I've only ever read one book by Neil Gaiman; Stardust, and I was so disappointed by it that it put me off him completely.

I've been reading Cities in Flight by James Blish. It's actually four stories bundled together, and this is one of the reasons I'm not particularly keen on it. The first book was brilliant, but for me things start to go wrong with the second. The first gives you this big setup to the momentous events it concludes with and lays the ground for.

The second book picks up more than 350 years later, following events only tenuously connected to the setup the first book left behind, while dropping some tantalising details of events that took place in that gap without giving any more detail than is strictly necessary. And to be frank, what's skipped over sounds to be far more interesting than the actual story. But it was still a reasonable story.

Book three was pretty bad in my opinion. Too much happened, too quickly, and too coincidentally. The impression I got was one of the author throwing mud at a wall to see what stuck. It also introduces a few things that have never been mentioned before, without any kind of setup to justify their inclusion or even a decent explanation of them.

I've only just started book four, but I'm not too optimistic about it given that it's completely left behind the title, as the city that the story follows is no longer capable of flying. And the author seems to have decided to arbitrarily bump the stakes even higher than in the third book, and he went pretty mad with that towards the end.

I recall reading those back in the decade they were written. Those were the days when the library came to you in rural areas, and I was just getting into reading Sci-Fi. (At around the same age my contemporaries were just getting into reading!)

They're probably better if you read them as a kid, or maybe you have to read them before they get old.

I'm still slowing working my way through The Great Hunt, book two of Wheel of Time. Between assembling the PC, building a modded Oblivion install, and neck, shoulders and back pain making it nowadays unpleasant to lie down for any great length of time I'm not doing nearly as much daily reading as normal.(Since early adulthood I've done almost the whole of my pleasure reading abed.)

At 0300 this morning I finished my seventh reading of Robert Jordan's The Great Hunt, book two of The Wheel of Time. Took me long enough! At this rate I'll end the year having read fewer books than any year since developing a passion for reading in early adulthood.

At 2300 yesterday evening I completed my sixth reading of Robert Jordan's The Dragon Reborn, book three of The Wheel of Time. I started in on book four but nodded off almost before I began.

At 2210 yesterday evening I finished my sixth reading of Robert Jordan's The Shadow Rising, book four of The Wheel of Time. This volume houses some of my favorite story-lines in the series. Rand and Mat's initial visit to Rhuidean and the unraveling of the Aile past. The breaking of the White Tower. First and foremost, Perrin and Faile in The Two Rivers.

I place much blame for my lessening of interest during the middle volumes on the Perrin-Faile story-line in general and Faile as a character in particular. Thankfully that's not in evident here. Not yet. Yes, Faile already displays some of the characteristics that will later make many of her passages hard to endure, but at this stage they are sufficiently offset by more admirable qualities.

Tanchico is pretty darn good too. I honestly don't think this volume has any major faults. A minor flaw...during a confrontation in Tanchico Jordan uses the stale device of letting the "villain" gloat over her supposed certain victory over an opponent, in the process revealing much valuable info about a valuable object to that opponent, who wins out in the end. Jordan himself attempts to justify the reveal in the following paragraph, but for me the explanation doesn't quite pan out. Not a lease breaker, but regrettable in a book of this caliber.

I began book five, The Fires of Heaven, after finishing Shadow, but fell asleep after about twenty pages.

It is not exactly reading, but for this weekend The HPLHS has their Dark Adventure Radio Theater production of The Call of Cthulhu free for download. It is very cool. I highly recommend it.

Oooh Khajiit is getting it!

Just got done listening. Found it was rather enjoyable!

At 2314 yesterday evening I concluded my sixth reading of Robert Jordan's The Fires of Heaven, book five of The Wheel of Time. Another fine series entry, the highlight of which, for me, is Mat's "antics" during the battle at Cairhien. If forced to assess individual novels up this point I'd place book four slightly higher, but that's splitting hairs. Some consider this the last high quality entry prior to the series' mid-books decline. I disagree, considering book six amongst Jordan's best. Leastwise that has been my opinion during all previous series reads. We shall soon (?) see if my stance survives unaltered.

