heard it described as Groundhog Day if the writers actually had empathy for other people, and I feel like it's very apt. The writing, the acting, the production design, all perfectly done. I have no idea how they're going to pull off a second season, but I'm here for it.
Spider-Man : Into the Spiderverse -- T and I recently watched this movie again, and we marveled (no pun intended) over just how well it was constructed. I'd certainly call it the greatest animated superhero movie I've ever seen, and it's among the best in each of those genres separately, too. I can't think of another film that made better thematic use of its artwork. Brilliant cast, too. I bet could watch it another hundred times and still keep noticing things that I've missed.
Spiritwalker -- This trilogy was my introduction to Kate Elliott, and it catapulted me into being a huge fan of her and her work. I've talked a lot about just how much I love these books, their protagonist Cat, the central romance with Andevai and her relationship with her adopted sister Bee. And how much I thrill to the world-building, an alternate Earth with no colonialism and in which the most recent Ice Age never ended. And what a great system of magic Elliott created. This series is my go-to answer whenever I asked what other book series deserves a lavish television production, and I 100% mean it. HBO, call me.
TPR's Square Enix albums -- From the beginning, one of the strengths of the Final Fantasy videogame series has been its music, even and perhaps especially when it was limited to an 8-bit MIDI speaker. Original composer Nobou Uematsu began the tradition of excellence, and for the most part it's continued as the series has moved forward. Enter TPR, a piano artist who has written some hauntingly beautiful arrangements of many of the best songs from the series (and other videogames), creating albums that have been on my listening rotation non-stop since I discovered them. I have his FFVIII, FFIX, and FFX collections, as well as a more recent one for Kingdom Hearts, and all of them contain moments of pure perfection. I'll never think of the shoopuf theme from FFX the same way again.
And now here are a whole bunch of honorable mentions, most of which I at least considered for the top 20, but they go here because I had to cut off the list somewhere.
The Adventure Zone (particularly TAZ: Balance); the Arrowverse (linked TV series based on DC Comics properties); "Cat Pictures Please" by Naomi Kritzer; The Centenal Cycle by Malka Older; Come From Away (the Broadway musical); Court of Fives by Kate Elliott; Crazy Ex Girlfriend; Get Out; Good and Mad and Big Girls Don't Cry by Rebecca Traister; The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison; The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee (HM mostly because it's unfinished -- if I make another list in 2029, look for it again); Imperial Radch trilogy and The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie; Jane the Virgin; The Lego Movie; Mad Men; The Magpies (an actual play podcast with an all-female, all-queer cast -- if you check out nothing else on this list, give this one a try); the MCU as a whole; Orphan Black (HM because I never felt inspired to finish it; at its best, it was a brilliant accomplishment that I'd stack up against almost anything on the above list); Parks & Recreaction; Spotlight; The Temeraire series, Uprooted, and Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik; Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers
So that's a lot of stuff! Too much great stuff, too much to list even within the honorable mentions. What are some of your favorites of the last ten years?
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