Dumbies: December 2007 Archives
The judges didn’t read too many comics this year, although they did venture into the world of Manga for the first time.
- Y : The Last Man
- Black God Volume 1
- Zombie-Loan Volume 1
- Spiral : Bonds Of Reasoning Volume 1
- xkcd
- Wii Sports
- Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz (Wii)
Notabley Battlestar Galactica is missing, that's because the judges got bored, decied the Cylons plan was non existent and stopped watching.
Otherwise, TV was okay, not amazing. In fact the general trend was that shows failed to live up to their potential. (Although Primeval actually exceeded expectations.) In fact, from that list there is only one show which I wouldn't have changed.
A special mentions hould go to Flight Of The Conchords, which is the funniest thing that I've seen on TV for ages, and has a song called The Humans Are Dead (they were killed by robots).
- The Prestige
- The Fountain
- Deja Vu
- Stranger Than Fiction
- Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
- 28 Weeks Later
- The Golden Compass
- Primer
- Gattaca
- The Nines
Interestingly, only The Golden Compass could be classified as straight-ahead blockbuster SF, and maybe Deja Vu. Everything else is a bit quirkier (or in the case of The Fountain, completely mental), a bit indie, and very, very cool. In fact 70% of the films are Woah!++, with three of them being genuine SF classics.
It should also be noted that one of the films of the year was not SF, and so is not eligible, the incredible The Bourne Ultimatum. Non-stop awesome action.
Firstly the nominations for Non-Fiction books are:
- You Can Draw Star Wars
- Star Wars The Ultimate Visual Guide Special Edition
- James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips
- Brave New Words, The Oxford Dictionary Of Science Fiction
And now the Fiction books:
- The System Of The World - Neal Stephenson
- Air - Geoff Ryman
- The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Attwood
- Infoquake - David Louis Edelman
- Brasyl - Ian McDonald
- Glasshouse - Charles Stross
- Nova Swing - M. John Harrison
- Halting State - Charles Stross
- The Attrocity Archives - Charles Stross
- Crystal Rain - Tobias Buckell
- Ragamuffin - Tobias Buckell
- The Electric Church - Jeff Somers
- Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - J K Rowling
- Magic For Beginners - Kelly Link
- Stamping Butterflies - Jon Courtenay Grimwood
- The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross
- Matter - Iain M Banks
A good year of reading.
Big Dumb Object is pleased to announced the third annual Big Dumb Object awards, known as The Dumbies.
The awards follow the same format as last year (thanks to cut and paste)...
Media are eligible for nomination if they have been seen or read by the judges panel in the year of 2007, no matter when they were released. Categories include Best Film, Best Book, Best Television Series, Best Comic and Best Videogame. There are no worst awards in The Dumbies, life is too short to consume bad media and the judges therefore try to avoid such matters.
The nominations will be announced over a few days (for no other reason than to string it out a bit and provide content when the judges are in fact eating and drinking). After the nominations have been announced the judges will be open for bribes for an unspecified period of time. Once they are satisfied that the best offers have arrived and have cogitated on the nominations, the judges will then make their decision and announce the awards in a grand ceremony that involves a single, but important, blog post.
Please feel free to speculate on the nominations until they are announced.