Even my listing of completion times and dates scribbled inside the book's cover proved of interest to me. It shows my initial reading to have ended on 1 Jan 1996, followed by a seconded reading finished 26 Feb of the same year! I initially assumed one of those dates to be in error. Not so. My computer reading log for 1996 shows that I indeed concluded my initial reading when I said I did, then went back and began reading the series from book one, eventually reaching and re-reading book five. I don't think it's possible for me to read that many massive volumes in anywhere close to that short a time-span any more.

I suppose it goes without saying, thought I'm obviously about to, that I will likely begin book six, Lord of Chaos, by day's end.

Just bought a super cool new collection of selected works of Edgar Allan Poe!
https://i.imgur.com/im9T3jc.jpg

That does indeed look damn cool Cheshire.

I'm reading through my Star Wars: X-Wing books. Because I love them. And it's a nice change of pace for the Star Wars universe to not be Jedi vs Sith

And because it reminds me of playing the games

It's so pretty! It has black edged pages!

Khajiit has never read any Star Wars books. Is that strange given how much he likes Star Wars?

Elric of Melnibone!

At 0252 this morning I concluded my fifth reading of Robert Jordan’s Lord of Chaos, book six of The Wheel of Time. The final reading session occurred during a left-sided migraine, which explains why I was up so early. (To be fair, being awake for the day prior to 0300 isn’t all that uncommon for me. In this particular case, my head, neck, and at times stomach hurt so much I got no sleep at all.) It has been extraordinarily rare for me to get left-sided migraines since circa 1999. Due to recently being permanently (?) denied one of my two highly effective migraine medicines, such attacks are apt to become more commonplace in the future. Or rather, not being able to quickly terminate such attacks when they do occur will be the norm.

My first reading ended 8 January 1996. I made a slip-up on the inside-cover and first wrote the completion time as 1128, then overwrote the first two numbers to reflect the correct time, 2328. The month is written in cursive script. I do not recall if that was my norm at the time. Cursive disappeared by my seconding reading, 2004.

Sometime between my second and third reading (2007) I realized that “re” in “reread” was unneeded, since all readings beyond the first are by default re-readings. Therefore, completion two reads “reread...” while subsequent completions read “read...”.

All reading annotations appear as follows, using completion one as example:

“Read 2328hrs, 8 January 1996
<my unreadable signature>”

I am aware, and always have been aware, that adding “hrs” to military time is incorrect. I add it to cleanly differentiate time of day from day of the month. “2328hrs, 8 January...” is, for me, easier to decipher than “2328hrs, 8 January...”. (Notice that I type military time correctly elsewhere in this posting.)

As to the book itself…

Many consider this the first “lesser” Wheel volume. I have never before believed this, seeing book seven as beginning Wheel’s mid-series slump. This reading, more so than in the past, I begin to see validity in the opposing opinion. For me, it has to do with the sudden lack of almost any relieving humor and “lightness” in a series that previously supplied a good balance of light and dark elements. Certainly George Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire makes do without humor or lightness from the get-go to no ill effect. (Watchers of GOT get lightness and humor thrown in, but that’s TV for you.) With Lord of Chaos it’s not so much that such elements are greatly reduced but that we are not yet used to their near absence. Or so I believe.

Despite that, book six contains some of the best writing in the series. The whole business between the two competing Aes Sedai embassies and Rand from its beginning through the confrontation at Dumai’s Wells is for me utterly magnificent. I surprised myself in that after so many reading, including a few devoted solely to the book’s last hundred or so pages, my eyes still misted a number of times beginning when the true reason for Rand’s “disappearance” was finally unearthed and on through to the end, with tears soaking my pillow at the climax of Dumai. If I haven’t already, a rarity, I invariably lose it at Taim’s utterance, “Kneel and swear to the Dragon Reborn.”, followed by “...or you will be knelt.”

So my high opinion of book six remains. I do, however, now see in it foreshadowings of the slump that is to come. (This assumes, of course, that you see the series’ change in tone as negative.)

Just finished reading Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. Didn't fare quite so well the second time around. And I'd forgotten how bad that ending was. Triple chosen one with a double deus ex. Bleurgh

I've now moved on to The Lord of the Rings, and have started by skipping the first nine chapters. I've always thought that the opening Hobbit section was too long, and I remember everything that happens in there anyway.

