Tag Archives: Top 10

Top Tens – Comics: Top 10 Comics (Revised 2025)

Posted on by

The famously iconic cover of Superman’s very first appearance in Action Comics

 

Exactly what it says on the tin – my Top 10 Comics, including webcomics (as three of my top ten entries, indeed three of the top five).

You don’t need me to explain what comics are, but I might need to explain some things.

First, comics are my guilty reading pleasure I have retained from childhood, much like animation in TV or film. And much like animation, whatever the comic, I’ll usually enjoy checking it or its characters out.

Second, perhaps surprisingly after the first, I don’t read that many comics, let alone actively follow them. For most comics, I don’t go beyond checking them or their characters out in brief overview or review to reading them in depth. Usually, my interest is satisfied by the idea of a comic – or ideas in a comic – rather than the comic itself.

In particular, I don’t follow or read any comics from the ruling duopoly of DC and Marvel, with the exception of the former’s, ah, former label of Vertigo, although I have an enduring interest in and familiarity with many of their characters – but more in their film or television adaptations (or in their art and cosplay) than their original comics.

Anyway, these are my Top 10 Comics.

 

 

*

(10) CHARLES SOULE & SCOTT SYNDER –

UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (Image 2019 – PRESENT)

 

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early…what the hell is that?!

 

Okay – this is a bit of a cheat as my wildcard tenth place entry, as I typically reserve it for best of the present or previous year but it’s still ongoing so….look, I make my own rules and break them anyway, okay?

Undiscovered Country starts from what might seem to be a familiar premise but one that becomes increasingly audacious…and beautifully weird. The titular Undiscovered Country is the United States or or what has become of it after it literally walled itself off from the rest of the world for thirty years (the Sealing) – land of the free and home of the brave become literal land of the lost. And by walling, I mean not just the massive physical walls but the ‘Air Wall’ of experimental force shield technology. Of course, there’s more than a few echoes of contemporary political events – and even more so in 2020 for the premise of its plot, a global pandemic that requires a team seeking a cure to breach its borders and venture into this strange and deadly ‘undiscovered’ country.

And that’s where things go “from prescient to Beyond Thunderdome: giant land sharks, tribal lunacy, jingoistic madmen galore…Forget the Land of the Free. This was Mad Max by way of the bastard son of Roald Dahl and Hunter S. Thompson. If they let the baby smoke crack a lot”. And then there’s the fact – evidenced by those mutated land sharks and jingoistic madmen – that as an effect of that force shield, much more time has seemingly passed in the lost United States than should actually be possible…

 

RATING:

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

*

Cover art for The Wicked + The Divine issue 17 (December 2015)

 

 

(9) KIERON GILLEN –

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE (Image 2014 – 2019)

 

“You are of the Pantheon. You will be loved. You will be hated. You will be brilliant. Within two years, you will be dead.”

The Wicked + The Divine features the Pantheon, a shifting rotation of gods in the Recurrence – when twelve gods (and goddesses) return (or incarnate) as young people for a bright, shining two years before burning out, as they have every ninety years for millennia. Except, you know, God, because that would just be boring. We’re talking beautiful, sexy, pop-star pagan gods and goddesses here, although they change with each Recurrence – or not, since some gods or goddesses seem to recur more than others. Or something like that because the rules are not entirely clear and keep changing.

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

*

 

(8) NICK SPENCER –

MORNING GLORIES (Image Comics 2010 – ?!)

 

“What did you see when your eyes were opened?”

Well, for one thing, I saw Morning Glories, an ongoing series from Image Comics that had me enraptured from the first issue I read. In the tagline of its writer Nick Spencer, it’s Runaways meets Lost (without the ending of the latter, or indeed any ending at present).

In my eyes, it’s as if the Illuminati had a high school – or perhaps more aptly, since it is referenced by name, as if Grant Morrison’s Invisibles had a high school. Or if Night Vale WAS a high school, given that it has one. Indeed, Nick Spencer shows a positively Morrisonesque flair for twists and turns of storyline, at times even coming close to Morrison’s unrivalled hand at those fabulous comics one-liners or that juxtaposition of word and image.

The Morning Glories (or just Glories) is the nickname for the protagonist group of six new students, selected for the prestigious Morning Glory Academy – selected, that is, for a very particular and peculiar set of selection criteria. Which may or may not explain that they all seem to manifest mysterious abilities or future selves, and that they all seem to have dark or strange pasts (including – perhaps – the occasional homicide).

It doesn’t explain why the location of the school is kept mysterious by drugging each new student before arrival – or why their parents don’t even seem to remember their very existence when they call them from the school (with one notable exception, which necessitates the most unfortunate consequences). It certainly doesn’t explain the “mysterious and shadowy purpose of this dizzying boarding school of horrors”, which remains mysterious and shadowy except only that it seems to be the tip of a global conspiracy – or conspiracies.

Not to mention the other paranormal phenomena or time travel within and without its walls. (In one of my favorite Morrisonesque one-liners from the series, a student enquires as to the trippy design of a time machine – “Who built it?” “You did” is the reply).

Nor does it explain the sadistic faculty staff, led by the unseen headmaster behind the scenes – who don’t hesitate to resort to progressive mind control techniques, extreme physical discipline and the occasional sacrifice.

After all, it’s “for a better future” and we all have to make sacrifices. Literally.

 

RATING: 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

*

*

2000 AD cover of Canon Fodder

 

 

(7) MARK MILLAR –

CANON FODDER (2000 AD 1993)

 

“Let us prey!”

 

The Apocalypse according to Mark.

Mark Millar, that is.

It is intriguing how often Millar gets apocalyptic in his comics, literally or figuratively – and how often Millar gets apocalyptic in the literal sense of the Book of Apocalypse.

I have two favorite particular subgenres of fantasy. The first and narrowest is what might be termed apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic fantasy, particularly if based on the actual Book of Apocalypse. The second is posthumous fantasy – not in the sense of being published posthumously but set posthumously or fantasy set in the afterlife.

And I’ve been a fan of Mark Millar ever since his surreal and characteristically irreverent fantasy comic Canon Fodder in 2000 AD, one that was apocalyptic in a literal sense and one of the few fantasy works to combine both subgenres. Well, apart from the original Book of Apocalypse.

It’s the first comic written by him that I read and remains my favorite, albeit one that Millar himself may not remember so fondly as 2000 AD featured a sequel written by another writer and there was a dispute about ownership of the character for further development of the series. Even so, I still like the sequel – not equal to the first written by Millar but the substitute writer did a decent job.

But in a sense this entry bookmarks a place in my top ten for Millar, as I could readily compile my Top 10 Mark Millar Comics, with one Millar series after another. He has consistently written his own independent creator-owned comics under his unified label Millarworld, notably for Image Comics. It helps that his comics have a healthy rate of adaptation to film or television. The former include titles such as Kickass and Kingsman. The latter is particularly so after his Millarworld label was purchased by Netflix to adapt his comics for television, with my favorite so far as the animated adaptation of Supercrooks.

Anyway, my featured quote is the catchphrase of the titular Canon Fodder, presumably an alias, gun-toting cleric and last surviving member of the Priest Patrol, a bizarre four-man team conflation between the Church and the police. Now that’s religion! The other three members were Deacon Blue, Father O’Blivion and Cardinal Syn.

The dead are resurrected to join the living in an apparently overcrowded post-Judgement Day (and partly post-apocalyptic) Earth but one in which God has conspicuously failed to return. That sets the plot in motion – as Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty kill themselves in a suicide pact to seek vengeance against God in Heaven, while Watson engages Fodder and a Hannibal Lecter-like Mycroft Holmes to stop them. But there are much bigger things afoot in heaven and earth…

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

One of my favorite scenes from this or any other comic. Also captures how I often feel at work – or in life

 

 

(6) GRANT MORRISON –

ZENITH (2000 AD 1987-1992)

 

“I ravaged…I destroyed this world. Three billion people dead. Boo hoo. Made a desert of the world. Thank you. Silence then. At last. And ssssolitude. Then the lloigor came. They offered me a place in their ranks. A test of faith was required. Rrrrrr. So I tore, that is to say, I rrrripped ripped out my own eyes. My own eyes. And for the first time, I saw. Thank you. Now. Do you really believe I will let you stop me?”

Best villainous monologue ever.

Opinion is mixed about Morrison. In the words of TV Tropes, some people love him, while others “believe he’s just some wacky guy…whose constant forays into This is Your Premise on Drugs ends up dominating his books”. Although come on, be honest – even the latter sounds more awesome than many other things you read. Granted, Morrison can be self-indulgent and wildly esoteric, but then what else would you expect from a practicing chaos magician? (Seriously). What he never fails to be, even when his stories don’t quite work – or work all too well as sheer mind screws – is interesting and intriguing.

Like the other writers of the British invasion of American comics, Morrison won his reputation revamping comics characters (starting with DC Comics’ obscure Animal Man for its Vertigo imprint), but perhaps distinguished himself even more so than the other writers – to the point he has been styled as the ‘revamp guy’ and to the point he can make any comics character AWESOME.

However, my favorite Morrison work remains his first substantial work for 2000 AD, which brought him to the attention of DC Comics and other American publishers – Zenith. Perhaps that’s because of the perfect combination of his writing with the art of Steve Yeowell – or perhaps because his more flamboyant and mind screwy elements remain subdued in its elegant story and classic deconstruction of superheroes.

The starting premise of Zenith is similar to that of Captain America – the Second World War and a serum that creates superhuman powers. Unfortunately, it’s the Nazis that have the serum to create their Nazi superman, Masterman. Even worse, the Nazis obtained the serum from the lloigor, who are nothing other than the extradimensional beings of the Cthulhu Mythos, down to their very names – although Morrison adapted Yog Soggoth to Iok Sotot and made him even more terrifying. The serum is simply their means to create superhuman bodies capable of being occupied by the lloigor as they come into this world. True to their Lovecraftian roots, the lloigor are beings beyond time and space, beings of infinite power and infinite cruelty – well, either that or the most dangerous lava lamp in history…?

Fortunately, German defectors help the British to replicate the serum for the British superhero, Maximan. That’s effectively where the comic starts – and it illustrates Morrison’s ability to juxtapose words and visual images perfectly, as well as to cut from one scene to another. The opening scene is in the style of a kitsch British wartime newsreel, proudly displaying the feats of Maximan defeating German forces and declaring “it could all be over by Christmas”.

Cut to Berlin, 21 December 1944 – the Nazi Masterman stands gloating over the broken and fallen Maximan. “Does it hurt? I hope so. Even if I let you live, you’ll never use your legs again, you know that?” All Maximan can do in reply is murmur his hopeless prayer – Psalm 23 – and Masterman gloats further. “Save your breath. No one is listening. There’s no one up there”

Except…there is, although not quite in the sense that either of them had in mind, as we cut to an American plane, about to drop “the big one” – the atomic bomb – except in this history on Berlin. And we cut back to Masterman and Maximan as they are enveloped in light.

The story continues with a new generation of British superheroes created by the serum – but which have apparently lost their powers, been killed or disappeared, except for Zenith, a second generation superhero born of two superhuman parents, both killed by the American ‘Shadowmen’ agents. However, the Cult of the Black Sun – the secret society behind the Nazis – have other plans for Zenith, as they revive the Masterman twin for a new and more powerful lloigor. From this relatively straightforward contest, the story becomes increasingly complex and dark – more superhumans are introduced due to secret illegal testing of the serum and still more to a cosmic battle across parallel worlds as the lloigor seek the ‘alignment’ that will deliver the multiverse to them, concluding with the truly apocalyptic climax as the lloigor are finally unveiled for what they truly were, are and will be.

It would be amiss of me to conclude without reference to my favorite characteristic of Morrison – his ability to write perfect comic one-liners and dialogue. An example is when the organization secretly testing superhumans sent a killer robot after Zenith – Zenith destroys it, but not before it sends its footage back to the organization. One of them muses about Zenith – “He has his mother’s eyes”. The other replies “Really? I thought we had his mother’s eyes”. And indeed they do – the actual eyes in a jar behind them in their laboratory.

And we’ve all mocked villain monologues – but Morrison shows how it is done, to chilling effect (with verbal tics of insanity).

 

RATING: 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Cover of Empowered volume 1 by creator – artist and writer – Adam Warren

*

(5) ADAM WARREN –

EMPOWERED (Dark Horse 2007 – present)

 

“A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn’t)”

 

The titular heroine and her series, originated from commissioned ‘bondage’ sketches of a comics superheroine ‘damsel-in-distress’, which then became the basis for the episodic shorts for the commencement of the series, illustrated in Warren’s characteristic ‘manga’ influenced style. The series started (and still continues to some extent) as a playful deconstruction of superhero comics tropes, particularly those involving female superheroes, along with (in the words of TV Tropes) “healthy doses of bondage, fanservice and comedy”.

Indeed, it’s a fantasy kitchen sink of comics tropes and more – alien doomsday technology, clans of ninjas in New Jersey, grandiloquent interdimensional hell-beings (trapped in coffee table ornaments), deals with the devil, psi powers, undead superheroes (or the ‘superdead’) and catgirls (nyaan!)

Empowered herself is a “plucky D-list superheroine”, who is precariously dependent and constantly betrayed by the fragile, fickle source of her superpowers – her skin-tight ‘hypermembrane’ suit. As a consequence, Empowered spends most of her time with her suit in tatters or various states of undress, bound and gagged by supervillains or even common criminals, a joke to her superhero peers and supervillains alike (albeit something of status symbol as arm candy to the latter).

As the series has progressed however, it has developed deeper, darker and longer story arcs – and Empowered has emerged as an increasingly formidable superheroine, relying on her wits and strength of character to overcome the flaws of her suit. On the other hand, her superhero colleagues or ‘Capes’ have become increasingly darker – beware the Superman! Remember San Antonio!

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

*

Halfling ranger Belkar Bitterleaf in perhaps his most iconic scene (and one of my favorite scenes) from episode 439 Seeing Orange

*

*

(4) RICH BURLEW –

ORDER OF THE STICK (WEBCOMIC 2003 – present)

 

“Roy Greenhilt: The rogue is ambitious and greedy, the ranger is a complete psychopath, the wizard is trigger-happy and never stops talking, and the bard is as dumb as a box of moldy carrots!

