What are you reading in 2023?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, the Colour of Magic and the Light Fantastic are his first two books and, compared to the rest, are very rough. (They're still vastly more competent than 90% of early novels.) Starting with Equal Rites, he's doing more than parodying fantasy tropes and is starting his world-building (although the actual events of the novel seem to be forgotten almost immediately, given that we don't see any changes to Unseen University in later books). Guards! Guards! is probably his first really good book.

Small Gods is arguably the best Discworld novel and is a standalone story, almost unconnected to all the other characters he's established, so it's a good place if you just want to dip a toe in. (It's also extremely inspirational for DMing clerics and religions.)

 

[dragoner]

I was SURE I had read that, and my gf had a copy lying around, and I was bored so I finally flipped a few pages, and...pretty certain I hadn't read it. So I just did this weekend.

Sea of Stars or Hail Mary? I liked them both, they were very different, though both had some absolutely great aliens in them, very alien.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

Sea of Stars or Hail Mary? I liked them both, they were very different, though both had some absolutely great aliens in them, very alien.

Hail Mary is comfort food for scifi readers, and a really good tribute to the golden age authors style of book. I especially enjoy that it emulate the optimistic and slightly didactic tone from that era. Good stuff!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Just started listening to the Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, which makes a big point of only using REH's stories, in their as-approved-by-REH versions, and in the publication order. (The introduction grumps a bit about how many hacky other Conan stories have sullied the character's reputation, making the franchise allegedly more misogynist than REH apparently preferred -- we'll see how accurate this is by the time I'm done with these audiobooks.) I've previously read Conan, but it's been the comics, novels by non-REH authors and a mix of actual REH works, so this approach is appealing.

The biggest immediate surprises for me: The first published Conan story is a King Conan story and Thulsa Doom, whom I think of as a major villain thanks to the movie and comics, is kind of a chump.

 

[overgeeked]

Just started listening to the Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, which makes a big point of only using REH's stories, in their as-approved-by-REH versions, and in the publication order. (The introduction grumps a bit about how many hacky other Conan stories have sullied the character's reputation, making the franchise allegedly more misogynist than REH apparently preferred -- we'll see how accurate this is by the time I'm done with these audiobooks.) I've previously read Conan, but it's been the comics, novels by non-REH authors and a mix of actual REH works, so this approach is appealing.

The biggest immediate surprises for me: The first published Conan story is a King Conan story and Thulsa Doom, whom I think of as a major villain thanks to the movie and comics, is kind of a chump.

That’s wild. I picked that one up again earlier today. It’s a great collection and the series in fantastic. Just finished Black Colossus.

The Frost-Giant’s Daughter might disagree with the misogyny claim. The stories are clearly of a different time.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Frost-Giant’s Daughter might disagree with the misogyny claim. The stories are clearly of a different time.

Yeah, the introduction's author is clearly guzzling the Kool-Aid.

Still, I survived the last two Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser books, so REH just has to do better than them, misogyny-wise.

 

[Nellisir]

Sea of Stars or Hail Mary? I liked them both, they were very different, though both had some absolutely great aliens in them, very alien.

Hail Mary. I read To Sleep In A Sea of Stars a while ago.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I have a soft spot for the Carter/De Camp Conan pastiches, but yeah, there's nothing like the pure REH stories.

The funny thing about “The Phoenix on the Sword” is that it was first a King Kull story, before it was rewritten into Conan.

Just started listening to the Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, which makes a big point of only using REH's stories, in their as-approved-by-REH versions, and in the publication order. (The introduction grumps a bit about how many hacky other Conan stories have sullied the character's reputation, making the franchise allegedly more misogynist than REH apparently preferred -- we'll see how accurate this is by the time I'm done with these audiobooks.) I've previously read Conan, but it's been the comics, novels by non-REH authors and a mix of actual REH works, so this approach is appealing.

The biggest immediate surprises for me: The first published Conan story is a King Conan story and Thulsa Doom, whom I think of as a major villain thanks to the movie and comics, is kind of a chump.

Yeah, though there's plenty that De Camp and Carter added that is wince-worthy, there's also plenty of that in the source material. Having read both De Camp and Carter's individual works, I suspect that it comes more from De Camp than Carter, though certainly Carter isn't entirely blameless in that regard either.

That’s wild. I picked that one up again earlier today. It’s a great collection and the series in fantastic. Just finished Black Colossus.