So are you starting with The Hobbit or with The Lord of the Rings proper?

The Lord of the Rings

I'm just skipping to the point where Strider turns up.

Gotcha

At 1657 this afternoon, during supper, I concluded my fifth reading of Robert Jordan's A Crown of Swords, book seven of The Wheel of Time. In the past I've felt this to be the volume which began the series' mid-book slump. This time round I noticed little evidence of that, though I did catch slight forewarnings in earlier parts of book six, a volume I previously considered above suspicion. Were I forced single out one plot-line of Crown as being my favorite, I might settle on the search for the Bowl of the Winds in Ebou Dar. That's likely due in large part to it being somewhat Mat centric. Jordan always did right by Mat Cauthon, imo.

I'm now a few pages into book eight, The Path of Daggers.

At 1135 this morning, just after lunch, I concluded my fourth reading of Robert Jordan's The Path of Daggers, book eight of The Wheel of Time. Next up, Winter's Heart.

Dove into The Silmarillion over the weekend.

At 1139 today, at the tail end of lunch, I finished Winter's Heart, book nine of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series. An enjoyable entry. As is often the case, my favorite sections were those centered on Mat Cauthon, who has at last found (or been found out by) the Daughter of the Nine Moons. The book's ending wasn't half bad either.

Next up, Crossroads of Twilight.

Really nice book, Khajiit...

Lol, this one bets you like the cover of it! Thanks, Khajiit is most pleased with it.

Burned through The Silmarillion, and now onto The Hobbit!

Just read Sir Pterry's "Moving Pictures" where the magic of the cinema really is magic. It ends with a giant woman climbing the highest building in the city with a (heroic) ape in her hand, having parodied "Gone with the wind" and several others along the way.

Since I haven’t bought any Cyberpunk books yet (apart from Blade Runner) I’m making do with Tom Clancy’s books + LotR and the Silmarillion + Asimov’s Foundation series. Eclectic I know but once I get my hands on Neuromancer and some other pieces I’ve been eying up...

I’ll be hot drek, chummers.

Left over Thanksgiving dinner as it should be .

At 1322 this afternoon I concluded my third reading of Robert Jordan's Crossroads of Twilight, book ten of The Wheel of Time. This is the volume I've, in previous readings, considered the series' weakest. I suppose I still do, though I believe I enjoyed it more this time round. For those who might not remember (or never knew) it covers the "progress" of several separate groups of people from soon before to not long after Rand's struggles to cleanse saidin at the climax of book nine, Winter's Heart. Crossroads is mostly plot development with no great battles or magic duels to speak of. As is so often the case in these mid series books, my favorite section was Mat's, near the end.

Next up, Knife of Dreams, in which Jordan largely redeems himself, producing the most exciting volumes in some time. It is also the final entry written before his death and the beginning of Brandon Sanderson's involvement with the concluding books. Leastwise I've considered it Jordan's redemption in the past. We'll see how it goes this time round.

At 1238 today I concluded my third reading of Robert Jordan's Knife of Dreams, book eleven of The Wheel of Time. This is Jordan's swansong, his final self-completed series entry prior to an untimely death. It's the volume that, during prior reads, I considered the series' recovery from what I then felt was a mid books slump. This time round I don't so much see those of middle books as lesser quality but rather a deliberate change in tone, less humorous and heroic than their predecessors. Knife merely returns us, to an extent, to the tone of early volumes. Or so I now believe. (OK. Not so far as humor is considered. Knife remains pretty bleak.)

I like pretty much every sub-plot in Knife, Egwene - White Tower. Mat - Tuon and so on. As usual, Perrin - Faile held the least interest for me, and even it had its moments.

Next up, the first Jordan-Sanderson combo, The Gathering Storm. From here on these will be second readings.

I've been reading the Flinx books by Alan Dean Foster. He wrote them as a series of about four or five, and then went back and filled in the time-line with more later. To further confuse things, there are non-series books set in the same context - same planets, some of the same characters. I read a lot of them when they came out in paperback, so in the order they were written. This time I'm reading in the story's chronological order. I don't have a number of the ones he wrote later, and I've just paused at the point where I don't have the "next" one.