Durkon Thundershield: As I recall, ye called me “surly and unpleasant” shortly after ye met me. […] Maybe all these folks need is a good strong leader like ye ta whip ’em inta shape.”

 

And that pretty much sums up The Order of the Stick webcomic and the titular protagonist adventuring group.

A stick figure fantasy webcomic – although ‘stick figure’ belies the versatility of the art style, particularly in later comics – primarily based on Dungeons and Dragons, specifically the so-called 3.5 edition of the game (which has moved on to other editions since). Its origin as a gag-a-day strip, parodying the idiosyncrasies of the game and its rules in a classic dungeon crawl, belied its depth as it has evolved into a sweeping fantasy epic, retaining its humor but with cosmic stakes as well as plot twists and turns that make The Lord of the Rings look like, well, The Hobbit. Speaking of hobbits, or more precisely the game’s namesake halflings, much of the comic’s humor originates in its halfling character, who is indeed a chaotic stab-happy psychopath.

Beyond its humor and epic fantasy, it extends well beyond a parody of Dungeons and Dragons to deconstructing the fantasy genre itself and its narrative tropes. The characters, not unlike actual players in Dungeons and Dragons, are well aware that they are characters in a fantasy game universe, but also in a webcomic, and are extremely genre savvy to show for it – not just about the D&D rules and gameplay mechanics by which their world operates, but general storytelling tropes as well.

 

RATING: 

A-TIER (TOP-TIER)

*

(3) TOM PARKINSON-MORGAN –

KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS (webcomic / Image 2013 – present)

 

“The king of creation fell out of heaven, usurped by a seven headed beast. But the old king shall choose a new, and he will ignite the third conquest. He will be flanked by a white and a black flame, his coming will be followed by 108 burning stars. He will bear the terrible heat of the voice in his brow, the mark of his lordliness. He will face the beast – and he will annihilate it. He will wield the terrible blade of want, and the pillars of heaven will quake with his coming. And his name – his name will be – Kill Six Billion Demons.”

Kill Six Billion Demons by Tom Parkinson-Morgan (or Orbital Dropkick as he presently styles himself on social media) is a ‘New Weird’ fantasy webcomic, “stuffed with sumptuous insanity”. Or as I prefer to call it – psychedelic cosmic fantasy. Funnily enough, I see parallels between it and Garth Nix’s The Keys to the Kingdom, although it is a lot more, well, psychedelic and cosmic than the latter’s young adult fantasy.

God is dead and so are the gods, leaving only war in heaven as the most powerful beings vie to inherit the multiverse, although for now there is an uneasy truce between the seven beings – the Seven – that have emerged victorious to rule it between them in Throne, the heart of the multiverse. But before them was the legendary Conquering King, first to rule over Throne, but who abandoned it and disappeared with the Key of Kings, which holds the power to overthrow the Seven and conquer the multiverse itself. Which he returns from death itself (no big consequence to such beings) to give to Allison Ruth, a simple barrista from Earth, who finds herself plucked to the very heart of multiverse as its new champion and with a quest evoked by her new name – Kill Six Billion Demons.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

(2) TRUDY COOPER & DOUG BAYNE –

OGLAF (Webcomic 2008 – present)

 

A weekly webcomic every Sunday by Australian creators.

A fantasy comic and comic fantasy – the latter in that it deconstructs, parodies or subverts virtually every fantasy trope, many drawn from the creators’ obvious familiarity with Dungeons and Dragons. In the words of Comics Alliance – “Oglaf is a sex comedy webcomic set in a world created by shoving every existing fantasy world into a blender and setting it on puree. There’s no overall plot, but many recurring characters and storylines, all in service to some of the funniest smut on the web”.

Yes – it is funny. And yes – oh my goddess – it is smutty. As per its origin in its opening disclaimer – “This comic started as an attempt to make p0rnography. It degenerated into sex comedy pretty much immediately”. Definitely not-safe-for-work (NSFW). Indeed, it’s an exceptional Oglaf that isn’t smutty. Of course, a large part of the smut is also part of the comic fantasy, playing with those fantasy tropes or the sexuality, repressed or otherwise beneath their surface. So yes – it’s mostly a fantasy sex comedy, well – ah – serviced by Cooper’s art. One should note that it is extremely diverse in its sexuality and indeed its multi-racial or polysexual characters – strikingly so for fantasy, which despite its premise is all too often traditional in its mores.

It’s mostly an episodic gag a week, although there are recurring characters. There also are (or at least were) occasional longer story arcs involving them. Ironically, the title character, although technically recurring (in a couple or so episodes), is essentially a gag character for the title – a shepherd boy with a very unusual (and NSFW) magical talent which somehow annoints him as the chosen one (although not chosen for much beyond the title). The closest thing the comic had to a protagonist was Ivan, a literal sorcerer’s apprentice (of sorts) to the sadistic Mistress. Other recurring characters occasionally rise to the fore as semi-protagonists – kinky female vampire Navaan, humorless female mercenary Greir and my favorite, Kronar, an obvious parody of Conan from a tribe of male barbarians so manly they don’t contaminate themselves with women and show each other their honor (and yes – that is a euphemism).

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER – OR IS THAT MISTRESS TIER)

 

(1) JUDGE DREDD (2000 AD 1977 – present)

 

“I am the Law!”

 

You knew this was coming – I’ve said it before so I’ll just say it again!

My first and true love in comics is not one of the ruling duopoly of comics, DC and Marvel Comics, nor strictly speaking a superhero comic (although its main character is arguably as much of a ‘superhero’ as Batman), nor even an American comic (although it is set there, albeit drastically transformed in the twenty-second century).

It is Judge Dredd, the most iconic character from the British weekly SF anthology comic, 2000 AD, ongoing since it was launched in 1977 – although ironically for 2000 AD’s longest-running and flagship character from its second issue, as the opening Dredd story was not ready for the first issue. Time has passed in the Dredd strip essentially the same as in real time ever since, so a year passes in the comic for each year in real life (except of course 122 years later) – the first Dredd story in 1977 was set in 2099 and the present stories in 2024 are set in 2146 (an interesting feature as distinct from many American comic franchises).

Unfortunately, American audiences remain somewhat unfamiliar with (or unresponsive to) Judge Dredd, despite his American setting (albeit futuristic) and despite that he is effectively a quintessential American hero in the same vein as Batman – relying on superior discipline, training, experience, equipment and resources, except as a governmental lawman rather than a vigilante billionaire. They even both effectively remain masked in their public identities, as Dredd never removes his helmet. This is despite his iconic status, particularly in Britain, and despite American audiences being familiar with many of the alumni of 2000 AD, as virtually every British writer (and artist) of note working in American comics started there (and indeed often in the Judge Dredd storyline itself) – Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Mark Millar and so on.

Even more unfortunately, the most substantial introduction of American audiences to Judge Dredd was the 1995 film, although fortunately that particular horror is fading with time. This Hollywood travesty was particularly inexcusable, because the essence of Judge Dredd is ultimately very simple – Judge Dredd is a futuristic Dirty Harry in a dystopian (and post-apocalyptic) SF satire. How hard is that, Hollywood?! On second thoughts, this simple formula is probably too much for Hollywood to handle – when they couldn’t even have Dredd keep his helmet on throughout the film.

The 2012 film was much more effective in capturing the elements of the original comic (not least in keeping Dredd’s helmet on throughout the film), but not as effective in capturing an audience. In its own way, this is as unfortunate as the first film, particularly at a time when comic book movies are in such vogue (and dystopian or post-apocalyptic movies have always been popular) – because if ever a comic deserved its own cinematic or screen adaptation, it’s Dredd, especially when you consider the dreck (or drokk – Judge Dredd slang in-joke alert) that does get adaptations. Perhaps a television adaptation would have been better, as it suits the more episodic nature as well as longer arcs of the storyline.

And then there’s my ongoing Mega-City Law features here devoted to Judge Dredd, including my ten reasons why Judge Dredd is the galaxy’s greatest comic – and why it deserves its own cinematic or screen universe:

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

*

 

COMICS: TOP 10 (TIER LIST)

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

(1) JUDGE DREDD (2000 AD)

(2) OGLAF

(3) KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS

 

In the beginning was the Law and the Law was with Dredd and the Law was Dredd – “I am the Law!”

 

If Judge Dredd is my Old Testament of comics, Oglaf and Kill Six Billion Demons are my New Testament (with Kill Billion Demons as my sumptuously psychedelic Book of Apocalypse).

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

(4) ORDER OF THE STICK

(5) ADAM WARREN – EMPOWERED

(6) GRANT MORRISON – ZENITH

(7) MARK MILLAR – CANON FODDER

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(8) NICK SPENCER – MORNING GLORIES

(9) KIERON GILLEN – THE WICKED + THE DIVINE

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

(10) CHARLES SOULE & SCOTT SNYDER – UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

Top Tens – Comics: Top 10 Comics (Revised Entry) (9) Kieron Gillen – The Wicked + The Divine

Posted on by

Cover art for The Wicked + The Divine issue 17 (December 2015)

 

 

(9) KIERON GILLEN –

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE (Image 2014 – 2019)

 

“You are of the Pantheon. You will be loved. You will be hated. You will be brilliant. Within two years, you will be dead.”

The Wicked + The Divine features the Pantheon, a shifting rotation of gods in the Recurrence – when twelve gods (and goddesses) return (or incarnate) as young people for a bright, shining two years before burning out, as they have every ninety years for millennia. Except, you know, God, because that would just be boring. We’re talking beautiful, sexy, pop-star pagan gods and goddesses here, although they change with each Recurrence – or not, since some gods or goddesses seem to recur more than others. Or something like that because the rules are not entirely clear and keep changing.

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythologies (Special Mention: Apocalyptic Rankings – Complete Rankings)

Posted on by

William Blake, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, 1805-1810, the second painting with that title (of the same subject but from a different perspective from that in the more famous first painting, which featured in the book and film of Red Dragon best known for Hannibal Lecter), second of a series of four Great Red Dragon paintings, and part of a series of paintings illustrating the Book of Apocalypse

 

 

TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES

(SPECIAL MENTION: APOCALYPTIC RANKINGS – COMPLETE RANKINGS)

How do my mythology special mentions rack up against my top ten mythologies when ranking them for their apocalypses?

Not too differently as it turns out. The top ten mythologies remain pretty intact ranked by apocalypse, scoring my top seven places ranked by apocalypse. Three mythology special mentions round out the top ten apocalyptic rankings, with two more scoring higher than my least apocalyptic top ten mythologies.

 

SCORE:

3 SPECIAL MENTIONS – TOP TEN APOCALYPTIC RANKINGS

(5 SPECIAL MENTIONS – EQUAL TO OR GREATER THAN TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES)

 

Anyway, here’s the complete apocalyptic rankings for my top ten mythologies and special mention entries.

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

(1) BIBLICAL – APOCALYPSE

 

Same top spot

 

(2) NORSE – RAGNAROK & GOTTERDAMERUNG

 

Up one place from third place in general rankings

 

(3) NATIVE AMERICAN (LAKOTA)  – GHOST DANCE

 

Up six places (!) from ninth place in general rankings

 

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

(4) HINDU – KALI YUGA

 

Up three places from seventh place in general rankings

 

(5) MESO-AMERICAN (AZTEC) – FIFTH WORLD

 

Up three places from eighth place in general rankings

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(6) MIDDLE EASTERN (BABYLO-SUMERIAN)

 

Same sixth place as in general rankings

 

(7) CELTIC (ARTHURIAN)

 

Down three places from fourth place in general rankings

 

So far, so good – seven of my top ten mythologies reign supreme for apocalypses, although in different order to my general rankings. Biblical mythology is still in top spot with the trope namer. Norse mythology bumps up one place with Raganrok or Gotterdammerung.

 

Funnily enough, Middle Eastern Mythology stays in the same sixth place it has in general rankings, despite the lack of a distinctive apocalypse. Mystery Babylon will do that for you. Arthurian legend drops down a few places – the Battle of Camlann is a decent apocalypse, but it just doesn’t hold up against the other top ten entres. The big shake-ups from general rankings – and I mean up, as they rise from their general rankings – are Native American mythology with the Ghost Dance, Hindu mythology with the Kali Yuga, and Aztec mythology with the Fifth World.

 

But now, three special mention entries rank in the top ten apocalyptic rankings.

 

(8) ZEN

 

After enlightenment comes the apocalypse!

Yes, I’m as surprised as you are that Zen not only has its apocalyptic elements but that it would outrank all other special mentions and rival my top ten mythologies in apocalyptic rankings.

Well, perhaps not so much Zen itself – although you could argue that its goal of enlightenment is something of a personal apocalypse, in which the way you see yourself and the world is destroyed and remade (or deconstructed and reconstructed) – but Buddhism in general.

There’s the future Buddha Maitreya, a messianic figure to herald a new age in last days of the old world – as well as the Three Ages of Buddha and the Sermon of the Seven Suns.

 

(9) ATLANTIS & BERMUDA TRIANGLE

 

Again, I’m surprised that Atlantis should score high for apocalyptic rankings, but you have to admit that Atlantis has one of the most apocalyptic scenarios of total destruction in what might be described (and capitalized) as the Deluge.

The Deluge is like the Flood in Biblical (and other) mythology, both deserving of special notice among apocalypses in mythology. Of course, I don’t think the Flood is typically considered in the same vein as the various apocalypses in the Bible, let alone the Book of Apocalypse, but I think it should be considered in much the same effect, albeit not as the same eschatological end times.

The Atlantean Deluge on the other hand does present as the apocalyptic end of Atlantis – and as distinct from the Biblical Flood, the wrath of the gods is sudden and without any saving ark, although there may have been lucky escapes (and escapees). The Deluge has been a consistent model for sudden destruction or nemesis after hubris ever since – most notably, at least for me, the destruction of Numenor as depicted by Tolkien in his Lord of the Rings mythos.

Hence, I place it in my top ten apocalyptic rankings. Atlantis even has post-apocalyptic lore, if you include it as a recurring fantasy of a submarine kingdom with aquatic inhabitants.

