Best of 2010
Best Smackdown: No contest. The honor goes to George Takei’s video response to Clint McCance. “Mister McCance, you are a douchebag.”
Best Book Read: I’m gonna go with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms [B&N | Mysterious Galaxy | Amazon] by N. K. Jemisin. I commented briefly on this one here.
Best Family Trip: Windycon. This was my first convention with my wife and kids, and it was great. We don’t get much vacation time, so it was wonderful just spending a few days together. They all enjoyed the con, but I think my favorite part was Friday night before everyone else arrived, just goofing around in the pool together.
Best Random Artwork: Anime Snoopy vs. Ninja Cats, by socchan.
Best Discovery: Doctor Who. (David Tennant in particular.) In my 36 years on this Earth, people have introduced me to Monty Python, Red Dwarf, and so much more … so why didn’t anyone tell me about the Doctor? I blame ALL OF YOU! Fortunately, we have borrowed several seasons worth of DVDs, and are remedying this oversight as quickly as possible.
Best Convention: World Fantasy Con. Four whole days, and so many wonderful people to meet and catch up with.
Best Realization in Sanchin-Ryu: Holy crap! I don’t know anything!!! (Thank you Master Faught for this lesson.)
Best Moment with my Son (Age 5): Having dinner with friends, and watching him play with their five-year-old for hours without any problems or conflicts. It eased one of my biggest fears following his ASD diagnosis earlier this year.
Best Moment with my Daughter (Age 10): Seeing her in deliberately mismatched socks, two T-shirts (one tied with scrunchies), & a thin braid of hair clipped back over one year, and realizing she’s exploring how to express herself and who she wants to be. And that who she’s becoming is pretty darn cool.
Best Writing Moment (Business): Getting the offer from DAW for the Magic ex Libris series. Book deals are always nice, but this one represents a significant step up in my career. Plus it’s a series I’m really excited about!
Best Writing Moment (Creative): Figuring out how to end The Snow Queen’s Shadow [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]. Without spoiling things, it felt right. It felt honest. And I’m pretty damn proud.
Best LEGO: Transforming Optimus Prime.
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Feel free to add your own!
zollmaniac
December 21, 2010 @ 9:58 am
I think Best LEGO should have gone to the monster chess board thing. That was amazing.
Also, Master Faught is actually his name? That’s classic… is it pronounced Fought or is it not quite as awesome as I see it in my head?
Jim C. Hines
December 21, 2010 @ 10:02 am
I don’t know the exact spelling, but the pronounciation is indeed as awesome and appropriate as you imagine.
I had forgotten about the chess board. Hm … I’m probably going to still stick with this one though, because it manages to hit both my love of LEGO and my love of Transformers, so it’s a double-win for me personally. But the robot chess set was impressively awesome.
zollmaniac
December 21, 2010 @ 10:24 am
And then there was also the lego sniper rifle that actually fires lego bullets!
So many awesome lego things.
Also, Best Named Martial Arts Instructor: Master Faught
That’s my addition, but I think he probably wins that every year.
Dwagginz
December 21, 2010 @ 10:37 am
Best Discovery in 2010 for me: Jim C. Hines
I’m not sucking up or anything, but I fully discovered your books this year and, by extension, yourself, and it’s just been great. I’ve loved the Princess books, I loved Goblin Quest, what you did with Mark from SFFWorld was just above and beyond the call of duty and your blogs have been a pleasure to read and whilst they may not always directly affect me as such (Due to US/UK differences and so forth), they’ve helped open my eyes.
Wow, that made me sound a little sad.
Jann M.
December 21, 2010 @ 10:46 am
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was my favorite read this year too – until I read her second book The Broken Kingdoms, which I liked even more. Check it out if you haven’t already. Also glad you finally experienced Doctor Who. The universe has righted itself at last. Excellent list with personal and unique categories. And yes, George Takei totally rocks it!
Jim C. Hines
December 21, 2010 @ 11:00 am
Book 2 is on my wish list. I’m not buying anything for myself until after the holidays, but I’m very much looking forward to it!
Jim C. Hines
December 21, 2010 @ 11:03 am
Wow. Thank you. That’s very much appreciated.
And thank you for hanging out and chatting. The best part of blogging, for me, is getting to talk to and interact with so many cool people.
Warm fuzzies for everyone!!!
Dwagginz
December 21, 2010 @ 11:17 am
No, Jim. Thank you for bringing us Snow, Talia, Danielle, Jig and Smudge. Here’s to hoping they bring all of us many more hours of fun, and that more and more people discover them and enjoy their stories.