Here we are, I finally begin my year end round up articles. In February. Sorry about that. I wanted to do it earlier but I wanted to give myself a little bit more time to finish off some movies and books that are eligible for this list. But, apologies aside, my lists are here.

As you know, back in 2009 I started keeping a book log with everything I read. It makes looking at this list easier. I keep it in a Google Spreadsheet so I can access it from any computer.

Here it is.

You can click the image to view it or just click here.  So I perused this list and made my selections.  Below are the best books I read last year (not including re-reads).

Unlike last year, I’ve split this list into books and comics/trade paperbacks.  I read enough of both of them to create their own lists and it was hard to weed out stuff just because it was a comic in order to make room for a book.  So, last year I only read three books that were actually released during the 2011 calendar year.  Did they make the list?  Read on to find out.

So without further ado, here are my favorite books I read in 2011.

Heroes of Olympus series – Rick Riordan – This is the sequel series to Riordan’s Percy Jackson series which made my inaugural best of list in 2009. It is currently up to book 2.  Son of Neptune is one of the three books that was released in 2011 that I read. I loved the first book in this series, The Lost Hero and Son of Neptune is almost as good. Riordan has created a fascinating world and I long to return to it when book 3 comes out.  And despite what Riodan had said earlier, Percy Jackson is all over this series.  Especially Son of Neptune.

The Magicians – Lev Grossman – Wow, this book is really good. It’s billed as sort of a Harry Potter in high school, and I see the parallels, but this story is tonally a 180 from Harry Potter. From the friendships to even how magic is actually executed, it’s just completely different. And great. This book is great. I look forward to checking out the sequel, The Magician King.  I’ll probably check out a few of Grossman’s other books, too.

Star Wars: Darth Bane trilogy – Drew Karpyshyn – This series was recommended to me years ago by my friend Dr Mike, but I was reluctant to read it because it was about a bunch of Star Wars characters I didn’t know in a time period I knew nothing about.  Boy was I wrong.  It’s amazing.  This series needs to be the template for all the Star Wars books that want to focus on a specific character.  Interesting origins, cool bits of Sith history.  It’s just great.  If you read Star Wars (or science fiction) at all, read this series.

Artemis Fowl Books 5-6 – Eoin Colfer - I love this series.  Each book has gotten better than the last.  It’s fun, light, action packed, funny.  I can’t recommend it enough.  I still need to read book 7, but it’s been rather elusive.  I haven’t been able to find it at any Barnes & Noble or my local used paperback stores.  I haven’t been able to snag it on paperbackswap.com, either.  To get it I’ll have to order it from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.com.  I’m debating about getting it for my Nook.

Shane Scofield Books 3 and 4 – Matthew Reilly – Oh man, I love Reilly. He is such an action packed writer. I’ve read like 6 or 7 of his books and they are all amazing. I put his Jack West Jr books on my list last year and now I’m putting his other series, Scarecrow, on my list this year. The two Scarecrow books I read last year were book 3 (Scarecrow) and book 4 (Hell Island).  They are both bad ass.  Hell Island, though, is actually more a novella.  It was written for an educational program in Australia to get kids excited to read.  It became so popular that he released it as a book.  The fifth book, Scarecrow Returns, was released in Jan 2012 in hardcover.  It’s going to be hard for me to wait for the paperback next year.  I want it now.  Anyway, if you like good action/adventure novels, read some of Reilly’s stuff.  You won’t regret it.

Now, here are my favorite trade paperbacks/comics I read this year.

Ultimate Fantastic Four Volumes 1 – 5 – Brian Michael Bendis, Warren Ellis – I’m a big fan of the Fantastic Four. Especially in the 80s when John Byrne was drawing them. I was originally uninterested in the Ultimate Marvel Universe until I started reading them, now I’m hooked. This F4 reboot from 2003-2004 is amazing. They need to make a movie of this group NOW.  The writing and characterizations are great as is most of the artwork, especially when you get around issue #30.  This series perfectly updates and reboots the Fantastic Four for the modern comic reader.  I loved it.