Bonus points for the Bermuda Triangle, which often seems like an apocalypse in, well, a triangle. There’re at least some fictional scenarios that feature it in an apocalyptic or semi-apocalyptic fashion – perhaps most famously in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, albeit it heralded things to come by disgorging its disappearances.

 

(10) UFO

 

I’m even more surprised to see UFOs score high for apocalyptic rankings, let alone the top ten. However, not only are there actual UFO religions, but some of them have end-time scenarios. I mean it’s cargo cult or rapture kind of stuff but still. For that matter, I’m prepared to include technological singularity – dubbed the Rapture for nerds – in this entry but in that case we’re the UFOs. Well, us – or our transhuman descendants or artificial intelligence successors.

And of course, there’s all the UFO end-time scenarios of science fiction, under the broad rubric of alien invasion.

 

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

By definition, my wild-tier rankings are where it’s apocalypses gone wild – not so much any actual apocalypses but more apocalyptic elements or features.

 

(11) TAROT

 

It’s the apocalypse in a deck of cards!

Overlapping with its large number of chthonic or underworld cards, there are its cards of apocalypse or apocalyptic figures, such as the penultimate card of Judgement – followed by the ultimate card of the World. Indeed, the chthonic cards are pretty much the same cards as the apocalyptic cards.

One can argue that the Fool’s mythic journey through the cards is as much an apocalypse as it is a descent into and return from the underworld – the Fool of the Tarot as St John of Patmos, perhaps.

 

(12) CONSPIRACY THEORIES

 

Quite a few conspiracy theories have apocalyptic elements, even involving the conspirators as potentially unleashing apocalyptic forces. Sometimes the conspiracy theory is a conspiracy for apocalypse…

Do you really think the Illuminati won’t stop at a little apocalypse to get what they want?!  Of course not. Indeed, there’s even a term for it, which I know thanks to the Illuminatus Trilogy – immanentize the Eschaton.

 

(13) CLASSICAL

 

(14) EGYPTIAN

 

(15) AFRO-AMERICAN (VOODOO)

 

While these three entries from my top ten mythologies arguably have apocalyptic elements, they lack definitive apocalypses and hence rank below my top ten apocalyptic rankings.

 

(16) MAGIC

 

Magic comes next among the special mentions in my wild-tier rankings, because the apocalypse tends to be magic.

Magic doesn’t so much have its own apocalypse as it is a feature of apocalypses in general. That is – apocalypses are magic, have magic, or are source of magic. Sometimes the apocalypse is a matter of the magic going away – but perhaps more usually coming back, with a bang!

 

(17) WITCHCRAFT

 

Much the same as magic – witchcraft has tended to be seen as a function of apocalypse or as its agents.

 

(18) DRAGONS

 

It’s fire-breathing, winged apocalypse!

Dragons are often depicted as apocalyptic beasts.

No, not the Beast of the Apocalypse. Well, yes, also the Beast of the Apocalypse as that sixy beast is dragon-like in depiction and in turn serves the actual Dragon of the Apocalypse – but literal monstrous beasts that bring the world’s doom or are a harbinger of the end times. “This is the kind of beast who gives the gods themselves nightmares, and in action it’s liable to be a veritable engine of destruction, trampling over mortals, gods, and anything else that gets in its way”.

Apart from the dragon-like Beast of the Apocalypse and the apocalyptic Great Red Dragon himself, there’s the Midgard Serpent and Nidhoggr, the latter the dragon that gnaws the roots of the World Tree.

 

(19) GIANTS

 

It’s a gigantic apocalypse!

Similar to dragons, giants were often depicted or seen as apocalyptic beings – as indeed they were in Norse mythology.

Although not quite up there with the Great Red Dragon or similar draconic beings in the Book of Apocalypse, the reference to Gog and Magog was interpreted as apocalyptic gigantic beings.

 

(20) GHOSTS

 

It’s a ghost apocalypse!

Ghosts or the dead are a recurring feature of mythic apocalypses, even in the Biblical Apocalypse with its resurrection and judgment of the dead. They play a larger role in Ragnarok with the army of the dead being arrayed against the gods – and of course in the Ghost Dance.

 

(21) VAMPIRES

 

“The world is a vampire, sent to drain”.

But seriously, vampires are essentially a subset of ghosts or the dead as a recurring feature of mythic apocalypses…only the hungrier – or thirstier – dead.

 

(22) LYCANTHROPES

 

The apocalypse as dog days, perhaps? Werewolves make it into my apocalyptic tier from the role of wolves in Ragnarok. Also, the use of the term werewolf for the last ditch scorched earth German resistance to the Allies in the apocalyptic last days of the Second World War, albeit more as propaganda than reality.

 

(23) LEGENDARY CREATURES

 

Unless you count the various apocalyptic figures of other mythologies – particularly those apocalyptic beasts in the Bible – as legendary creatures.

 

(24) PAGANISM

 

Yeah, contrary to its top spot for special mentions in general rankings, paganism ranks pretty low for apocalypses. The apocalyptic elements of paganism are those of the mythologies of its original forms, foremost among them Norse mythology.

 

(25) SHAMANISM

 

Shamanism arguably has apocalyptic elements but more in the original meaning of apocalypse as revelation, on the personal level of the shaman – a dark night of the soul amidst visions and voices (and often psychedelic drugs), some of them terrifying, which is ultimately redemptive or transformative.

 

(26) FAIRIES

 

An exception to the general rule that sees fairy folklore rank close to the Celtic mythology or Arthurian legend that it overlaps.

Yeah, there’s not really any fairy apocalypse. Well, except perhaps in fantasy fiction like Mark Chadbourn’s Age of Misrule series.

 

(27) CRYPTIDS

 

Yeah – there’s no cryptid apocalypse or apocalyptic elements. We’re getting to the bottom now but cryptids still seem vaguely more apocalyptic than the next entries.

 

(28) URBAN LEGENDS

 

Yeah – there’s not too many urban legends involving the apocalypse or any apocalyptic elements. Unless you see the whole Book of Apocalypse as just one big ancient urban legend.

 

(29) DISCORDIANISM

 

There’s few apocalyptic elements in Discordianism – unless you count the fictional version of Discordianism in the Illuminati Trilogy, although there they are fighting against the secret societies or conspiracies that are bent on bringing about the apocalypse – or immanentizing the Eschaton.

If you expand this entry to (other) parody religions, then the Church of the Sub-Genius definitely has its apocalypse and they can help you avoid it – or triple your money back!

 

(30) TANTRA

 

It’s a tantric apocalypse!

Or not, as I don’t know of any apocalyptic elements to tantra. Although it is fun to speculate about what a s€xual or tantric apocalypse would involve!

Top Tens – Comics: Top 10 Comics (Revised Entry) (7) Mark Millar – Canon Fodder

Posted on by

2000 AD cover of Canon Fodder

 

 

(7) MARK MILLAR –

CANON FODDER (2000 AD 1993)

 

“Let us prey!”

 

The Apocalypse according to Mark.

Mark Millar, that is.

It is intriguing how often Millar gets apocalyptic in his comics, literally or figuratively – and how often Millar gets apocalyptic in the literal sense of the Book of Apocalypse.

I have two favorite particular subgenres of fantasy. The first and narrowest is what might be termed apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic fantasy, particularly if based on the actual Book of Apocalypse. The second is posthumous fantasy – not in the sense of being published posthumously but set posthumously or fantasy set in the afterlife.

And I’ve been a fan of Mark Millar ever since his surreal and characteristically irreverent fantasy comic Canon Fodder in 2000 AD, one that was apocalyptic in a literal sense and one of the few fantasy works to combine both subgenres. Well, apart from the original Book of Apocalypse.

It’s the first comic written by him that I read and remains my favorite, albeit one that Millar himself may not remember so fondly as 2000 AD featured a sequel written by another writer and there was a dispute about ownership of the character for further development of the series. Even so, I still like the sequel – not equal to the first written by Millar but the substitute writer did a decent job.

But in a sense this entry bookmarks a place in my top ten for Millar, as I could readily compile my Top 10 Mark Millar Comics, with one Millar series after another. He has consistently written his own independent creator-owned comics under his unified label Millarworld, notably for Image Comics. It helps that his comics have a healthy rate of adaptation to film or television. The former include titles such as Kickass and Kingsman. The latter is particularly so after his Millarworld label was purchased by Netflix to adapt his comics for television, with my favorite so far as the animated adaptation of Supercrooks.

Anyway, my featured quote is the catchphrase of the titular Canon Fodder, presumably an alias, gun-toting cleric and last surviving member of the Priest Patrol, a bizarre four-man team conflation between the Church and the police. Now that’s religion! The other three members were Deacon Blue, Father O’Blivion and Cardinal Syn.

The dead are resurrected to join the living in an apparently overcrowded post-Judgement Day (and partly post-apocalyptic) Earth but one in which God has conspicuously failed to return. That sets the plot in motion – as Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty kill themselves in a suicide pact to seek vengeance against God in Heaven, while Watson engages Fodder and a Hannibal Lecter-like Mycroft Holmes to stop them. But there are much bigger things afoot in heaven and earth…

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – Fantasy & SF: Top 10 SF Books (Complete & Revised: 2025)

Posted on by

Theatrical release poster for the first Star Wars film in 1977 – replicating the common pose or leg cling trope of pulp fantasy or SF covers

 

“Science fiction is the improbable made possible, and fantasy is the impossible made probable.” – Rod Serling.

Counting down my Top 10 SF Books – running parallel to my Top 10 Fantasy Books, and for matter, my Top 10 Literature, in that this is my Top 10 SF Literature or my top 10 written works of science fiction  As I noted for my Top 10 Fantasy Books, comics tend to be fantasy or SF – at least the ones I like – but I have a separate Top 10 Comics list. Similarly, I like many fantasy or SF films or TV series, but they have their own top ten lists.

But what is science fiction? And what is it as opposed to fantasy – with which it has so many overlaps, not least in pop cultural niche (or “ghetto”)?

Just as magic is often seen as or argued to be the defining feature of fantasy, so too are science and technology for science fiction, only even more so. After all, it’s called science fiction – it’s in the very name of the genre!

And yes – I would argue that science or technology is the defining feature of science fiction even beyond magic is for fantasy. While not common, there are fantasy works that have low or no magic – it is harder to think of science fiction works without technology or at least science in their plot or premise.

Essentially, if one were to attempt as comprehensive a definition of science fiction as possible, that might be to propose it as the imaginative or speculative extrapolation of science, technology or society. In other words, the fiction of asking what if?

However, as I noted for fantasy, fictional genres can be notoriously difficult to define or difficult to distinguish from other fictional genres, with the two looming largest – and closest – to science fiction being fantasy and horror, with all three often being classed within the category of speculative fiction.

As I did for my Top 10 Fantasy Books, I will note where fantasy or horror loom large or close to the science fiction for my entries. Indeed, I will make one such note now – one of the quirks of my Top 10 SF Books is that it includes four entries for what might better be classified as posthumous fantasy or fantasy set in the afterlife, because they happen to be my favorite books by authors whom I otherwise like for their science fiction.

And just as the fantasy genre could be divided between high fantasy (as the core of the genre) and low fantasy, so too the science fiction genre can be divided up into hard SF (similarly as the core of the genre) and soft SF.

Hard SF tends to have its focus in the science part of science fiction and in turn relies on either established science or careful extrapolation from it. Its counterpart of soft SF does, well, less so – often being more fantastic in its plot or premise. TV Tropes has some fun with this with its Moh’s Scale of Science Fiction Hardness.

Again, these distinctions or subgenres within science fiction fascinate me as much as the distinctions between SF and other genres – and yes, SF sub-genres are worthy of their own top ten.

Anyway, these are my Top 10 SF Books.

 

Collage of the Orbit cover art for the three books

 

 

(10) M.R. CAREY –

PANDOMINION SERIES (2023-2025)

 

“The Pandominion: a political and trading alliance of a million worlds – except that they’re really just the one world, Earth, in many different realities.”

They don’t mess around either – when a scientist on one of those Earths, closely resembling our own, invents her own dimension-hopping technology and blunders into Pandominion space, or when the Pandominion itself blunders into a machine version of itself, threatening mutually assured multiverse destruction.

I love a good space opera – and the Pandominion goes above and beyond that, across Earths in infinite dimensions.

The series proper is two books, Infinity Gate and Echo of Worlds, with a third standalone novel in the same setting, Outlaw Planet published in 2025, hence my tenth place wildcard entry for best of 2025.

 

RATING:

X-TIER (WILD TIER) – BEST OF 2025

 

 

 

(9) CHARLES STROSS –

LAUNDRY FILES (2004-2023)

 

“I wish I was still an atheist. Believing I was born into a harsh, uncaring cosmos – in which my existence was a random roll of the dice and I was destined to die and rot and then be gone forever – was infinitely more comforting than the truth. Because the truth is that my God is coming back. When he arrives I’ll be waiting for him with a shotgun. And I’m keeping the last shell for myself.”

Great Cthulhu in the Cold War!

One of my favorite SF short stories is Stross’ A Colder War, which is something of a precursor to the Laundry series, albeit in an alternative universe. What would have happened if the Antarctic expedition in H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness” actually happened in our world? In short, nothing good – or a fate worse than global thermonuclear annihilation.

What ensues is a Cold War arms race, but with extra-dimensional entities instead of nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union has its ultimate doomsday ace – or rather joker – in the hole in the form of a particular entity based on captured Nazi research into a certain underwater city. The United States has its own contingency plan in the form of 300 megatons of nuclear weapons, and when that fails, a backup contingency plan or insanely desperate last resort. There are worse things than death in the Cthulhu Mythos…

His Laundry series ups the ante on his use of the Lovecraftian horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. Commencing with the first book (and still my favorite), The Atrocity Archives, extradimensional entities of evil serve as the backdrop of a secret history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, espionage and government bureaucracy – all combined in the British spy agency known as the Laundry. Magic is simply higher mathematics – which applied in certain circumstances can open gates to other dimensions. The protagonist, a computer expert known as Bob Howard, unintentionally did just that and found himself conscripted by the Laundry, Britain’s occult secret service. Unfortunately, incidents like it are becoming increasingly common with the increasing computational power and mathematical applications of the modern world (and of human minds) – indeed, the Laundry anticipates this increase (amongst other things, such as the position of our world in space) will inevitably align or open up our world to other dimensions (“when the stars are right” in the parlance of the Mythos) and has contingency plans for extradimensional invasion. Of course, the Laundry is not exactly optimistic about humanity’s prospects – its usual best-case scenario is for repopulation after an extinction event – but it plans to go down swinging…

 

FANTASY & HORROR

 

Yes – this is one of my SF entries that obviously overlaps with fantasy…and cosmic horror.

