What are you reading in 2024?

[Eyes of Nine]

Read Pietr-le-Letton aka Pietr the Latvian aka Maigret and the Engimatic Lett aka The (Strange) Case of Peter the Lett aka Suite at the Majestic. First Maigret book.

As with any translation, the translation matters. This one is the 2013 translation by David Bellos. There were hints of Hemingway in that there were a bunch of short, punchy (sometimes literal) sentences/sentence fragments. It was an unusual English/American mystery novel in that the typical rhythm felt "off" in some way. That may have been on purpose, I don't know until I read more, which I will.

Pros - Short novel. Maigret the character is very clear in my mind's eye. A big man who takes a licking and keeps on coming - sort of like a human bulldog. Mystery was pretty classic case of mistaken sibling identity, but fairly well executed

Cons - some parts of it were hard to believe. Like Maigret getting shot and then not attending to his wound for hours, and like the instantaneous sobering up of the eponymouss Pietr. In addition seems like Maigret only works alone? Personally something I love in mysteries is the interaction of the main char and either a co-main or a side character. You've got Wimsey/Vane; Poirot/Hastings/Oliver/Japp; Wolf/Goodwin. And more modern tales like Louise Penny's Armand Gamache and his entire team; Elizabeth George's Inspector Linley/Sgt Havers; and even JK Rowling (blech)'s Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellicot
(the one character who looked like could be his sidekick dies halfway through the book. Maybe he never gets a sidekick again?)

That said, they are short, so I'll no doubt read vol 2: Le Charretier de "la Providence", this one translated I think by David Coward - we'll see which version the library has

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Underrated Agatha Christie franchise.

Agreed. Also much easier to read all of their stories than the little Belgian or the elderly lady, who represent a serious time investment.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm working through Spymaster by Tennent Bagley.

It's an interesting if odd book. It's told by Bagley (ex-CIA), but it recounts the career of Soviet spymaster Sergey A. Kondrashev in the upper echelons of the KGB. Apparently the two became friends after the USSR fell and Kondrashev solicited Bagley to help him with his memoirs. But it was published almost a decade after Kondrashev's death. It's mostly Bagley talking about how Kondrashev told him X or Y happened. It reads like someone took notes while playing a game of telephone and the topic is the Cold War.

It's light on details in important places (major events) and heavy on details in other, unimportant places (minor events). Kondrashev seems to have had a hand in almost every single major event in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Station Chief in East Germany and Austria, involved in supressing the Hungarian Revolution, helped move Hitler's remains, personally served as translator between Kruschev and Kennedy on at least one occasion, and was the main contact for a dozen of the top spies and defectors to the Soviets during the Cold War, among many other episodes.

I'm about halfway through the book but I'm not sure if it's good or bad yet.

 

[Distracted DM]

Novels? I started getting into Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser to continue trying to read the seeming neverending list of inspirations for D&D. I read the first few stories and really enjoyed them, but reading novels nowadays is very difficult unless I can find the willpower to leave my phone somewhere. I wish the things never existed

I've also started reading my collection of Dungeon Crawl Classics books. I've wanted to give running the system a try for a long time, but thanks to a friend running a session of it that broke me in so I could read through the rulebook. Now I'm reading the first adventure anthology and I love the feel of the adventures.

At some point I'd love to finish reading the rest of the Pratchett books... I've read and reread (and rerereread) everything Discworld up 'til Unseen Academicals, which didn't grab me (probably because the wizard books were always my least favorite, even if I liked aspects of them). I finally watched Troll Bridge and it was pretty decent- but the folk song at the end was fantastic in the context of the film and brought a tear to my eye. That made me think about reading the rest... although maybe I'm avoiding it because it'll mean I've finished them all, and there's no more to go GNU Terry <3

I'd also like to read more Michael Moorcock. I read a load of the Elric, Hawkmoon, Corum etc. books in a huge devouring rush years ago (as part of the aforementioned D&D inspiration-read) but eventually that petered out- but there's still so much left to go including the graphic novels/comics and it's so fascinating and inspirational for my games

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I started getting into Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser to continue trying to read the seeming neverending list of inspirations for D&D. I read the first few stories and really enjoyed them, but reading novels nowadays is very difficult unless I can find the willpower to leave my phone somewhere.

Well, Leiber's S&S stories are perfect for that, with the exception of Swords of Lankhmar nothing in the whole series is longer than a novella - and even that one is kind of a fix-up novel with the latter part of it stitched onto a novella the was printed by itself earlier.

I wish the things never existed

Novels, or phones?

I'm doing one last re-read of the back half of James White's Sector General series, which I'd been putting off after enjoying the first part during the lockdown. As expected from reading the series originally as they were released, I enjoyed the early short stories much more than the later novels. I'll probably get through them all, but I might take some breaks in doing so.

Thankfully for my memories of White, I stumbled on a copy of his Futures Past anthology, which I'd read most of before but never in one volume. As with Sector General I think he's best at short fiction, and while these are a bit variable like most anthologies, most are well above average and some are real gems. The single Sector General short "Starbird" is a solid quick read, even if the medical mystery is solved almost by accident. "Outrider" is one of those vaguely-implausible but entertaining mid-Fifties "accident in space"stories with a troubled protagonist saving a commercial spacecraft and facing down his own demons at the same time, reminding me of some of Heinlein's juvenile fiction, Eric Frank Russell's "Jay Score" or even "Fast Trip" in this same book.

My favorite of the lot was "False Alarm" (technically a loosely connected follow-on to "Assisted Passage" but either could be read without the other and both are in this volume), which is a tiny bit slow to get into at first but has a heck of a fine twist ending that also reinforces White's generally upbeat beliefs in a future where all the species of the galaxy look out for one another, even the ones who haven't gotten out and about in it yet. White explores that theme (and the specific twist here from other angles) in many of his stories, and of course in Sector General itself. It's one of the things that makes me really enjoy him as an author, no matter how utopian it may be.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I finished Bright Neon Futures: A Wholesome Cyberpunk Anthology. It had some good stories, though the very first one didn't do much for me.

I then read Andre Norton's The Sorceress of Witch World. Quite enjoyed it. The occultic nature of magic in it got me thinking about the magic system of D&D, and how the precision of 5e, while necessary to its success, has me missing the old approach of say, 1e.

Now I'm reading Brian Lumley's The Clock of Dreams. I didn't care as much for the previous book in the series, but am hoping this one is better.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I've just tried out manga classic Vampire Hunter D.

I did not get into it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Really enjoying Red Seas Under Red Skies, although it's taking its time getting to the piracy. I particularly like how this franchise discusses the god of thieves, which feels like it has more of a rationale for it than "well, here's the god for this character class," that, ahem, certain popular D&D settings never seem to move past.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And we got to the piracy! (I love a good pirate adventure.) Meanwhile, the basic factual and editing errors in Lore & Legends continue to pile up.

A real different experience going through these two books at the same time.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

A real different experience going through these two books at the same time.

I would imagine. Rather a large disparity between the two. I'm swapping between James White's Double Contact and the collected Poirot short stories right now and they're arguably more similar - at least Sector General stories are sort of medical mysteries.