19.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow.  When I first started reading this I was already warming up my superlatives.  It has such a strong, plucky, characterful start.  Then it all goes suddenly wrong, and it never recovers.  Pacing is a massive issue, with great big chunks of flashback, told in third person, that are thoroughly uninteresting and cripple momentum of the story.  Not that it really matters after a while, as the main story fizzles away after a firecracker start.  Prose swings wildly from brilliant to cringing, with dialogue being particularly weak, which is perhaps why Harrow doesn’t use it so much.  It’s a shame, really, as in those first few pages I was thinking this might be an early contender for favourite new read of the year.

Okay then.

Raiziel wrote:

Okay then.

/winkysmile

Read a review of that in last weekend's Observer. It looks interesting.

I read too slowly (I.e. fall asleep) to read much so I won’t be getting beyond one or two books this year, unless I go on holiday.

I’ve picked up Foundation in anticipation of the TV show hitting Apple TV later this year and it’s a bit weird. It feels familiar, but the dated elements (physical tickets for example) feel out of place. I’m reading it more to understand what the differences will be.

It also seems like @Raiziel has similar reading taste to me. I too enjoyed Dark Matter and also a Clive Barker fan (as a younger man I found they expanded my horizons of imagination; Weaveworld, Imajica and Galilee being standouts) And also love Tolkien, but not much other fantasy (my exceptions being The Thomas Covenant books by Stephen Donaldson and The Demon Cycle books by Peter V Brett).

I’ve attempted The Silmarillion a couple times now, but felt I was reading something like the bible and found it quite difficult to carry on.

Lord_Griff wrote:

I agree with Raz on the door book.

Hurray!

@b0r1s I read the first Foundation book a year or two ago and hated it. While the scope is massive, all it really amounts to as far as the narrative is concerned is a bunch of important men in rooms making important decisions. I imagine The show runners of the Apple series have had to get really creative to make it something worth watching. I’ll definitely watch the show, but I certainly won’t be reading any more Foundation novels.

High five for liking Barker! I consider his three best to be Weaveworld, The Great and Secret Show, and Imajica. I picked up the hardback of Galilee when it first came out, but drifted away from it after a hundred pages or so. Went back to it about two years ago and finished it this time around. It pains me to say it but I didn’t like it at all. It was all just so...dull. Barker has created such vibrant, evocative worlds in the past, and there was barely any of that wild creativity on display in Galilee. I read Coldheart Canyon after that and that was even worse. So I think Barker burned twice as bright but only for half as long. He’s been gravely I’ll over the last few years, so his output has reflected that, but he’s got a new book on the way called Deep Hill. Will deffo keep an on reviews for that one, but won’t be pouncing on the hardback right away like the old days.

I’m really wary of Donaldson now. I read the first six Covenant books back in the early nineties. Loved them with a passion at the time. Went back for a reread a few years ago and really didn’t think they held up. Damn shame, really, as it ruined some fond memories.

Will add them to the long list.

Finished Vol.1 of Runciman's History of the Crusades

What a chaotic time to have lived with the Pope and the Byzantine emperor over the Western and Eastern Christians (also split along Greek and Latin lines), and the Europeans - goaded by Pope Urban II - rampaging into the Holy Land to retake Antioch and Jerusalem from the Turks.

The book ends in 1099 with Palestine (Jerusalem being the jewel) under the control of European Knights -  with Baldwin crowned king but looking to strengthen their position by getting proper defences and trade in place. The Moslem factions had the land carved up between them but hated each other as much as the Christians - and the Egyptians and Turks were looking to stake their claim too.

Cities scoured, populations slaughtered, walls attacked by the use of gigantic siege towers built on-site, holy patriarchs put in cages and thrown over the wall to hang there occasionally, disease and starvation rampant.....

Not a time to be a commoner. And we think we have it bad with covid-19.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.

I'm sure there are a pile of analyses for this novella. Readable in one sitting. It's one of those famous stories I never read but while I'm between historic tomes I thought I'd pick this one off. It's very readable while being very odd. It's also very sad. One to get the old grey matter musing though. Glad I read this and I suspect would reward repeat reading.

23.  Lavondyss by Robert Holdstock.  Another reread.  It’s been thirty years since I first read this, and it left an indelible mark on my imagination at the time.  Reading it now it’s easy to see why; I’ve really not read anything quite like it since.  It’s like a pagan mythic fever dream, and Holdstock is pretty uncompromising when it comes to telling his tale, often leaving the reader (well, me at least) scratching their head as to what it all means.  Reading it today it still comes across as a haunting and sometimes unsettling experience.

About fifteen years ago a friend and I did a book swap: he leant me a book he wanted me to read and I did likewise.  I got to read a Star Wars book which I’ve thankfully mostly forgotten about (I think it had a villain called Thrawn in it) and I leant him Lavondyss.  Needless to say we hated each other’s books and vowed never to try that again.  But reading Lavondyss now I can see why he might have hated it.  It’s such a brutal, trippy, opaque narrative, and I’m a little surprised today that I loved it as much as I did when I was a teenager.  It’s a demanding read.  It won’t ensnare everyone with its magic, but for those of us who do fall under its spell, it’s quite possibly something that’ll last a lifetime.

Incidentally, I read from the very same paperback I read from thirty years ago.

11. Walking to Aldebaran (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
A very British sci-fi novella about an expedition to an 'artifact' discovered out past Pluto, in which the makers of said artifact have "made physics their bitch". Short, funny and extremely imaginative. Highly recommended.

24. Lancelot by Giles Kristian. It’s bloody and it’s bloody good. The Arthurian tale told from the point of view of his bestest knight Lancelot, starting from when he was not yet ten years old, ping ponging from one tragedy to another, and all the way through the classic story touchstones most of us are probably familiar with, with special attention paid to his love affair with Guinevere. Absolutely loved it, and Kristian’s prose and storytelling skills are superb. My favourite read of the year so far.

25.  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo.  These are three Middle English poems, the authors are unknown, but the translation I have just enjoyed was by J. R. R. Tolkien.  I’ll admit that when it comes to poetry I’m a terrible philistine, and I’ll admit too that I only came because of the translator.  I also took the easy route and went through them on audiobook, read by the wonderful Terry Jones.  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is substantial (the audiobook clocks in at almost four and a half hours), written in alliterative verse, and it takes a little getting used to, but it’s really quite excellent, and when I turned it off at one point and picked up the book I’m reading at the moment I found myself reading it in the same rhythm as the poem.  I wasn’t quite as keen on Pearl.  It’s a little too theological for my tastes.  The final—and shortest—poem, Sir Orfeo, was great.  And Terry Jones...what a warm, comfort blanket of a voice he had.

Get in there, muzzy.  It’s brilliant.