 

RATING: 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

*

*

 

 

(8) NEIL STEPHENSON –

SNOW CRASH (1992)

 

“Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfcker in the world… Hiro used to feel this way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this was liberating. He no longer has to worry about being the baddest motherfcker in the world. The position is taken.”

How can you not love a book whose hero protagonist is literally named Hiro Protagonist? As he replies to when it’s mocked as a “stupid name” – “but you’ll never forget it”.

And yes – my feature quotation might well apply to readers of Snow Crash. Until someone has read Snow Crash, they still think that they could read – or perhaps write – the coolest and most badass book in the world. But then you read it and know that position is taken.

You have Hiro Protagonist – “a sword-slinging hacker who teams up with an extreme skateboarder in a post-cyberpunk disincorporated USA to fight Snow Crash – a computer virus for the brain”.

And by disincorporated USA, I mean some of the most blackly comic worldbuilding in SF. A United States whose government has ceased to exist – apart from vestigial organizations like the FBI or “Fedland” which monitor their employees to a ridiculous extent including three-page emails regarding the proper use of toilet paper in an office environment. Other parts of the government have become been privatized to or out as corporations or entrepreneurs – the CIA merging with the Library of Congress as the for-profit CIC, or the Army and Navy as competing private security corporations (General Jim’s Defense System and Admiral Bob’s Global Security).

A United States whose currency has inflated past billion-dollar notes (which some of those aforementioned Fedland employees are tempted to use for toilet paper) to trillion dollar notes – which most people eschew for yen or Kongbucks.

A United States whose economy has receded to only four things Americans do better than anyone else – music, movies, microcode or software, and high speed pizza delivery. The latter the monopoly of the Mafia or Cosa Nostra, who “in an anarcho-capitalist world gone mad” are “just another corporation, no more or less ruthless than anyone else…sure, they have hired killers on their payroll and will whack employees who screw up” – notably pizza delivery drivers who fail to deliver in their pizza in half an hour – “but this isn’t particularly unique in a world where franchised neighborhoods are guarded by killer cyborg dogs.”

A United States whose former territory is “now a patchwork of autonomous corporate franchises and Burbclaves”, the latter essentially neighbourhoods franchised to extraterritorial “nations” run by corporations, such as Mr Lee’s Greater Hong Kong (not affiliated with mainland China or the island of Hong Kong).

Also a United States where you can have the aforementioned Raven – “baddest motherf*cker in the world” – as a literal one-man nuclear power, with a hydrogen bomb in his motorcycle sidecar and rigged to blow to “EEG trodes embedded in his skull”, probably near the tattoo on his forehead POOR IMPULSE CONTROL.

And then you have the Metaverse, “the internet becoming cyberspace for real” – and where Hiro, one of its creators, owns some prime real estate on the Street.

Oh – and you have the Tower of Babel and Sumerian mythology in there as well, complete with Sumerian pictographs.

“Apart from its frenetic action sequences and overt use of the Rule of Cool, the book is surprisingly deep, with a substantial portion of the plot given over to exploring metaphysical interpretations of the Tower of Babel myth. Typical for a Stephenson novel, the plot juxtaposes action sequences, lengthy humorous digressions, and extremely detailed infodumps seemingly at random”.

Where is the film or TV adaptation?! (Short answer – bouncing around in development hell).

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

Perhaps the most iconic image of Jim Morrison – the photograph of him in a 1967 shoot by Joel Brodsky prior to The Doors releasing their debut self-titled studio album

 

 

(7) MICK FARREN –

JIM MORRISON’S ADVENTURES IN THE AFTERLIFE (1999)

 

The title alone should be enough to tantalize and titillate – even more so, as the subject of the novel is indeed Doors’ singer Jim Morrison’s adventures in the afterlife, effectively a posthumous fantasy replay of Mick Farren’s earlier psychedelic science fiction DNA Cowboys Trilogy.

In the DNA Cowboys, reality was plastic as a result of hyper-technology, that can effectively produce almost limitless amounts of anything at will – with the more dominant inhabitants of that reality shaping it to their beliefs, or more usually, will to power, so that it resembles a shifting fantasy landscape of human imagination, loosely arranged around various city-states (or perhaps more precisely mind-states), from technofantasy Western or kung-fu wuxia.

In Adventures in the Afterlife, reality is plastic simply as the nature of the afterlife, to much the same effect as in DNA Cowboys.

But “when you start building an existence” in the afterlife, “a billion other sons of bitches are trying to do the same thing” – add in supernatural entities (and aliens) and you have a roller-coaster ride of sex and violence through a fantasy landscape of the survival of the fittest, where various dystopian fantasy city-states, empires and adventurers strive for supremacy.

Not to mention the other half of Jim Morrison’s adventures – Semple, one of the sexiest female characters in science fiction and one half of the psyche of former evangelist, Aimee Semple McPherson, split between her two personalities in the Afterlife.

 

FANTASY & HORROR

 

The first of four posthumous fantasies by SF writers in my top ten.

No substantial horror elements.

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(6) LARRY NIVEN & JERRY POURNELLE –
INFERNO (1976)

 

Another posthumous or afterlife fantasy which I rank in my Top 10 SF, because I make my own rules and break them anyway.

Also because Niven and Pournelle wrote extensively in SF, both separately and in collaboration with each other, and I read them there first – notably Lucifer’s Hammer, Footfall and The Legacy of Heorot (Beowulf IN SPACE!).

Niven is perhaps most famouse for his SF novel Ringworld (and sequels or series) but he was also a deft hand at fantasy, most strikingly with The Magic Goes Away, in which a prehistoric fantasy Earth has a magical energy crisis (and which also named the trope in TV Tropes for magic waning from a fantasy world). I also have a soft spot for Pournelle’s Janissaries.

But back to their collaborative posthumous fantasy, the afterlife setting is the literal Inferno – as in Dante’s Inferno, literally updated in all its infernal glory of its nine circles of hell, from the perspective of SF author John Carpentier (or is that Carpenter?) who dies and finds himself in it.

However, abandon not all hope ye who enter there, as he is led on a quest from its outermost levels to its innermost depths with Satan himself – a quest for the way out of hell, as told in the original Inferno by Dante. And playing Virgil to his Dante is a figure that may catch some by surprise, although it was obvious to me at the outset from historical association and that he has read Dante in Italian, but even so was compelling (and I’d like to believe that he did indeed find redemption leading lost souls out of Hell).

 

FANTASY & HORROR

 

The protagonist – literally a posthumous SF writer – comes to realise that he is in fantasy rather than SF. And given that it is hell, there are elements of horror, even if they are not used as such.

 

RATING :
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(5) ROBERT SILVERBERG –
TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING (1990)

 

Straight outta the afterlife!

Robert Silverberg is a prolific author of fantasy and SF – one whom deserves his own Top 10 list from either his novels or short stories (or both!). Ironically, this is not the novel I would recommend as introduction to Silverberg – that would be his epic planetary romance, Lord Valentine’s Castle, which combines elements of fantasy and SF to please fans of either genre.

However, it is his posthumous fantasy here that earns my Top 10 SF entry. Evolved from his story “Gilgamesh in the Outback”, his contribution to the posthumous fantasy anthology series, Heroes in Hell. Everyone who has ever lived and died throughout humanity’s history – and prehistory – finds themselves reborn in the afterlife, a mysterious and vague limbo. It is not unlike terrestrial existence – one can even die in it but is then reborn elsewhere – but more plastic in its reality, as geography and even memory can be unreliable or untrustworthy.

Like limbo, humanity’s main purpose in the afterlife is to find ways to pass eternity – or for protagonist Gilgamesh (of the Sumerian epic) to find a way back to life, mirroring his epic quest.

 

FANTASY & HORROR

 

Yes – it’s the third of four posthumous or afterlife fantasies by an SF author in my Top 10 SF Books

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(4) PHILIP JOSE FARMER –

RIVERWORLD (1971 – 1983)

 

Philip Jose Farmer brought the kink to my science fiction.

 

Actually, Philip Jose Farmer brought the kink to science fiction in general. In the words of Joe Lansdale, Farmer gave science fiction sex – and not just conventional sex, but kinky alien sex, most notably in his Hugo Award-winning 1952 short story “The Lovers”, subsequently expanded into a novel. And also religion – “in his odd blending of theology, p0rnography and adventure” as per literary critic Leslie Fiedler. If that’s not a compelling advertisement, I don’t know what is!

Leslie Fielder also applauded Farmer’s approach to storytelling as a “gargantuan lust to swallow down the whole cosmos, past, present and to come, and to spew it out again”.

And yes, he did actually bring the kink to my own personal science fiction. My sexual imagination was permanently, well, blown by The Image of the Beast, and its sequel, Blown, in my adolescence. I wouldn’t recommend them for the faint-hearted – they were explicitly written, in every sense of the word explicit, for a publisher of science fiction literary erotica.

Farmer also gave science fiction his Riverworld series, the definitive posthumous or afterlife fantasy – well, apart from the original posthumous fantasy by John Kendricks Bangs by which it was inspired.

Every human (and sapient hominid species) that has ever lived and died in history or prehistory finds themselves resurrected en masse in the mysterious Riverworld, in a style somewhat similar to the Matrix and equally engineered.

Like Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, its concept was too large for its narrative finish and it falls apart somewhat in the concluding volume, but the journey through Riverworld is unforgettable – and part of me still awaits to be resurrected there.

 

FANTASY & HORROR

 

The fourth of my four posthumous or afterlife fantasies that I’ve smuggled into my Top 10 SF list – because they’re written by writers I know primarily through their SF.

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(3) DOUGLAS ADAMS –
THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (1979-1982)

 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series – of which I prefer the ‘original’ trilogy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and Life, The Universe and Everything) gave us so many things – not least, the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. 42 to be exact, which of course begs the Question to Life, the Universe and Everything. It also gave us the most important thing in life, which is to have your towel, as well as the only practical advice you’ll ever need, which is written in large and friendly letters on the cover of the titular Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Don’t Panic!

In short, it needs little introduction as a cult classic science fiction comedy. Indeed, it is my top ten entry that I would recommend to non-readers of science fiction, as it is really more absurdist comedy of our world writ large as Galactic civilization, with the science fiction trappings or tropes played for comedy – starting with Earth being demolished for a hyperspace bypass…

 

FANTASY & HORROR

 

Not really – as even its SF trappings or tropes are more played for absurdist comedy.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

 

(2) ROBERT SHEA & ROBERT ANTON WILSON –

ILLUMINATUS TRILOGY (1975)

*

“I can see the fnords!”

The world is divided into two groups of people – those who have read the Illuminatus Trilogy (and have seen the fnords) and those who have not. If you only know the Illuminati from internet ravings or Dan Brown, then you have not truly seen the fnords. But if you have read the Illuminati Trilogy – The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple and Leviathan – then you will know the answers to the most important questions of our time:

 

Who are the Illuminati?

What is the Bavarian Fire Drill?

Why does the portrait of George Washington on the dollar bill look different from other portraits of George Washington – but the same as portraits of Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Bavarian Illuminati?!

How many gunmen were in Dallas to kill Kennedy?!

Just why is the Pentagon that shape – and what is it keeping trapped inside?! (Hint from the book – JESUS MOTHERF***ING CHRIST IT’S ALIVE!)

And most importantly of all, how are they going to Immanentize the Eschaton?!

 

The Illuminatus Trilogy is the conspiracy theory to beat all conspiracy theories – indeed, it’s one big conspiracy theory kitchen sink, based on the premise that all conspiracy theories are true, no matter how wild or contradictory. (The authors, editors at Playboy magazine, used wild conspiracy theories from letters to the editor). You will be changed after you read it, and you will never read anything like it again – at least until Grant Morrison essentially replayed it as The Invisibles, a comics series with the same conspiracy theory kitchen sink premise leading up to the new millennium.

As for the plot, history is the warfare of secret societies – with the anarchist Discordians and other secret allies in their battle since the time of Atlantis against the Illuminati, the conspiratorial organization that secretly controls the world. The plot originated with the authors involvement in the actual Discordian Society, a parody religion (or is it the ultimate cosmic truth disguised as a joke?) based on the worship of Eris or Discordia, the Greek goddess of chaos. The authors jokingly created an ‘opposition’ within the Discordian Society, which they called the Bavarian Illuminati, and the Illuminatus Trilogy sprang from the myth they built up of the warfare between the two…

And you too will see the fnords.

 

FANTASY & HORROR

 

It’s arguably as much fantasy as SF – what with all the Atlantean backstory and magic(k). Also paranoid horror – and cosmic horror.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT ERIS-TIER?)

*

Cover of the Jeff Wayne’s 1978 musical version of The War of the Worlds – it’s pretty good! “The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one…but still they come”

 

(1) H.G. WELLS –
THE TIME MACHINE & THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1895-1898)

 

My world of science fiction is still mostly Morlocks and Martians. And so is the world of science fiction in general, due to H. G. Wells. Just as J. R. R. Tolkien defined modern literary fantasy, H. G. Wells defined modern literary science fiction. He gave science fiction its most archetypal themes and tropes, notably time travel and alien invasion – and he did so in just two short novels, The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds. Indeed, those two novels are the mythic heart of science fiction.

Wells created and even named the concept of a mechanism for controlled and deliberate time travel, the now proverbial time machine, ancestor of every Tardis, DeLorean and Hot Tub Time Machine as well as all those time travel devices they keep pulling out of the Terminator franchise – in the novel of that same name, published in 1895. However, he did more than simply conceive the time machine – he also created a mythic vision of the far future that has endured in science fiction.

