The SFF Year in Review

A few impressionistic notes on some of the big events in the sci-fi and fantasy scene this past year, before we shamble into 2014:

In 2013, Peter Jackson continued to squeeze the last drops of life out of the Tolkien literary estate. We hope he will not attempt a film adaptation of The Silmarillion. Ana Mardoll continued the week-by-week takedown of Voyage of the Dawn Treader that she began late last year. Worldcon trended white, male, and reactionary. Charles Stross started his new Merchant Princes trilogy (he's halfway done now). Charlaine Harris killed off Sookie Stackhouse (more or less), angering her fans far more than her admission that she'd been phoning it in since volume 8. Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Saga comic book retained its awesomeness. Neil Gaiman published about fifty books and the first issue of a new Sandman mini-series. Apparently a Sandman movie adaptation is in the works, which will probably star Benedict Cummerbatch in the title role; the DVD will then feature a 10-minute makeout session between Cummerbatch and Gaiman. The long-awaited film version of Ender's Game tanked at the box office, as sci-fi fans learned it was by Orson Scott Card, who is a wanker. The latest Star Trek movie demonstrated about as much respect for the franchise as Card does for gay marriage. (Rob Bricken's fantastic review of the film is full of spoilers, but the movie was pretty much spoiled to begin with.) An entertaining new book about Dungeons & Dragons revealed A) that Gary Gygax had a touch of logomania, and B) that he and the rest of the execs at TSR went even crazier when the money started rolling in. Doctor Who celebrated his fiftieth anniversary by turning into Malcolm from The Thick of It (warning: link NSFW).There may have been some interesting games produced this year, but everyone was too busy playing Candy Crush.