The Ultimates Ultimate Collection 1 and The Ultimates 2 Ultimate Collection – Mark Millar (writer), Bryan Hitch (art) – This is the Marvel Ultimate version of the Avengers. I was never a really big Avengers fan so I was reluctant to read these series but I was wrong. They are incredible. It’s easy to see now where Marvel is getting it’s ideas for the current crop of awesome movies getting released. All of these Ultimates stories came out in the early 2000s and their artwork actually looks like the actors that wound up starring in the movies. Tony Stark looks like Robert Downey Jr. Thor looks like Chris Hemsworth. Nick Fury is Sam Jackson. Amazing. The first Ultimates series is good, but The Ultimates 2 is ridiculous and awesome. I bet many plot elements from 2 will be in the new Avengers movie. Loki plays a major part in this story, which is why I think it will be similar. I’ll do a more in depth review of this later, but trust me, this is good reading.

Supreme: The Story of the Year – Alan Moore (writer), Jon Bennett (art) – I’ve made it pretty well known that I am not a fan of Watchmen by Alan Moore.  It’s too self-indulgent and hard to read.  I appreciate what he was doing, but it’s just too much.  However, Moore’s work on Supreme in the 90s is AMAZING.  He completely deconstructs the Superman archetype and compares and contrasts it to the super hero ideal from the Golden Age, Silver Age and the Bronze Age where violent super heroes ran rampant.  It is so great and many of the comics that flash back to the Golden Age adventures of Supreme are actually drawn in that old fashioned style.  It truly is a joy to read and I think this is a better Watchmen than the actual Watchmen.

Superman/Batman: Supergirl, Supergirl Vol 1: Power – Jeph Loeb (writer), Michael Turner (art), Ian Churchill (art) – This is the introduction and beginning story arc for the Kara Zor-El Supergirl.  She debuted in Superman Batman in 2003 and was then given her own title.  The 2003 Superman Batman series by Jeph Loeb is pretty awesome.  The second story arc involved Kara plummeting to Earth in a meteor shower.  With amazing art by Michael Turner, this is one fun read.  Superman trying to contain a 16 year old girl who may, in fact, be more powerful than him is hilarious.  Darkseid even makes a great appearance.  I loved it.  The second story, Power, features appearances by nearly the entire DC Universe and finds Kara discovering the extent of her powers and learning some hard truths about her past on Krypton.  Highly recommended.  I also read Supergirl Volume 2: Candor and was less than satisfied.  Loeb wasn’t writing the story, it was confusing and hard to follow.  But the above collections are awesome.

How about some Honorable Mentions?  Here you go:

Ultimate Comics: Iron Man: Armor Wars – Warren Ellis (writer), Steve Kurth (art) – Wow, this is really good.  Again, it’s the Ultimate version of Iron Man who looks and acts just like Robert Downy Jr.   This story is so good on so many levels.  Just amazing.

Bec (The Demonata Book 4) – Darren Shan – I’ve put this series on my year end best before (see last year).  I was not really looking forward to this installment because it takes place hundreds of years before the other books, but it’s really good.  This is such a well written and cool series.  I look forward to starting book 5, Blood Beast.

Transfer of Power (Mitch Rapp series 1) – Vince Flynn – My dad is a huge fan of this Mitch Rapp series.  I didn’t really want to start reading it because there are currently like 15 books in the series.  But my dad always takes my recommendations so I picked up the first book and read it.  And loved it.  Wow, this book is strikingly similar to 24.  You could literally replace Mitch with Jack Bauer.  But that’s not a bad thing.  I really, really enjoyed this book.  Action packed.  However, I read book 2 back in November and it wasn’t as good as book 1.  It felt like a setup for the third book.  It’s frustrating to read a 500 page book and have it be mostly setup for the next book.  Very disappointing.  But I have book 3 ready to go and I’m going to continue to give the character a chance because I really liked that first book.

So, that ends my book recap for this year.  Stay tuned, I have my favorite and least favorite movies of 2011 coming up next.

I was just the other day reading my 10th anniversary review of Star Wars: Episode I.  Hard to believe that was nearly 3 years ago.  While I think the movie runs a little long, there are scenes and moments in it that are awesome.  Darth Maul, obviously, is a BAD ASS.  Darth Sidious/Palpatine is great.  Qui Gon Jinn is awesome.  Ewan as Obi-Wan, podracing, the final 3-way lightsaber battle and John Williams’ score (and most notably Duel of the Fates).  All awesome.  Not awesome?  Jake Lloyd.  This kid has been vilified for this movie, and I feel bad for him.  I do.  But his performance is terrible.  And Jar Jar.  What can you say about f**king Jar Jar other than he sucks ass?