In the novel, the Time Traveler With No Name (a suitable predecessor for Doctor Who) travels to the year 802, 701 – where humanity has evolved into the childlike and docile Eloi, apparently living an idyllic existence provided by advanced technology but lacking any intellect or strength. He soon discovers the twist that humanity has actually evolved into two species from its classes – the Eloi are the descendants of the leisured upper class, while the bestial, subterranean Morlocks are the descendants of the working class and actually maintain all the industry or technology for the Eloi. However, in the future, the revolution will not be televised – the Morlocks also maintain the Eloi as livestock, farming them for food in the ultimate act of eating the rich. (How’s that for letting them eat cake, Marie Antoinette?). The Time Traveler has to battle the Morlocks in their subterranean lair to recover his Time Machine (and travel into the even further far future for even more grimdark hopelessness).

This theme of evolution in The Time Machine (or Morlocks eating Eloi) endures in science fiction, albeit transformed. The scenario of class-based evolution is simplistic, but is made more plausible by technology such as genetic engineering – the film Gattaca in some ways resembles a tale of engineered elite Eloi and non-engineered, proletariat Morlocks, although the protagonist is a Morlock posing as an Eloi. However, the true descendants of Wells’ tale are not so much the products of biological evolution but cybernetic evolution, involving artificial intelligence, robots or other machine Morlocks that rise up against their human Eloi – such as in the Terminator (doubly so for involving time machines) and the Matrix (which actually has the machines farming humanity for energy).

Wells’ The War of the Worlds, published in 1898, was similar to other works in the genre of British ‘invasion literature’ at that time, but with a fundamental distinguishing feature that made it a definitive work of science fiction – as opposed to invasions by human armies (typically German but also French or Russian), this was a genuinely alien invasion from Mars, as is made clear in its immortal opening line:

“Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us”.

And so the Martians descend upon Britain (near Woking in Surrey) in their spaceship ‘cylinders’ and attack the heart of the British Empire in their tripods armed with heat rays – although in the actual narrative, the Martian forces are not as strong as one might expect for advanced aliens able to invade other planets through space (and tripods would seem to be even less stable and more useless than Imperial Walkers). After all, Martian tripods are destroyed by nineteenth century artillery and an ironclad ship. Pathetic! We’d mop the floor with those Martians with our modern military forces. In the end, however, it is the Martians mopping up Britain, just as the British Empire wiped out the indigenous people of Tasmania, a pointed observation made by Wells. The Martians nourish themselves on human blood like space vampires, matched by their red weed vegetation choking out Earth’s native plant life. Fortunately, the Martians and their vegetation succumb to Earth’s bacteria and viruses, in what must rank as one of the most incredible oversights by an invading alien force although infinitely more plausible than the computer virus in Independence Day.

The War of the Worlds has a large sphere of narrative or thematic influence in science fiction. For that matter, it (like The Time Machine) has so many adaptations (including parallel or sequel stories) that I’m beginning to think it actually happened…

 

FANTASY & HORROR

 

Similarly to Tolkien with fantasy, H.G.Wells is such an archetype of modern literary SF that it seems blasphemous to assert other speculative fiction genres at play in work. But let’s face it, the science gets a little fantastic in his science fiction – not so much in these two novels but in his other novels. The Morlocks and Martians have more than their elements of horror as well – as indeed is apparent in their cinematic successors – not least in their ultimate cosmic horror of evolution and entropy.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

 

 

 

 

 

TOP 10 SF BOOKS (TIER LIST)

 

S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

 

(1) H.G. WELLS – THE TIME MACHINE / THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

My world of SF is still mostly Morlocks and Martians. Technically two books but between them they defined modern literary SF and shaped my world of SF forever

 

(2) ROBERT SHEA & ROBERT ANTON WILSON – ILLUMINATUS TRILOGY

(3) DOUGLAS ADAMS – HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

 

If H.G. Wells is my Old Testament of SF, then the Illuminatus Trilogy and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy are my New Testament.

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

(4) PHILIP JOSE FARMER – RIVERWORLD

(5) ROBERT SILVERBERG – TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING

(6) LARRY NIVEN & JERRY POURNELLE – INFERNO

(7) MICK FARREN – JIM MORRISON’S ADVENTURES IN THE AFTERLIFE

 

In something of an odd quirk in my SF Top 10, the entries from Farmer to Farren are what might be called the sub-genre of posthumous fantasy – not fantasy that is published posthumously, but fantasy set in the afterlife. I love that sub-genre and these are my favorite works of it, by authors I otherwise read or love for (or was introduced to by) their SF.

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(8) NEAL STEPHENSON – SNOW CRASH

(9) CHARLES STROSS – LAUNDRY

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER) – BEST OF 2025

 

(10) M.R. CAREY – PANDOMINION SERIES

Top Tens – Fantasy & SF: Top 10 SF Books (New Entry 2025) (10) M.R. Carey – Pandominion Series

Posted on by

Collage of the Orbit cover art for the three books

 

 

(10) M.R. CAREY –

PANDOMINION SERIES (2023-2025)

 

“The Pandominion: a political and trading alliance of a million worlds – except that they’re really just the one world, Earth, in many different realities.”

They don’t mess around either – when a scientist on one of those Earths, closely resembling our own, invents her own dimension-hopping technology and blunders into Pandominion space, or when the Pandominion itself blunders into a machine version of itself, threatening mutually assured multiverse destruction.

I love a good space opera – and the Pandominion goes above and beyond that, across Earths in infinite dimensions.

The series proper is two books, Infinity Gate and Echo of Worlds, with a third standalone novel in the same setting, Outlaw Planet published in 2025, hence my tenth place wildcard entry for best of 2025.

 

RATING:

X-TIER (WILD TIER) – BEST OF 2025

Monday Night Mojo – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): Special Mention (Mojo)

Posted on by

 

 

Burn to Shine album cover

*

(1) MOJO: BEN HARPER –

THE WOMAN IN YOU (BURN TO SHINE 1999)

B-side: Glory & Consequence (The Will to Live 1997)

 

“Love carved sorry in his face

The woman in you is the worry, the worry in me”

 

A voice like smooth smoky honey with a soft sad blues aftertaste – Ben Harper is an insanely talented singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, playing an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae and rock.

Ironically my entry here, “The Woman in You” from his fourth studio album Burn to Shine in 1999, was effectively a B-side as inexplicably it was never released as a single.

As for the B-side of my entry, “Glory and Consequence” was a single from his third album The Will to Live in 1997 – the lyrics just have that hauntingly evocative resonance for me.

 

“I would rather me be lonely

And you have someone to hold

I’m not as scared of dying

As I am of growing old”

 

That hits me right in the heart – perhaps a little too hard.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythologies (Honorable Mention)

Posted on by

Free “divine gallery” art sample from Old World Gods – Amaterasu, aptly enough, since Japanese mythology and Shinto are one of my honorable mentions

 

TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES (HONORABLE MENTION)

 

I don’t have a religion – I have a mythology.

Indeed, I have a top ten mythologies – as well as my usual twenty special mentions.

But wait – there’s more! There’s these honorable mentions for entries beyond my top ten or special mentions, because mythology is that prolific. Essentially, my honorable mentions are kind of a catch-all back-up. Unlike my top ten or special mentions, they aren’t ranked or arranged in any particular order. Also unlike my top ten or twenty special mentions, I have no numerical limit on entries for honorable mention, so I’ll include an index of entries at the outset:

 

CELTIC (DRUIDRY)

SLAVIC

FINNISH (KALEVALA)

CHINESE

JAPANESE (SHINTO)

AFRICAN (WEST AFRICAN)

POLYNESIAN (HAWAIIAN & MAORI)

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL

*

 

The Wicker Man! The form of execution that Caesar wrote the druids used for human sacrifice – illustration from the the Commentaries of Caesar translated by William Duncan published in 1753

 

 

CELTIC (DRUIDRY)

 

Yes – it’s an aspect within Celtic mythology but one distinctive enough to earn its own separate honorable mention (as well as my longest).

“A druid was a member of the high-ranking class in ancient Celtic culture”. And that’s pretty much as definitive as it gets.

While druids had a number of roles – “legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors” – the focus tends to be on their role as religious leaders. That is as priests, prophets, or most commonly, as quasi-shamanic figures, attuned to the animal or natural world with magic or moral philosophy.

Little is known about them, since they were secretive and didn’t write anything down, possibly because of religious prohibition. Most historical accounts were written by their adversaries, notably the Romans, who actively suppressed them.

The first detailed account was that of Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars, who wrote about them as he conquered them and the rest of Gaul – most famously featuring them shoving human sacrifices into the Wicker Man, to be literally burnt in effigy.

Historians have queried the veracity of druidic human sacrifice in general and the Wicker Man in particular, usually in terms of Roman imperial propaganda against their conquered enemies – which disappoints me, as it depicts the druids at their most metal.

I mean, I came to druidry and classical depictions of it through The Wicker Man, with Lord Summerisle as my model of an evil druid.

However, this was moderated as I came to druidry through three other sources. The first originated when Caesar conquered Gaul…but not entirely, because one small village still held out against the invaders through their druid’s magic potion of superhuman strength.

I am of course talking about Asterix comics, featuring the druid Getafix as his name is usually translated into English versions. Of course, the Wicker Man was distinctively absent from its version of druidry, although that might explain the true fate of all those Roman legionaries behind the scenes…

The second source was also from comics – Slaine by Pat Mills for 2000 AD, in which human sacrifice in general and the Wicker Man in particular loomed large for its version of druidry. Not surprisingly, its druids were somewhat amoral at best, not too distinct from their evil counterparts.

The third source is perhaps the most popular – Dungeons and Dragons, influencing their depiction in other role playing games and popular culture as divine nature-themed magic users, complete with shapechanging (“wild shape”) and animal companions.

All of which are not unlike the modern reconstruction (or reconstructions) of druidry, often styled as neo-druidry in the same manner as neo-paganism or neo-shamanism, originating with Romantic pagan and Celtic revivals as early as the eighteenth century.

 

SLAVIC

 

Perpetually overlooked for the stars of pre-Christian European pagan mythology – classical, Norse, even Celtic gets better coverage in popular culture. Like that last one, however, Slavic mythology is known mostly through others – particularly Christian missionaries or monks – writing about it.

And yes – that’s overlooked by me as well, hence I only know a little about it.

God of thunder Perun. The matching pair of good and bad gods, Belobog and Chernobog, the latter notably appearing in Disney’s Fantasia sequence of A Night on Bald Mountain as a demonic figure. Baba Yaga. And of course, the Slavic equivalent of an aquatic nymph (naiad) but characteristically more dangerous – the rusalka (or rusalki in plural).

 

FINNISH (KALEVALA)

 

It’s the Kalevala – that’s the honorable mention.

The Kalevala is essentially the Odyssey of Finnish mythology – Finland’s mythological epic poem, featuring gods and heroes. Its Odysseus or central character is the shamanic hero Väinämöinen, with the magical power of song and music, so essentially a Dungeons and Dragons bard. I have a soft spot for Lemminkäinen, the swaggering blowhard who likes the ladies a little too much.

 

CHINESE

 

“The nature of Monkey was…irrepressible!”

Yeah – that’s right. Chinese mythology earns honorable mention from the Monkey King himself, Su Wukong, and the Journey to the West.

The Journey to the West also shows how much Chinese mythology overlaps with folklore as well as my broad special mention of Zen, including as it does Buddhism and Taoism.

Sure, there’s much more to Chinese mythology but I only know a small part of it, mostly with respect to Chinese gods and immortals, such as the moon goddess Chang’e or Chang’o – or legendary creatures, such as dragons and nine-tailed foxes.

 

JAPANESE (SHINTO)

 

And I thought Hindu mythology was polytheistic – apparently, the Japanese divine beings or kami are “uniquely numerous (there are at least eight million)”, albeit varying in power and stature. Well, I’m not surprised about that last part – when you’re counting out eight million deities or divine beings, you must be getting down to the demi-hemi-semi-gods. Most kami are associated with natural features, so I suppose you might get down to the god of that tree over there.

I don’t purport to have an extensive knowledge of Japanese mythology, nor will I attempt to demarcate it from overlapping Japanese folklore or legends. My knowledge of it is mostly from adaptations of it in anime or other popular culture. There’s the basics –  the divine brother and sister duo of Izanagi and Izanami, the creation of Japan by Izanagi dipping his Heavenly Jewelled Spear into the primordial waters (noice!), the sun goddess Amaterasu, the storm god Susanoo, and that hilarious myth of the goddess of laughter and revelry luring Amaterasu out of a cave with a strip tease.

 

AFRICAN (WEST AFRICAN)

 

Yes – I know it is impossibly and perhaps insultingly broad to rank mythology for the entire continent of Africa (well, except Egypt) throughout its history in one honorable mention.

That reflects the observation of TV Tropes, very much applicable to me, that “the traditional beliefs and practices of African people, like their history, remains largely unfamiliar and unknown to the European and American public compared to more popular worldwide mythologies”.

If I had to be more specific, I’d nominate west African mythology – although that is only somewhat less broad – mainly because it is the mythology of that region that is the influence or source of Afro-American mythologies and African diaspora religions through the slaves traded from that region. Anansi, the spider trickster god, is ironically the deity this arachnophobe knows best.

 

POLYNESIAN (HAWAIIAN & MAORI)

 

“What can I say except you’re welcome!”

Yes, trickster god Maui played a large part in this honorable mention. A little like Africa but more in sheer area, it is broad to rank Polynesian mythology in one honorable mention, spread as it is across the Pacific.

However, if I have to choose, I’ll go with those two near opposing poles of Polynesia across the Pacific – Hawaii and New Zealand – with Hawaiian mythology and Maori mythology respectively. I have a soft spot for Pele, the volcano goddess of Hawaiian mythology that was one of the sources of inspiration for Te Fiti in the Moana film.

 

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL

 

I have to award honorable mention to Australian Aboriginal mythology, even if I am woefully unaware of much of it – apart from the overarching concept of the Dreaming or Dreamtime that is of itself worth the price of admission, as well as songlines and the Rainbow Serpent.

 

 

You can return to or find more top tens in my indexed page for top tens of mythology.