I already have the next four books of Discworld downloaded to my Nook for the Christmas holiday travel reading, but I don't want to start on those, or I might have to watch the awful movies on the plane.

A throwaway line in Rogue One had me looking up the Legends version of the Darksaber. End result is me now reading it with a bunch more on my list; it was a rabbit hole for other post-RotJ (EU/L) books. Like, a truckload more. WHEW

I'm reading Dragon Wing, the first book of The Death Gate Cycle Not too far through it yet, but it's off to an interesting start.

At 1251 today I finished my second reading of The Gathering Storm, book twelve of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, the first of the final three books Brandon Sanderson completed following Jordan's 2007 death. In his forward, Sanderson states that no one could write the book as well as Jordan himself could have. I was reminded of this time and time again while reading Storm, especially early on. That said, Sanderson does a commendable job. In particular his treatment of Egwene and the White Tower, a focal point of the book, does Jordan proud. Rand is, I think, quite well handled too, though by this stage he is so utterly transformed that comparisons with his former self are largely meaningless. On the other hand Aviendha's brief appearances, she receives almost no coverage here, don't ring true for me.

This book reinforces my newfound belief that the series does NOT slump in the middle but instead merely undergoes dramatic change in "tone." I in no way see this as a bad thing, though I can understand why some of those drawn to the series by the early books' heroics, sense of wonder, and humor might not appreciate what they later morphed into.

I will almost certainly begin book thirteen, Towers of Midnight, by day's end. I doubt I'll finish it before the turn of the year. If so, Storm will be my twenty-first and final completed read of 2017.

My year of reading - 2017:

This past year is a tough one for me to report on. First off, though as a retiree I've more time to read than in years past, and indeed devoted a fair amount of time to reading, it must be admitted that my thinking processes aren't what they once were, and I was never an overly fast thinker. In consequence, I completed a grand total of only twenty-one novel length books during 2017. Not shabby, but nothing to write home about.

My "favorite new read of the year" is, as only rarely happens, not fantasy but rather a factual book on an aspect of US politics. It shall remain nameless for fear of stirring up discussion of the sort rightly frowned on in this forum.

I read only one fantasy novel new to me last year, though it is by no means a newly published work: "Illusion" by Paula Volsky. It also happens to be the first book I completed in 2017. I enjoyed it, but not to the extent of considering it my "favorite new fantasy read of 2017," an honorific which will remain vacant due to lack of contenders.

My "best re-read of the year" is also a tough call. I re-read both "A Song of Ice and Fire" and "The Wheel of Time" this past year, not yet quite finishing WOT. I'm inclined to give the nod to Wheel, as I feel I've gotten more out of the books this time round than ever before, even changing my stance on its 'mid-books slump,' which as of this reading I no longer believe occurs.

My "disappointment of the year?" No outright winner there either, again due to lack of competition. The novel I enjoyed least was a third reading of Julian May's "The Many-Colored Land." But that's somewhat unfair, as I'm just not much into books with strong sci-fi elements, which Land has/is.

There you have it. I believe the above takes into account every book read during 2017, with the exception of one factual political work.

At 2102 this evening, 1 Jan 2018, I completed my second reading of the penultimate volume of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, Towers of Midnight. As with the preceding book, at times I felt Sanderson's handling of certain characters' speech and thoughts not quite in total sync with how I envision Jordan handling them. Despite that, I find Towers a strong series entry. Too, I do not know what writing is pure Sanderson, what pure Jordan, and what a combination of the two. It would be ironic indeed should I learn that the writing I find not quite Jordanesque enough is actually that of the master himself!

My favorite scenario in Towers might well be Aviendha's revelations at Rhuidean. I found Mat and the gang's "visit" to the Tower near book end a bit of a mixed bag. That said, one section of that excursion had my eyes misting, for me a sure sign of a great read.

I'll likely begin the series' final volume, A Memory of Light, shortly. Due to it being near bedtime, I doubt I'll get far before nodding off.

As it's been some time since my last attempt, I'm taking another stab at reading the Malazan Book of the Fallen series again

Good luck. Popular as that series is, I couldn't make myself continue on past book one, with which I struggled mightily to finish. Just not my thing. An obviously minority stance, but there it is.