The Frost-Giant’s Daughter might disagree with the misogyny claim. The stories are clearly of a different time.

I finished The Dead of Winter Thieves World anthology. Great stuff, as usual, with a stronger metaplot running through the tales than usual. There's some behind the scenes essays that are very interesting, even if I recoil from Andrew Offutt's describing Hanse Shadowspawn as "looking like Lee Marvin at 23."

Now I'm reading Andre Norton's Warlock of the Witch World.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hmm, just finished Frost Giant's Daughter. The climax of it isn't great, although it's still less misogynistic than Leiber at his worst (which is a hell of a contest to be in).

 

[Richards]

I finished up 13 Bullets this evening - it was great - and am now looking for something small to tide me over until I go on a business trip in a couple of weeks (in which I'll be bringing a three-in-one set of novels in one thick paperback, perfect for travel). So, despite having several other novels in a series, which I don't want to start yet (because once I start the series I'll likely want to continue on), I decided to pull Arthur C. Clarke's A Fall of Moondust from my yet-to-be-read pile. It was published in 1961 and will likely have some quaint thoughts about the Moon, given the main plot seems to be about a tour ship on the Moon a century in the future becoming stranded beneath a sea of dust. We'll see how it goes; I'll have 5 hours on a plane tomorrow, so plenty of time for reading.

Johnathan

 

[Sacrosanct]

I recently finished the Dresden Files, so I picked this one back up. Looking at the posts above, it appears it’s quite the coincidence lol.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

There's a few of us apparently. I just dived back in my Conan anthology a few days ago.

I'm reading the short stories in one of the many proposed chronological order.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

They don't make fantasy book covers like they used to.

I recently finished the Dresden Files, so I picked this one back up. Looking at the posts above, it appears it’s quite the coincidence lol.

View attachment 274454

 

[Richards]

I'm reading The Complete Chronicles of Conan by Robert E. Howard, a 925-page monstrosity my kids got me for Christmas. I've read most of the the original Conan stories before, but there are likely a few in here that have eluded me thus far - and it's been something like 30-40 years since I read them in any case. I won't read these until I finish them, though - I have a week-long business trip next week and the book is too big for me to easily read on a plane, so I'll stop at whatever short story I just finished and switch over to a smaller paperback for my business trip, then pick it back up upon my return.

Johnathan

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I finished Norton's Warlock of the Witch World. Towards the end there was some trippy, psychedelic magic stuff that was pretty fun but at times hard to follow.

Now I'm finally getting to Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness.

 

[overgeeked]

I don't know why but I've always read anthologies and short story collections one piece at a time with other stuff sprinkled between. So while I'm still working through the Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, I also read Andre Norton's No Night Without Stars. A great novel. Highly recommend it. Might try a re-read of something here soon.

 

[dragoner]

Just finished High Crusade, and am on to Ensign Flandry both by Poul Anderson.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Just finished the book Knightingale by Jon Ford.

It is the first in a series of novellas set in the same universe as his book The Scorched Sky. Which in turn was based on the old mmorpg City of Heroes. The next book in that series will be The Broken Ground and will take place 10 years after the events of The Scorched Sky. Knightingale though is a the first in a series called The Femme Fatales, and where The Scorched Sky was en ensemble cast, this one focuses fully on one character, and some of the important stuff that that character does in the time between the books. The author likened the main series as the Avengers films, and these novellas as the solo films for the characters.

So the young heroine Gale Knightley, aka Knightingale, she is a healer, and has been studing to become a doctor. This book deals with what happens when she responds to a call, and loses a patient. How she just can't let go of that. She tries to find the answers to why, and what she could have doen differently. Her search for answers leads her to a deeep rabbit hole of doubt and insecurity, and she seems to take on more than she can handle.

I really liked the novella, as it gave a good presentation of the character and what she went through, and eagerly await the next book. You don't have to have read The Scorched Sky to enjoy this one, but it helps, as it gives more background of who the other characters that pop up are. You should of course also like superheroics.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I finished Norton's Warlock of the Witch World. Towards the end there was some trippy, psychedelic magic stuff that was pretty fun but at times hard to follow.

I remember as a kid in the 70's I found quite a few of Andre Norton's books hard to follow. I haven't read any recently, but have one somewhere around here (I think it's Witch World actually). I should grab it and see if it's still the same confusing stuff

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I have read the 2nd volume of the Descender graphic novels series by Jeff LeMire and Dustin Nguyen. Highly recommended