 

 

Top Tens – Music: Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk: Complete & Revised 2025)

Posted on by

Reflective light disco ball or mirror ball that was a standard fixture on the ceilings of many discotheques in an image by Ice Boy Tell by donations to Wikimedia Deutschland for Festival Summer in Germany – Wikipedia “Disco” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

 

 

TOP 10 MUSIC (MOJO & FUNK)

 

Talking about pop music – and by pop music, I mean contemporary popular music, which I playfully like to quip falls into one of two categories (as parenthesised in my title), mojo and funk.

So what is mojo? What is funk?

Which leads me to another one of my favorite quips, when I describe something as funky. Funky – as in possessed of funk. You do know what funk is, don’t you?

Essentially, my definitions of mojo and funk are playing by my own rules – I make my own rules and break them anyway. I’m serious and I’m joking.

Funk at least has a definition beyond my own.

“Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the mid-20th century…Funk typically consists of a complex percussive groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a “hypnotic” and “danceable” feel.”

However, I extend my definition of funk beyond the strict technical definition to a wider definition including rap, hip-hop, house, and dance music in general, reflecting my dance-bunny youth.

As for mojo, my focus tends to be more on the lyrical content albeit also the instrumentation – of a nature evoking the archetypal psychedelic rock of the 1960s, particularly that of my top two entries, or similar evocative quality, at least for me.

That said, this is my top ten list for music (mojo & funk).

 

It doesn’t get much funkier than parking on the dance floor! Also a good way to get the attention of that girl you like. Shot from the official music video directed by Gus Black and released 24 July 2025

 

 

(10) FUNK: SOMBR – 12 TO 12

 

“In a room full of people, I look for you”

 

Well, looks like I’ve found my standout song for 2025 and hence my new wildcard tenth place entry, according to my usual rule reserving that place for my favorite entry from the present or previous year.

Sombr is the stage name of Shane Michael Boose – essentially a play on his initials and the word somber – “an American singer, songwriter, and record producer”.

Although he released his debut single in 2021 and first EP in 2023, it was two singles (“Back to Friends” and “Undressed”) in 2025 that went viral on social media and became his breakout hits. That was followed by his debut studio album (I Barely Know Her – a title that encapsulates his recurring themes of “heartbreak, unrequited love, and emotional introspection” throughout his songs, including this one). That album included those two previous singles, as well as two follow up singles, including this entry.

“The song mixes ’80s-style synth-pop and new wave with hints of ’70s funk and blues, highlighted by Sombr’s vocals that shift between falsetto and rough growls…The track was described as walking the line between “repurposed funk with fuzzy blues licks” and hints of “bongo hits”. Sombr’s “shifting” vocals, alternating between a “lustful falsetto” and a “hungry, distorted growl” throughout the track were said to “ooze suave and mischievousness”. Sombr sings to a love interest, uncertain whether his feelings are being reciprocated.”

I don’t quite know the meaning of repurposed funk with fuzzy blues licks but it had me at funk, as the song did, with what seems to me more than hints of ’70s funk. That is reinforced by the video, which features a mirror-balled disco dance floor – where a sunglass-wearing Sombr has incongruously parked his car but damn it looks good. Social media personality and singer Addison Rae features as his love interest of the song – one that looks pretty requited in the video but the scenes of Sombr floating unconscious in a pool (with a great shot past him to the two police officers looking at him in the pool) suggests otherwise, and in my mind that the whole video might be his dream life flashing before his eyes so to speak.

 

RATING:

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

Screenshot from the official music video

 

 

(9) MOJO: GNARLS BARKLEY – GOING ON (2008)

B-SIDE: Run (I’m a Natural Disaster) (2008)

 

“But I’m going on

And I’m prepared to go it alone

I’m going on

May my love lift you up to the place you belong

I’m going on

And I promise I’ll be waiting for you”

 

A song from my life soundtrack – or the soundtrack of the film in my mind.

Psychedelic soul duo Gnarls Barkley (or Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green) are better known for their first album St Elsewhere and its hit single “Crazy”, but I prefer this song from their second album The Odd Couple in 2008.

As is clear from the lyrics, the song is about leaving something (and clearly someone) behind and, well, going on – to answer a powerful call, whether a call to freedom, the mythic hero’s call to adventure or even a mystical call to something beyond this world altogether. Hence it’s another song from my life soundtrack as it coincided with a time in my life when I was going on (and had to go on) from someone and something.

Indeed, for me, this song has echoes of Hendrix’s otherworldly Voodoo Child, not so much in its instrumentality (as Hendrix’s guitar is, after all, unmatched), but in how it similarly casts “an even more powerful spell by delivering the lyric in the voice (or chorus) of a voodoo priest” – something that is even clearer in the music video for the song.

As for my B-side, I have to go with Run (I’m a Natural Disaster), a single from the same album – perhaps best known as a song from a film soundtrack, the X-Men: First Class film.

 

 

RATING: 

B-TIER (HIGH-TIER)

 

 

Hilltop Hoods logo

*

(8) FUNK: HILLTOP HOODS – NOSEBLEED SECTION (2003)

B-SIDE: Cosby Sweater (2014)

 

“Ladies come chill, come rock with me hunny

I got like half a mill in monopoly money

There’s no stopping me honey, so you can take my hand

We can lay on the beach and count grains of sand

Or take a plane to Japan, and drink sake with mafia

Fly to Libya for some Bacardi with Qaddafi a

Dinner date, followed by a funk show

We’ll rip off our tops and jump around in the front row” 

 

Another song from my life soundtrack – which is the running theme of my sixth to ninth places.

For this funk entry, we’re in the genre of hip hop. Australian hip hop, that is. After all, what would any music list be without some Australian hip hop. (What? It has its own Wikipedia entry!).

This was the Hoods’ breakthrough song, The Nosebleed Section, from their third album in 2003 (albeit effectively their first commercially available album), with its chorus and backing beat sampled from The People in the Front Row sung by Melanie Safka. The unsophisticated video reflects their underground origins and corresponding limited budget – albeit showcasing impressive riding skill (by former BMX flatland rider Simon O’Brien).

There’s just something that resonates about life turning out like nothing you had planned – with nothing but dreams or “writing rhymes on the bus” – and inverting that into the “upbeat themes of parties, concerts, good times and living the high life”, even if only for the night.

The Hilltop Hoods have continued to produce and perform songs through the next decade, including surprisingly soulful songs (and videos) at times, such as their singles Higher and Won’t Let You Down.

As for my B-side, I have to go with the unfortunately named Cosby Sweater (a title the band itself regretted after the fact) because it’s so damn catchy.

 

 

RATING: 

B-TIER (HIGH-TIER)

*

Single cover art (fair use)

 

 

 

(7) MOJO: BOMB THE BASS – BUG POWDER DUST (1994)

B-SIDE: Beat Dis (1988)

 

“I think it’s time to discuss your, ah, philosophy of drug use as it relates to artistic endeavor”

 

Yeah, that opening narration pretty much sums up this 1994 single, “Bug Powder Dust”, by Bomb the Bass.

Well that and it’s effectively the four minute musical version of Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, as suggested by the title. Indeed, it’s quite the game trying to unpack all the references to Burroughs and his novel as well as other pop cultural references in the relentlessly dense, ‘cut and splice’ lyrics. I’ve heard it said that songwriter and guest vocalist Justin Warfield essentially just tried to cram in as many references as possible – along with other lyrical oddities, “never been a fake and I’m never phony / I’ve got more flavor than the packet in macaroni”. In fairness, it makes about as much sense as the novel by Burroughs and its notorious ‘cut-up’ style. The lyrics get a little spicy – watch out for the recurring references to mugwump bodily fluids, particularly in the chorus accompanied by the titular bug power dust. Again – not too different from the original novel.

Arguably, Bomb the Bass – musician Tim Simenon’s electronic music ‘trip hop’ alias – is as much funk as mojo, as reflected by my B-side “Beat Dis”. Bug Powder Dust itself samples Alphonso Johnson’s bassline from Brazilian jazz fusion singer Flora Purim’s 1976 album title track “Open Your Eyes You Can Fly”.

I’m going to go more with mojo on this one, namely because of those trippy lyrics and because of the reference(s) to Jim Morrison, literally as Mr. Mojo Risin’ – “Mr. Mojo Risin’ on the case again”. (I’m pretty sure there’s another Morrison or Doors reference in “Waiting for the sun on a Spanish caravan / Solar eclipse and I’m feeling like staring, man”). Despite its relative (and esoteric) obscurity, those dense trippy lyrics and the reference to Mr Mojo Risin’ sees it as an enduring entry in the soundtrack in the film in my mind, hence its top ten placement (and top tier ranking).

 

“I think it’s time for you boys to share my last taste of the true black meat; the flesh of the giant, aquatic, Brazilian centipede”

 

RATING: 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

(6) MOJO: DEPECHE MODE –
PERSONAL JESUS (1989)
B-SIDE: I Feel You (1993)

 

“Reach out and touch faith”

A song from my life soundtrack.

Depeche Mode might well have been a funk entry, with their bubble-gum synth-pop from the early 1980s, such as “I Just Can’t Get Enough” but then they took a turn to mojo later in the eighties with a harder sound as well as a darker and more sexual tone.

“Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there”

Their new mojo brought them to world fame and their creative peak with albums Violator and Songs of Faith and Devotion – but for me their highlight was the 1989 single, “Personal Jesus”, from the former album, with a distinctly lapsed or pagan Catholic feel to it (or a play on that old evangelical refrain of a “personal relationship with Jesus”. She is the goddess and this is her body – o yes!)

“Feeling unknown
And you’re all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I’ll make you a believer ”

It is also one of my ‘soundtrack’ songs for the film in my mind. I was delighted that the music video evoked something of the neo-Western road movie in my mind’s eye, although I had imagined it a little differently.

“Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess
I will deliver
You know I’m a forgiver ”

And I was also delighted when the man in black himself, Johnny Cash, covered the song in a stripped-back acoustic version in 2002 – “probably the most evangelical gospel song I ever recorded”.

“I feel you
Your sun it shines
I feel you
Within my mind
You take me there
You take me where
The kingdom comes
You take me to
And lead me through
Babylon”

My B-side is a single in a similar vein from their Songs of Faith and Devotion album – I Feel You.

 

RATING:
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

(5) FUNK: THE WEEKND –
CAN’T FEEL MY FACE (2015)
B-Side: I Feel it Coming (2016)

 

“I’m a m***********g starboy!”

Of course, that’s the titular chorus from his song Starboy (featuring Daft Punk because they make everything funkier), but it encapsulates Abel Makkonen Tesfaye a.k.a The Weeknd. Also, it is funky – but my funk favorite still goes to this 2015 single from his Beauty Behind the Madness album, my introduction to The Weeknd.

The Weeknd has been so consistently funky through the 2010s to the 2020s – and so ubiquitously funky, as each time my ears prick up for any funk recently, it’s usually The Weeknd – that I’ve had no choice but to rank him in my Top 10 Mojo & Funk (and also ultimately compile my Top 10 Weeknd songs). And how can you not like the Weeknd? We all love the weekend!

“I can’t feel my face when I’m with you
But I love it, but I love it”

Anyway, I can’t resist this tagline for “Can’t Feel My Face” from Billboard – “The Weeknd’s irresistible, Michael Jackson-esque “Can’t Feel My Face” is so perfectly crafted that it’s impossible to imagine a world or alternative reality in which this song isn’t number one”. And it’s not every music video that ends in the immolation of its singer.

As for my B-side entry, I have a soft spot for “I Feel It Coming” (once again featuring Daft Punk, again making it funkier).

“You’ve been scared of love and what it did to you
You don’t have to run, I know what you’ve been through
Just a simple touch and it can set you free
We don’t have to rush when you’re alone with me”.

As for the balance of my Top 10 The Weeknd songs:

(3) Starboy (2015). Obviously
(4) Blinding Lights (2019)
(5) Take My Breath (2020)
(6) Ariana Grande / The Weeknd – Love Me Harder (2014)
(7) The Hills (2015)
(8) Save Your Tears (2020)
(9) Swedish House Mafia ft The Weeknd – Moth to a Flame (2021)
(10) Sacrifice (2022)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

Shot from the music video for “S*xy B*tch”

 

 

 

(4) FUNK: DAVID GUETTA –
SXY BTCH (One Love 2009)
B-Side: Sweat (Nothing But the Beat 2011)
ALBUMS: One Love 2009 / Nothing But the Beat 2011 / Listen 2014 / “7” 2018)

 

 

Hmm – I’m trying to find the words to describe this song without being disrespectful. You know, as opposed to its title, which are the words they found to describe a girl without being disrespectful?

David Guetta falls in the electronic dance funk end of the funk scale and is a prolific producer or mixer of dance music – indeed, between him and Calvin Harris, they might be said to predominate dance music in the new millennium. Guetta had a career playing clubs as a DJ in his native France from the 1980s and releasing his first album in 2002 but achieved international mainstream access with his fourth album One Love in 2009. And that album featured this undeniably funky single, still my personal favorite.

Close runner-up is 2011 single “Sweat” from his Nothing But the Beat album – his remix of Snoop Dogg’s “Wet”.

And the balance of my Top 10 David Guetta songs:
(3) When Love Takes Over (One Love 2009)
(4) Memories (One Love 2009)
(5) Little Bad Girl (Nothing But the Beat 2011)
(6) Play Hard (Nothing But the Beat 2.0 2013)
(7) Lovers on the Sun (Listen 2014)
(8) Flames (“7” 2018)
(9) I’m Good (Blue) (2022)
(10) Baby Don’t Hurt Me (2023)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

Screenshot from the music video for “How Deep is Your Love” (and yes – that’s Gigi Hadid in the video)

 

 

(3) FUNK: CALVIN HARRIS –
FEEL SO CLOSE (18 Months 2011)
B-SIDE: How Deep is Your Love (non-album single 2015 – compilation album 96 Months 2024)
ALBUMS: Ready for the Weekend 2009 / 18 Months 2012 / Motion 2014 (compilation album 96 Months 2024)

 

“And there’s no stopping us right now
I feel so close to you right now”

Calvin Harris falls in the electronic dance funk end of the funk scale – electronic dance music or house, sometimes termed electro pop or nu disco. He’s been a prolific producer or mixer of electronic dance music since his debut album I Created Disco in 2007 – both in the sense of number of singles and also in the profile of those singles, rising to international prominence with his third album 18 Months.