Regardless, I am excited to see this again in theaters and in 3D.  Plus I’m almost positive they’ve replaced that fugly looking Yoda puppet with full CGI.  I saw clips of the scenes at that Star Wars Concert that toured the country two years ago.  That is exciting.

So, in preparation, I’ve been reading up on some of the Episode I ancillary material to round out my experience with this movie.  I know Episode I has been a bit maligned, but honestly, I think it’s better than Episode II: Attack of the Clones which is mostly terrible (except for, again, the final 3-way lightsaber battle).

Here are some of the things I’ve been reading to enhance my readiness for Episode I in 3D.

Star Wars: Darth Plagueis by James Luceno – This book was released in January.  I borrowed it from my friend Dr Mike and read it this past week.  I just finished it on Tuesday.  It’s amazing.  Epic and sprawling, the plot of this book spans many years beginning 30+ years before The Phantom Menace and ending just after the events of the movie.  It’s a “behind the scenes” book.  The book is obstensibly about Darth Plagueis (Palpatine’s Sith Master), but it’s every bit Palpatine/Darth Sideous’ book as well.  You see Plagueis come up as an apprentice, kill his master, obtain Palpatine as an apprentice, then begin the Grand Plan to bring down the Republic and decimate the Jedi Order.  This book is mostly, like I said, behind the scenes, but it’s amazing how it tries to reconcile plot lines from the movies, TV shows, comics and other novels.  Truly worth the read.  This book makes the convoluted Trade Federation subplot in Episode I almost make sense.  I have a feeling this book is going on my year end “best books” list and it’s only February.

Star Wars Episode I Journal: Darth Maul by Jude Watson – This came out the year after Episode I. It was during the early days when we knew nothing about Darth Maul. This was the first time he was revealed to be a Zabrak from Iridonia.  I loved Maul so back in the day I bought up everything I could about him.  This is a light, fluff read.  Less than 100 pages.  It’s essentially written as Maul’s journal during the events of The Phantom Menace.  It’s a behind the scenes book similar to Plagueis but you don’t get as much information.  It’s mainly Maul waiting around to do stuff.  Cool but a bit light in detail.

Star Wars: Darth Maul – This was a comic series from 2000.  It’s a fantastic story that takes place a few months before The Phantom Menace.  It depicts Maul’s first real assignment from Darth Sidious.  Essentially Darth Maul vs Black Sun.  And it’s awesome.

Star Wars: Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter – This was released in 2001. It was the first standalone full length novel for Maul (and still the only). It’s a pretty good story. Maul is only part of the story, the other part is about a smuggler guy named Lorn.  It takes place right after the above graphic novel.  Maul is used and characterized well which makes it a fun read.  It’s got a cool ending and this story is touched upon by the Darth Plagueis book. In the new 2011 printing of this book, there are two short stories. One is Darth Maul: Sabateur and the other is Darth Maul: Restraint.  I’ve read Sabateur and it’s only okay.  Restraint is actually brand new and only available in the new printing of this book.  Unlike Sabateur, you can’t buy it separately on your Nook.  So, that means I have to go to Barnes & Noble with my Nook and use the 1 hour I can read anything for free to finish it.  I’m not buying another copy of this book.

Star Wars: Cloak of Deception by James Luceno – This was the official “prequel” to The Phantom Menace. It’s honestly not that good. Mostly political maneuvering. You see how Chancellor Valorum got to where he is by the beginning of the movie. However, Darth Plagueis again gives a lot more back story and touches on this book which makes it a bit more interesting after you’ve read it.

Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace – And lastly, we come to the novelization of the movie.  I’ve read this exactly twice.  Once when the hardback was released right before the movie in early May 1999.  The second time was when the paperback was released in 2000 or 2001.  I’m holding off on reading this again until the movie comes out.  So I’ll be reading it after Feb 10.   I remember it being pretty good.  Brooks was able to add several scenes to expand on the action in the movie.   I’m actually really looking forward to delving back into this book.