As for myself, I'm still slugging away at A Memory of Light, slowed greatly by having become utterly addicted to the game Mashinky, which consumes almost my entire existence, to the abandonment of almost all else. With this reading of Memory more so that the last, I bemoan Jordan not being able to finish the series on his own. Sanderson does fine work, but too often as I read I am reminded that he's no Jordan, as he himself admits in the preface to The Gathering Storm, the first series entry he brought to completion.

Currently flipping through a Japanese dictionary. Quite advanced for my level but it is interesting to look through it and being able to read (and understand) a few things here and there.

What order is it in? My understanding of Kanji is that for purposes of things like phone directories, there's an order to the glyphs that relates to the number of strokes to draw it, but the Unicode binary sequence may or may not have duplicated that, and is the most likely to get used in on-line things.

With a stroke-count order, the basic concepts (the easy words) are at the beginning, so you think you're understanding a higher proportion than you really are.

Just saw that Urula K. Le Guin had died at 88. Her Earthsea trilogy was an early fantasy read for me. I later read its initial follow up, and much later read her several late add ons to the cycle. Good stuff. Maybe it's due another reading once I finish The Wheel of time. We shall see.

Speaking of Wheel, I'm at about the halfway point, progress slowed by devoting much of my time to the game Mashinky. For me, this volume more so than the first two Sanderson contributions suffers in comparison to those books Jordan was able to complete before his demise. It has to do with character portrayals I think. Jordan was a master character writer. Sanderson, in comparison, not so much. Still, I don't want to dis on Sanderson, who does a commendable job overall.

At 1501 today, 25 Feb 2018, I completed my second reading of A Memory of Light, final book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. First read I felt it one of the series’ weaker entries, mostly due to what I saw as short-sheeted conclusions to some long standing plot lines. This time around I still consider it weak, but for a different reason. It now seems to me that many character have lost something of their unique colorful personalities, which Jordan was so good at depicting in those volumes he completed on his own. Be that as it may, I credit Sanderson with doing a satisfactory and often more than satisfactory job of wrapping things up in the three final books.

Took me nearly two months to read Memory. No good reason for that. Yeah, I was ill during part of that time, and hooked on a game for much of it. But I’ve been in those situations before and still been able to finish books in what I consider “reasonable” time for my slow reading pace.

I’ve tentatively started a re-reading of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Earthsea Trilogy, reacquainting myself with the recently deceased author.

At 1712 today, at the tail end of supper, I finished my fifth reading of Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, book one of The Earthsea Trilogy. Earthsea is one of first novels I read following my conversion to fantasy in the mid 80's. I liked it then. I like it now. I will of course continue on with book two, The Tombs of Atuan.

At 1323 yesterday afternoon, 14 Mar 2018, I concluded my fifth reading of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Tombs of Atuan, book two of The Earthsea Trilogy, and am already some way into the final volume, The Farthest Shore. A fine series I'm glad to become acquainted with again. (It's been nearly fourteen years since their last reading.)

A few days ago the power was out for 24 hours, so during the hours when I had natural light, I read Poul Anderson's "Satan's World" - all about a rogue planet of ice that's passing close to a giant star and warming briefly, before the hyberbolic path takes it back into open space. With the snow outside, it was just the right story.

At 0006 this morning (I was already up for the day! ) I concluded my fourth reading of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Farthest Shore, finale volume of The Earthsea Trilogy. I'm now 68 pages into Tehanu, the Last Book of Earthsea.

I'm reading H.P. Lovecraft's Great Tales of Horror for the second time, for the first time I couldn't get into Lovecraft and I found some stories boring, even hard to understand at times, but the more I read, the more I liked them, so now I'm reading them for the second time, finding even those I had found boring before, to be great. In the coming week I should receive his complete fiction, ordered from the UK. The delivery is free worldwide, but even if I had to pay for the delivery, the book still costs much less as if I bought it in Slovenian stores.

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has a ton of Lovecraft stuff for sale, including his entire works on audio book. They did a few movies - The Call of Cthulhu and The Whisperer in Darkness, which are both stellar. The Dark Adventure Radio Theater episodes are awesome.