Of course, it’s electronic dance music, so don’t look for lyrical depth – or much in the way of lyrics in general, as the lyrics tend to be fairly basic verse mixed through the music. However, it is irresistibly funky.

And as for the balance of my Top 10 Calvin Harris songs:
(3) You Used to Hold Me (Ready for the Weekend 2010)
(4) Drinking from the Bottle (18 Months 2013)
(5) Thinking About You (18 Months 2013)
(6) Under Control (Motion 2013)
(7) Summer (Motion 2014)
(8) Outside (Motion 2014)
(9) My Way (single – compilation album 96 Months 2016)
(10) Stay With Me (Funk Wav Bounces 2 2022)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

Cover art of the 1993 CD of Jimi Hendrix Experience Electric Ladyland album (as part of a 1993 CD collection including all three studio albums and The Ultimate Experience greatest hits compilation as well as First Rays of the New Rising Sun, a posthumous compilation of other recordings) – my favorite Hendrix album cover art, except for the original album cover art (which leans hard into the lady part of Electric Ladyland and is a little too bare-breasted to include here)

 

 

(2) MOJO: JIMI HENDRIX –
VOODOO CHILD (Electric Ladyland 1968)
B-SIDE: Purple Haze (Are You Experienced 1967)
ALBUMS: Are You Experienced 1967 / Axis: Bold as Love 1967 / Electric Ladyland 1968
(Posthumous compilation album: First Rays of the New Rising Sun)

 

“Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand
Well, I stand up next to a mountain
Chop it down with edge of my hand
Well, I pick up all the pieces and make an island
Might even raise just a little sand
‘Cause I’m a voodoo child
Lord knows I’m a voodoo child”

 

It doesn’t get much more mojo than Jimi Hendrix.

Well, obviously it does in my first place entry, but not apart from that.

Hendrix could make that guitar sing (and sing the Star-Spangled Banner as he did at Woodstock). Or set it on fire – literally.

In the words of his Wikipedia entry, “he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century” – and “arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music” according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

His three studio albums – Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland – are three of the best and most iconic albums in music.

Ultimately however, there is one song with the most mojo for me – “Voodoo Child”, or more precisely, “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”, from his Electric Ladyland album in 1968.

Again to quote a review in Wikipedia – “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” is “a perfect example of how Hendrix took the Delta blues form and not only psychedelicized it, but cast an even more powerful spell by delivering the lyric in the voice of a voodoo priest…”Opening with a simple riff on the wah-wah pedal, the song explodes into full sonic force, the guitarist hitting the crunching chords and taking the astral-inspired leads for which he became infamous. The real guitar explorations happen midway through the song, while the basic, thundering riff is unrelenting”.

Joe Satriani said it simpler – “It’s just the greatest piece of electric guitar work ever recorded. In fact, the whole song could be considered the holy grail of guitar expression and technique. It is a beacon of humanity.”

“I didn’t mean to take up all your sweet time
I’ll give it right back to you one of these days
I said, I didn’t mean to take up all your sweet time
I’ll give it right back to you one of these days
And if I don’t meet you no more in this world
Then I’ll, I’ll meet you in the next one
And don’t be late, don’t be late
‘Cause I’m a voodoo child
Lord knows I’m a voodoo child”

For my B-side, what else but his signature song Purple Haze?

As for the balance of my Top Ten Jimi Hendrix songs – from the classic Hendrix album trinity of Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland:

(3) 1983: A Merman I Should Turn to Be (Electric Ladyland 1968)
(4) The Wind Cries Mary (Are You Experienced 1967)
(5) Hey Joe (Are You Experienced 1967)
(6) Foxy Lady (Are You Experienced 1967)
(7) Little Wing (Axis: Bold as Love 1967)
(8) Castles Made of Sand (Axis: Bold as Love 1967)
(9) All Along the Watchtower (Electric Ladyland 1968)
(10) Angel (posthumous)

Honorable mention, well, for pretty much every other song on these albums. Seriously – they’re awesome! But my highlights

Are You Experienced:
Fire
The title track – Are You Experienced

Axis: Bold as Love –
Wait Until Tomorrow
The ‘title track’ – Bold as Love

Electric Ladyland –
The ‘title track’ – Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

Perhaps the most iconic image of Jim Morrison – the photograph of him in a 1967 shoot by Joel Brodsky prior to The Doors releasing their debut self-titled studio album and used as cover art for at least one compilation album best of or greatest hits collection

 

(1) MOJO: THE DOORS (JIM MORRISON)
L.A. WOMAN (L.A. Woman 1971)
B-side: The End (The Doors 1967)
ALBUMS: The Doors 1967 / Strange Days 1967 / Waiting for the Sun 1968 / The Soft Parade 1969 / Morrison Hotel 1970 / L.A. Woman 1971

 

“Are you a lucky little lady in the City of Light
Or just another lost angel?”

 

And here we are at the apex of mojo – The Doors with their “dark, theatrical blues-influenced psychedelic rock”, led by the poetic lyrics, deep silky voice and charismatic persona of Jim Morrison “aka Mr. Mojo Risin’ aka The Lizard King”.

At the suggestion of Morrison, their name came from the title of Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, itself taken from William Blake – “When the doors of perception are cleansed, man will see things as they truly are, infinite” (from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell).

And for this entry, there can only be one song, the title track of their album with Morrison – a song with so much mojo that it famously features as Mr. Mojo Risin’, an anagram of Jim Morrison no less, in the song’s break with its rising crescendo of unmistakably sexual rhythm (and a figure I’ve adopted into my own pagan mythology – I believe in L.A. Woman and Mr. Mojo Risin’).

Mr Mojo’ Risin’, Mr Mojo Risin!. Whoa yeah!

For my B-side, what else but the sprawling trippy Oedipal epic The End

And as for the balance of my Top 10 The Doors (Jim Morrison) songs:
(3) Light My Fire (The Doors 1967)
(4) Queen of the Highway (Morrison Hotel 1970)
(5) Hyacinth House (L.A. Woman 1971)
(6) Break on Through (The Doors 1967)
(7) Touch Me (The Soft Parade 1969)
(8) Peace Frog (Morrison Hotel 1970)
(9) Love Her Madly (L.A. Woman 1971)
(10) Riders on the Storm (L.A. Woman 1971)

Honorable mention – well for pretty much every song on their classic six albums from The Doors in 1967 to L.A. Woman in 1971 (for the hardcore Doors fan), or at least those two albums as their best albums.

But some highlights I missed from their Strange Days album and Waiting for the Sun album

Strange Days (1967) –
People Are Strange
Love Me Two Times

Waiting for the Sun (1968)-
Hello I Love You

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

 

 

 

 

MOJO & FUNK (MUSIC): TOP 10 (TIER LIST)

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

(1) MOJO: THE DOORS – L.A. WOMAN

(2) MOJO: JIMI HENDRIX – VOODOO CHILD (SLIGHT RETURN)

(3) FUNK: CALVIN HARRIS – FEEL SO CLOSE

(4) FUNK: DAVID GUETTA – SXY BTCH

 

If The Doors and Jimi Hendrix are my Old Testament of mojo, Calvin Harris and David Guetta are my New Testament of funk

 

A-TIER  (TOP TIER)

 

(5) FUNK: THE WEEKND – CAN’T FEEL MY FACE

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(6) MOJO: DEPECHE MODE – PERSONAL JESUS

(7) MOJO: BOMB THE BASS – BUG POWDER DUST

(8) FUNK: HILLTOP HOODS – NOSEBLEED SECTION

(9) MOJO: GNARLS BARKLEY – GOING ON

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER) – BEST OF 2025

 

(10) FUNK:  SOMBR – 12 TO 12

 

 

 

 

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Horror Films

Posted on by

Janet Leigh in the 1960 film Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock – one of the most iconic scenes in film, and yes, it’s horror

 

 

“Horror is a genre of fiction that exploits the primal fears of viewers” – “that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes”.

That always prompts for me the parallel with Greek tragedy and its quality of catharsis proposed by Aristotle through the pity and fear experienced by the audience – a quality that would apply equally to Shakespearean tragedy.

It seems ironic that I compare the high art of Greek or Shakespearean tragedy with the notoriously low art of horror films – sometimes I quip that there’s no such thing as a bad B-grade horror film, speaking to my fandom of the latter. Of course, that quip becomes less funny when I add that there’s no such thing as an A-grade horror film either. That’s an overstatement but perhaps not by too much.

However jarring it may be, I stand by that comparison between Greek or Shakespearean tragedy and horror films, at least as holding up in similar qualities of catharsis. And it wouldn’t take too much to tweak most Greek or Shakespearean tragedies into horror films – now there’s an idea for stark ravings or a top ten.

Back to that quip there’s no such thing as an A-grade horror film, while the horror film genre may be mostly cheap and exploitative (something of a virtue for studios seeking high returns on low costs or budding directors seeking to start careers), it does have surprising depth to it that is top ten-worthy of itself – not least in its various sub-genres or different national styles of horror.

“This is a very broad genre, it can go from tasteful and timeless tales of psychological suspense (a trademark of people like Alfred Hitchcock) to gross out horror (which tends to become campy). It often employs the supernatural but “normal” people are more than sufficient to scare audiences when used properly”.

I’ll be frank – my own tastes in horror lean towards dark fantasy or supernatural horror. I don’t tend to like more, well, mundane sources of horror, albeit with quite a few exceptions. I do like films that might be called SF horror – Alien, Terminator, The Thing – but I like them so much more as SF that I tend to rank them in my top Fantasy & SF Films. I will have a closer look at SF horror as a sub-genre in my special mentions, both here and for my Fantasy & SF Films.

And “despite being the subject of social and legal controversy due to their subject matter, some horror films and franchises have seen major commercial success, influenced society and spawned several popular culture icons.”

Anyway, these are my Top 10 Horror Films.

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

Sinners film poster

 

 

(10) SINNERS (2025)

 

Yeah, I know, hyped but I liked it.

My favorite horror film of 2025, matching my usual criterion for wildcard tenth place as best of the current or previous year.

Sinners is a vampire horror film that essentially pulls a From Dusk till Dawn switcheroo halfway through the film, but in a 1930s Mississippi blues speakeasy rather than a 1990s Mexico strip club. Quite frankly, the vampires seem to be doing almost everyone involved in the former a favor, given life in this Mississippi Delta sharecropping town – and given that the speakeasy, run by the Smokestack gangster duo, was doomed in three different ways before the vampires showed up. The vampires just got there first – and not by much.

The Smokestack duo are Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack”, both played by Michael B. Joran – identical twins and First World War veterans who worked for Chicago Mob before making off with Mob money and Mob beer to go into business for themselves.

The film has its highlights, foremost among them its Irish vampire antagonist Remmick but also its music, which essentially becomes its own character in the film.

By the way, that comparison to From Dusk till Dawn is not out of the blue – it was a comparison made by several critics (some of whom preferred the “more grounded first half” to its “supernaturally driven” second half but those critics don’t know that everything’s better with vampires) but also by writer and director Ryan Coogler himself, who cited it as inspiration.

 

RATING:

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

Film poster or promotional image for Netflix

 

 

 

(9) THE RITUAL (2017)

 

What can I say? Despite mixed reviews, I’m a fan of this British supernatural folk horror film’s “monster”, which still has one of the most strikingly innovative designs I’ve seen in horror film, and with literal mindbending effect on its prey – or sacrificial victims – to match.

Not to mention the sense of forested claustrophobia and creeping doom for its British hiker protagonist and friends taking the worst shortcut ever through the weird woods of Sweden.

Ah yes, it’s that old fantasy or horror trope – don’t go into the woods. Or Sweden.

Apparently it’s (loosely) based on a novel of the same name by Adam Nevill – “and is best described as the love child of The Blair Witch Project and The Wicker Man”, except far better than the former, not least for seeing the horror stalking the protagonist hikers.

 

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

The scene from the film for my featured quote in which the basic premise is explained to the heroine

 

(8) IT FOLLOWS (2014 – PRESENT)

 

“It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop…ever, until you are dead!”

No, wait – that’s the Terminator but it’s essentially the same as the “It” in It Follows. Think the Terminator as sex demon – and not in a good way, the way that would involve my fever dreams of Kristanna Loken’s T-X.

As in the shapeshifting demonic stalker, invisible to all but whom It is stalking, as STD allegory kind of way.

“You’re not going to believe me. But I need you to remember what I’m saying. Okay? This thing…it’s going to follow you. Somebody gave it to me, and I passed it to you, back in the car. It could look like someone you know, or it could be a stranger in a crowd. Whatever helps it to get close to you. It could look like anyone…but there is only one of it. And sometimes…sometimes I think it looks like people you love. Just to hurt you. […] You get rid of it, okay? Just sleep with someone as soon as you can. Just pass it along. If it kills you, it’ll come after me. Do you understand?”

That quote from the cowardly cad Hugh who infects the female protagonist with it pretty much sums up the film’s plot and premise. Otherwise the mythos of It – where It came from or anything meaningful about It other than Its relentless pursuit of Its prey, albeit at leisurely walking pace – remains tantalizingly unknown, adding to the creepiness.

The film received critical acclaim and grossed many times more than its shoestring budget – which is something of the appeal of horror films for studios – prompting a sequel presently in development, They Follow.

It has also achieved, dare I say it, a cult following “with many calling it a modern horror classic and one of the best horror films of the 2010s” – “smart, original and, above all, terrifying, It Follows is the rare modern horror film that works on multiple levels – and leaves a lingering sting.”

Part of those levels or that sting is the deeper thematic interpretations with respect to the source and symbolism of It – of which the most obvious is that STD allegory but which extends to other meanings.

As per its director – “I’m not personally that interested in where ‘it’ comes from. To me, it’s dream logic in the sense that they’re in a nightmare, and when you’re in a nightmare there’s no solving the nightmare. Even if you try to solve it…We’re all here for a limited amount of time and we can’t escape our mortality… but love and sex are two ways in which we can at least temporarily push death away.”

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

(7) THE HITCHER (1986)

 

Things are about to get a whole lot…schlockier (and more idiosyncratic) in my top five horror films. But as I like to say, there’s no such thing as a bad B-grade horror film. (Although I’m not entirely sure that there’s such a thing as an A-grade horror film either).

