What are you reading this year 2020?

Ralif Redhammer · Oct 20, 2020

Finished The House on the Borderland. That was an excellent piece of cosmic horror - in the literal sense, even. I don't recall seeing the dying of the sun and earth used so chillingly before. That the reader has every reason to question the sanity of the narrator, makes it all the more eerie.

Now I'm reading Vivian Shaw's Strange Practice. Something still spooky, but a little lighter on the palate than these last two reads.

TwoSix · Oct 20, 2020

Finally read Abercrombie's First Law trilogy in August. I've been using the r/Fantasy subreddit's Top Fantasy Novel guide as kind of a roadmap of what to read, and that was the last series in the top 10 I hadn't finished, so I was glad to get that crossed off. It was also a great (if dark) series, so that was a bonus.

Wanted a palate cleanser after First Law, so I read Will Wight's two biggest series (Cradle and Of Kings and Killers) the past few weeks, squeezing Battle Grounds in between. They aren't top-tier prose, but a light, refreshing take on modern fantasy tropes (especially the "progression fantasy" of Cradle).

Trying to decide if I'm brave enough to start Malazan or finish up Riyria Revelations before Rhythm of War comes out.

Richards · Oct 24, 2020

I finished Carte Blanche and while I'm generally a fan of Jeffery Deaver's novels, this was the blandest James Bond I've ever read. He mentions in the back that he's a friend of the Fleming family and was hand-picked to write this novel, which leads me to believe he was specifically asked to "tone down" Bond from the normal womanizer he was originally depicted as. And there were too many times when, during the course of reading the novel, the reader was faced with "this definitely happened" at the end of a chapter only to have the next chapter start off with "no it didn't - were you fooled?" It got to be tiresome. I can't really recommend it to Bond aficionados nor to Deaver fans - it definitely wasn't one of his better works.

So now I'm moving on to book three in the "Jane Hawk" series, The Crooked Staircase by Dean Koontz.

Johnathan

Alzrius · Oct 24, 2020

I've managed to finish all of Terry Mancour's Spellmonger series of books to date; a dozen in the main series, plus two anthologies, and three books in the "Hawkmaiden" spin-off series.

Ironically, what got me into it was the Kickstarter for the Pathfinder (First Edition) conversion of the series. It popped up on my radar and intrigued me enough that I started looking into the actual books.

Blue · Oct 25, 2020

Been reading Arthur Mayor's Superhero Chronicles series. (Yeah, kinda generic name for a series.) It's all on Kindle Unlimited. I'm on book 5, there are 6 books out - not sure if that's the end of the story or just the most recent.

Sidekicks, Heroes, Vigilantes, Villains, Assassins, and Obelisk are the names of the individual books. If the name of the first doesn't give it away, our protagonist starts as a sidekick.

Been enjoying it. It's full of well done action, investigation, and drama. Real roller coaster that doesn't let up. It's very first person, and the protagonist is quite snarky. Though in the most recent book I'm reading (#5) he's broken the fourth wall some in his interior monologue which I found a bit jarring.

I've been sucking these down, ignoring a physical book by one of my favorite authors. Something about them is working well for me. Entertaining and worth a read, especially if you're already paying for Kindle Unlimited.

Richards · Oct 25, 2020

Well, despite the book being 579 pages long, I blew through The Crooked Staircase in a day and a half and am now about to start book 4 in the "Jane Hawk" series, The Forbidden Door by Dean Koontz. It helps that I just got a new computer on Friday and have been loading my music collection onto it all weekend - plenty of time to read while the computer's doing its thing, one CD at a time.

Johnathan

Nellisir · Oct 26, 2020

Book sale haul. Better selection this time than last time. Might go again next weekend; still lots of interesting stuff in Mystery and other section.

Not shown is the AMAZING haul of games I scored at a going-out-of-business sale

at a game store I pass by periodically. I stopped on a whim, and they were selling nearly pristine demo games for 90% off or more. Mansions of Madness for $10; Dungeonquest for $5; and those were the most expensive. Jaipur was $2, I think.

I need more shelves so bad.

Ralif Redhammer · Oct 27, 2020

What a grand haul! Eyes of the Overworld, numerous Barbara Hambly, Roger Zelazny, and Leigh Brackett volumes, and Nightwatch and Daywatch.

Nellisir said:
Book sale haul. Better selection this time than last time. Might go again next weekend; still lots of interesting stuff in Mystery and other section.

Not shown is the AMAZING haul of games I scored at a going-out-of-business sale at a game store I pass by periodically. I stopped on a whim, and they were selling nearly pristine demo games for 90% off or more. Mansions of Madness for $10; Dungeonquest for $5; and those were the most expensive. Jaipur was $2, I think.

I need more shelves so bad.
<photo of awesomeness>

I finished reading Shaw's Strange Practice. A charming book, though I wonder how it feels for someone that hasn't read The Vampyre and Varney the Vampire.

Now I'm reading Bruce Coville's The Monster's Ring. I last read this YA volume back in the 80s, so I'm excited to revisit it. Shouldn't take long to get through.

Nellisir · Oct 27, 2020

Read Year Zero, by Rob Reid. I'm not sure if I've read it before, so I decided to grab it yesterday. (At a $1.50 for trades, why the heck not?)

I also skimmed the Skaith books. Turns out I read those - I thought I had book 1, but I actually had an omnibus. It's cool to have the MMPBs though. And I bought A Song for Arbonne to have another copy I can give away.

Having finished Year Zero...I still don't know if I've read it before. I liked it though. Solid 4/5.

Richards · Oct 29, 2020

Not surprisingly, I finished book 4 of the "Jane Hawk" series and have moved on to book 5, The Night Window by Dean Koontz. It's kept up the pace of the rest of the series and remained an interesting and enjoyable read, but one thing has become quite apparent to me in reading these last three books: Koontz had apparently, while writing this series, stumbled across the word "darkle" and immediately fell in love with it. It's not a very common word, infrequently used by novelists in my experience thus far, but Koontz has latched onto it and it pops up quite often throughout these last three books, at least. So much so, in fact, that it tends to stand out, dropping me immediately out of the scene at hand to mentally acknowledge his use of his new word-toy once again.

But it's still a good series and I recommend it to anyone looking for a lengthy (around 2,600 pages or so, when you add up all five books), modern-day thriller series dealing with technological conspiracies.

Johnathan