So, I’m a huge fan of The Wizard of Oz.  I’ve been watching the movie since I was a kid. I’ve seen it countless times and I even own the soundtrack release from 1995 which included extended versions of many of the songs as well as a missing song (The Jitterbug) recorded but not included in the movie.

Around 2001 I checked out from the library the original Oz novel (above) by L Frank Baum and read it. And loved it. I even watched Dreamer of Oz, the TV movie starring John Ritter as L Frank Baum. Then, sometime around 2005-2006 I received the annotated edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (see below).  It’s a gorgeous hardbound book with all the original illustrations as well as a 100 page biography of L Frank Baum as well as very meticulous notations throughout the text of the story bringing into focus the impact this book had on society.

A year later I made the resolution that I was going to read all of the original Baum Oz novels. There are 14 of them. I even acquired the first three books from Paperbackswap.com in a bundled collection by Books of Wonder (also in the photo above).  However, that goal was somewhat forgotten and I haven’t done anything about it.  Until now.

I mentioned on the Nerd Lunch podcast recently (twice already) that in 2012, I’m picking this resolution back up and I’m going to finish the Oz novels.  And to keep myself accountable, I’m going to blog about it.  So a new feature is being created called Following the Yellow Brick Road which will chart my progress with each book.  I’ll do reviews of each book as well as any ancillary material appropriate to that book.  For instance, for the first three books there are Marvel comic adaptations as well as the original 1939 movie and the 1985 sequel, Return to Oz (which is an amalgam of books 2 and 3).  I may throw in quick mini-reviews of that stuff as well.

So, in 2012, join the Cavalcade of Awesome through the Kansas twister into the enchanted land of Oz.  I’m thoroughly looking forward to it.

Welcome your faces to Episode 7 of the Nerd Lunch Podcast.  This week we are joined by Robert from the blog To The Escape Hatch. Our topic is “Does It Live Up to the Hype?”

We each took a TV show or movie that has been recommended/hyped up to us over the years that we never got around to watching and…we watched it. Some of the things we watch include Braveheart, Mad Men and The Wire. Do they live up to the hype? Listen to the podcast to find out.

Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner.

Today is the final day of Dracula book week. Yesterday I looked at Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel. Today, I take a look at a semi-sequel to that novel.  Fred Saberhagen’s The Dracula Tape.

If this seems familiar, I reviewed a similar Saberhagen book back in 2009 called The Frankenstein Papers. My theme that year was, obviously, Frankenstein and I had just read Mary Shelley’s book.  It seemed like fun to read a sequel to such a seminal work in horror literature.  Saberhagen’s book told Mary Shelley’s story from a different point of view.  Most notably, the monster’s.

Well, after deciding that I was going to try, again, to read Stoker’s Dracula, I wanted to read another book that did the same thing.  Well, as the fates would have it, Saberhagen did the same thing with Dracula.  He wrote this book which looks at the events in Dracula from the Count’s point of view.  And it’s all narrated by the Count himself.  Saberhagen’s Dracula would become fairly popular and would spawn a series of books featuring the title character.  The second book even features Dracula facing off with Sherlock Holmes.  So, needless to say, I thought this sounded very interesting so I read it.

(Via Robert Adragna)

This story is actually very interesting. Like I said, the conceit is similar to The Frankenstein Papers. The events in Bram Stoker’s novel are told from the perspective of Dracula himself. Saberhagen’s Dracula is much more refined than Stoker’s. He paints the group of vampire hunters in Stoker’s tale as a group of misguided bufoons. Especially Van Helsing who comes off as a bully or a thug. Many of Van Helsing’s actions in the original novel are called into question by Saberhagen’s Count, especially his decision not to tell anyone about Dracula being a vampire until it was too late. It was actually very entertaining reading passages of the book I had trouble following in Stoker’s novel told in a more clearly defined way in Saberhagen’s book. It made my understanding of the original more complete. Even more so than the Cliff’s Notes I purchased (Yes, I purchased the Cliff Notes for Dracula).

So, I can recommend this book.  I don’t even think you need to read the original Stoker novel because this just goes over the same territory and does it more clearly. Reading it may help for you to get the experience of seeing the events from Dracula’s eyes as opposed to the original novel, but I just don’t hate you enough to tell you to read Stoker’s novel.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.