It’s not exactly high art – indeed, it’s mostly exploitative – but there’s just something about The Hitcher, a “road action-horror” film with Rutger Hauer in the title role (or Sean Bean if you saw the remake but you really should have watched the original).

The plot is simple enough – a young man driving across the United States narrowly escapes death at the hands of the titular hitcher, a travelling serial killer, but then finds himself in a weirdly co-dependent cat-and-mouse game with the killer. Like many slasher films, the killer (who goes by the name of John Ryder), is not supernatural, but seemingly comes close in his invulnerability and his ability to shadow the protagonist.

Or in this case, Hauer seems to be replicating his replicant role from Blade Runner (and as usual, Hauer is awesome in this). As I have argued with a friend who insists upon classifying every SF film as action – if you want to see a non-SF action The Terminator, see The Hitcher. (My usual sarcastic line when he states The Terminator is action not SF – “Really? The film with its entire premise as a cyborg travelling in time back from a future Robot War isn’t SF?!)

As a bonus (at least according to TV Tropes), the film was inspired by The Doors’ song Riders on the Storm – “There’s a killer on the road / His brain is squirming like a toad / Take a long holiday / Let the children play / If you give this man a ride / Sweet family will die”. Even more so as the film opens on the road in a storm and the Hitcher gives his name as John Ryder.

 

 

RATING: 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

*

Film poster art

 

(6) DEAD & BURIED (1981)

 

And now for one of my true guilty pleasures, as things continue along the schlockier and more idiosyncratic vein of my fifth place entry – but hot damn, I have a soft spot for this film, ever since I stumbled upon it. Yes, it’s somewhat obscure and off the beaten cinematic track. It had a decent enough scriptwriting pedigree – written by the writers of Alien – but it didn’t perform well at the box office and was even initially banned as a “video nasty” in the United Kingdom, yet acquired something of a cult following.

It’s a zombie film with a bit of a difference – and a hell of a few twists, particularly a “twist ending that would give M. Night Shyamalan a run for his money”. Grisly mob lynchings start being committed against tourists passing through the small, sleepy peaceful New England town of Potter’s Bluff, only for the victims to then appear again in the town – while the sheriff investigates, drawn from one level of existential horror to another.

 

RATING: 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

*

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

One of the variant promotional art used for the film (on the DVD cover)

 

 

(5) 28 DAYS LATER (2002 – PRESENT)

 

Yes, I’m counting the franchise through 28 Weeks Later through to 28 Years Later (skipping over 28 Months Later) but the first film remains the best, arguably the most definitive modern zombie horror film after Romero and Russo – certainly bringing new life (heh) to the fast zombie trope.

It helped to bring the fast zombie trope up to speed (heh) that the zombies aren’t actually dead but virally infected, reduced to mindlessness but for the titular rage of the virus – with no purpose but to attack uninfected people. The virus is the true terror, terrifyingly contagious both in its speed and ease of infection through bodily fluids.

Of course, this undermines the apocalyptic premise if you think about it, like zombie apocalypse films in general but perhaps even more so given that the infected are still alive but without any cognitive ability to preserve their life. Forget the starvation that is proposed as the “cure” – I’m pretty sure dehydration would get them before that, particularly given the copious amounts of blood they tend to vomit up when infected, not to mention a few other things that I anticipate would get them as well.

For that matter, the spread of the virus would be limited in that it is transmitted only by infected bodily fluids – typically on contact from an infected attacking you – and has an almost instantaneous transmission period. Yes – that makes it more terrifying if you get an infected pop up in a population center but essentially it spreads like a human relay race, with one infected passing the viral baton on to another (if the latter survives the attack before becoming infected). It’s not airborne and has no gestation period that would allow it to spread by anything less obvious than an infected person attacking you or over any distance (since infected people seem to be dormant or hibernate if no one is in their sensory range).

Also, like other zombie apocalypse films in general that show the real enemy is not so much the zombies as one’s fellow humans – here it’s animal rights activists (and children in the sequel film 28 Weeks Later). Okay, fine – it’s also mad horny soldiers (and sheer military ineptitude on the same level of having a button marked push for zombies in the sequel 28 Weeks Later).

But seriously, animal rights activists are to blame for the release of the virus in the first place. In fairness, I also blame the scientist for obtusely telling them the laboratory chimpanzees are infected with “rage” rather than a lethally contagious disease that can spread in seconds. It practically begs the skeptical response – “Yeah, I’d be pretty angry too!”

Nitpicking aside, there’s no denying the sheer impact of the first film, including the fast zombie action that might be described as frenetic or kinetic – indeed one reviewer described the film as “kinetically directed”.

The second film – not directed by Danny Boyle but by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo – maintained this impact in its fantastic opening scene (which also introduces children as the real villains of the film) but fell off after that, preferring to make some sort of point about US military ineptitude (I think) but fumbling even that as it only does so through contriving that same ineptitude to stupidity beyond suspension of disbelief.

The third film returns to the form (and visual direction) of the first film, not surprisingly as Danny Boyle returned as director, at least in its first act or so. After that, your mileage may vary.

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

The iconic film poster art

 

 

(4) JAWS (1975)

 

DA-DUM

 

The original and still the best shark horror movie – as well as the source of my enduring fandom of shark movies. And yet I still go swimming at the beach most days in summer and warm days in winter. Of course, there’s not too many giant great white sharks at my beach. I hope.

Based on the best-selling novel by Peter Benchley, it is one of those rare examples where the movie exceeds the book – because the film skipped all the small-town drama (Matt Hooper has an affair with Sheriff Brody’s wife?!) which one skipped over for the shark attacks when reading the book anyway.

It was fortuitous that the mechanical sharks, nicknamed Bruce, malfunctioned more often than not, as they were not terribly realistic (I’ve seen the one at the Hollywood Universal Studios tour), but more importantly, they forced director Steven Spielberg to substitute effects designed at suggesting the shark’s presence – including the now iconic ominous and minimalist orchestral theme by composer John Williams. These effects tend to be more tense (and haunting) than the actual appearance of the shark.

The plot – including effects, images and lines from the film – is ingrained into popular culture, revolving around the film’s antagonist, the giant great white shark preying on people in the waters of Amity Island. (Although the town’s mayor becomes something of a secondary antagonist, as he doesn’t seem to mind the shark chowing down on tourists so long as they’ve spent those delicious tourist dollars in the town first). A trio famously formed to hunt the shark – police sheriff Brody, marine biologist Hooper and everyone’s favorite insane professional shark hunter Ahab Quint.

“Now considered one of the greatest films ever made, Jaws was the prototypical summer blockbuster, with its release regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history. Jaws became the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of Star Wars”.

Not bad for a simple shark horror movie.

 

RATING: 

A-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

Theatrical release poster art

 

(3) THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (2012)

 

“On another level, it’s a serious critique of what we love and what we don’t about horror movies.”

I’m ranking The Cabin in the Woods in top tier, because it is virtually an encyclopedia of horror film genre tropes and references, the latter so congested at times you have to pause or watch frame by frame to get them all (and probably not even then).

It is a horror film that is also meta-horror – a love letter to the genre, or more precisely a love-hate letter to the genre.

“I love being scared. I love that mixture of thrill, of horror, that objectification / identification thing of wanting definitely for the people to be alright but at the same time hoping they’ll go somewhere dark and face something awful. The things that I don’t like are kids acting like idiots, the devolution of the horror movie into torture p0rn and into a long series of sadistic comeuppances.”

That is of course from Joss Whedon as producer and co-writer of the screenplay, the latter with director Drew Goddard as the other co-writer” – and the film is definitely Whedonesque in its troperiffic and reference-heavy quality (rather than the more, ah, negative qualities that might be associated with that term from developments since that film). Indeed, it has distinct similarities with the creation that still is definitive of Whedon – Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4 and the Initiative in particular.

“Five friends go to an isolated cabin in the woods for a weekend vacation.”

And that’s pretty much all you’re getting of the plot here, because any more detail spoils the premise of the film. Let’s just say the premise of the film explains why the plots of horror films often seem so contrived in a deconstruction of both the “cabin in the woods” setting and the horror genre.

Film critic Ann Hornaday summed it up nicely:

“A fiendishly clever brand of meta-level genius propels The Cabin in the Woods, a pulpy, deceivingly insightful send-up of horror movies that elicits just as many knowing chuckles as horrified gasps. [It] comes not only to praise the slasher-, zombie- and gore-fests of yore but to critique them, elaborating on their grammatical elements and archetypal figures even while searching for ways to put them to novel use. The danger in such a loftily ironic approach is that everything in the film appears with ready-made quotation marks around it… But by then, the audience will have picked up on the infectiously goofy vibe of an enterprise that, from its first sprightly moments, clearly has no intention of taking itself too seriously”.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

*

 

(2) THE WICKER MAN (1973)

 

No – not the one with the bees, Robin Hardy’s original cult classic “creep-fest starring Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee – with a final reel that’s become an intrinsic piece of horror iconography”.

Of course, it’s slow-burn horror more in the sense of classical tragedy of creeping doom a la Euripides’ The Bacchae (and a stealth sequel to Caesar’s The Gallic Wars). Also a classic in the subgenre of folk horror – horror based on old folklore or old folkloric rituals, typically the pagan faiths of yore as here. While it was most common in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, it’s surprisingly prevalent, particularly in the so-called folk horror revival in the 2010s – The Wicker Man is predecessor to 2019’s Midsommar.

A Variety article summed it up nicely – “It’s a film set on an island in the Scottish Hebrides, full of gnarly blokes in pubs, that turns out to be a secret sect of Celtic pagan worship. There are dances around the maypole and nymphs leaping through fire, and there is Christopher Lee, sinister in a benevolent sherry-club way, as if he were presiding over a kinky episode of “Fantasy Island,” as the commune’s lord and master. There’s period kitsch in “The Wicker Man,” yet the movie taps into something memorable: a death cult that wears a gleaming smile, as if it were the missing link between Charles Manson’s followers and the Jonestown horde. In spirit, the film takes off from the last scene of “Rosemary’s Baby,” with all those devil worshippers gathered for a party in the Castavets’ apartment — a terrifying vision of middle-class evil. Yet “The Wicker Man” lands, if anything, in an even more unruly place. Watching it, you can’t see the devil, but you can see the scary power of mass belief”.

Also – naked Britt Ekland (and Britt Ekland’s body double) with that infamous wall-slapping seductive dancing and singing.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

*

Evil Dead poster art that I’d argue has transcended film iconography and become part of the Jungian collective unconscious

 

 

(1) EVIL DEAD (1981-1992 / 2013-2023)

 

Hail to the king, baby!

What else? The Evil Dead, the film and the following franchise, are not high art but they embody (in virtually every sense of that word) the archetypal B-grade horror movie in all its fun and glory, with tongue ever more firmly in cheek.

As stated by TV Tropes – “in 1979, a bunch of college dropouts got together in a cabin in Tennessee and made a film with a standard B-Movie plot; this film was The Evil Dead. The film, which was directed by Sam Raimi and starred (the chin himself) Bruce Campbell, succeeded through elaborate gore effects, slick cinematography, and sheer audacity to make enough money to warrant two sequels and get into the public consciousness”.

It is remarkable that a movie made by college dropouts on a shoestring budget – and effects that resemble claymation or plasticine at times – should have any impact upon public consciousness, let alone the enduring impact it and its sequels had upon mine.

“Join us, Ashleeeeey!”

You know you’re in a for a gory horror ride in the first movie, as the classic group of teenagers heads to the classic cabin in the woods. There they unfortunately locate the demonic Book of the Dead or Necronomicon (borrowing from Lovecraft) which was studied by the cabin’s previous occupant – and even more unfortunately play the tape of the recitation invoking the Sumerian demons (although something seems to have been stalking the cabin and woods even prior to that recitation). Those demons possess each of them in turn, turning them into the titular evil dead which then attack the others, until ultimately only one of them, Ashley, is left to fend off the demons (including his girlfriend). This first film works quite effectively as horror, particularly as Ashley or Ash becomes the lone survivor fending off the evil dead in the seemingly eldritch architecture of the cabin. I mean, it’s probably the frantic cinematography but how many rooms does that cabin have? It’s like the Tardis in there. And you know it’s going to get bloody (and oh boy does it ever) when a further playing of the tape reveals that the only way to destroy the evil dead is…bodily dismemberment! Ewww!

The second film (Evil Dead 2), a partial remake and partial sequel, was made with more money but lacks the pure horror of the first, as embracing the absurdity of the premise, it moved from horror to comedy (and Ash became more invulnerable to the demonic threat).

The third film (Army of Darkness) fully embraced all its cheesy goodness and rule of cool as it almost entirely abandoned horror altogether for dark fantasy comedy, yet utterly glorious as a result (while Ash completed his transition into a virtually indestructible superhero). It follows from the second film, which saw Ash magically transported through time to the Middle Ages (yeah, it’s like that), in medieval Europe or perhaps the Latin kingdoms of the Crusades, where he soon has to face off against an undead army. It had the biggest budget of the original trilogy, as well as being the most well-known and quoted, with its memetic one-liners.

The franchise saw a remake of the original film with the Evil Dead film of 2013 – decent enough but somewhat forgettable as lacking the same pulpy fun and tongue-in-cheek humor of the original. That changed dramatically with the fifth entry into the franchise, Evil Dead Rise in 2023, which returned to the spirit and style of the original trilogy (and Evil Dead mythos) but with its own fun twists – and also perhaps the only Deadite that’s strangely…arousing. Whose your mummy?

The franchise has also seen a TV series, comics adaptations, video games…and a theatre musical?

Groovy!

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

*

*

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

(1) THE EVIL DEAD

(2) THE WICKER MAN

(3) THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

 

If The Evil Dead and The Wicker Man are my Old Testament of horror films, then The Cabin in the Woods is my Old Testament (and kinda a fusion of both The Evil Dead and The Wicker Man)

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

(4) JAWS

(5) 28 DAYS LATER

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(6) DEAD & BURIED

(7) THE HITCHER

(8) IT FOLLOWS

(9) THE RITUAL

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER):  BEST OF 2025

 

(10) SINNERS