What are you reading in 2024?

[Autumnal]

Gotcha. Adams is in my very top tier of editors, one of those like Ellen Datlow, where I know that if I’m interested in the theme, I will enjoy the volume. Kuang is a recent fantasy author doing excellent, often dark, work, and a good choice for collaborator. Thanks!

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The last holdouts are the folks putting out new 5E grimdark settings on Kickstarter, seemingly on a weekly basis. There's definitely an audience out there for grimdark, even if it's substantially smaller than it was.

I personally found a lot of House of the Dragon to verge on misery porn, although I know a lot of people really enjoyed it.

It's doubtful Grimdark will ever fade away (after all, it's been with the genre before it even had a name - see The Black Company, for example), but I think its share of the fantasy genre has diminished considerably.

I thought House of the Dragon did a better job at avoiding the pitfalls and lazy tropes that you sometimes get with Grimdark than GoT, at least so far. Looking at the source material (Fire & Blood), there is some very egregious violence against women in it.

Love sheep farmer's daughter. So good.

When Lord of the Rings came out, it reignited my love of fantasy. On a snowy day, I went to the library and picked up three books - A Game of Thrones, A Wizard of Earthsea, and Sheepfarmer's Daughter.

I keep meaning to read Grady Hendrix. Probably the Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, but they all sound fun.

I really liked We Sold Our Souls. Having been in bands, a lot of it resonated with me.

 

[prabe]

The series editor is John Joseph Adams. He selects 80 contenders and passes them on to a different guest editor each year to narrow it down to the best 20. This year the guest editor is R.F. Kuang, whose work I don’t know.

Ah, that's the same approach as Best American Short Stories and a few others. I didn't know they had a F/SF volume, but I haven't been following as much lately.

I really liked We Sold Our Souls. Having been in bands, a lot of it resonated with me.

It was pretty clear looking at the cover that had to be about being in a band, even without the blurb. I'll probably give Hendrix at least one more try. It took me like halfway through How to Sell a Haunted House before I was sure I was going to want to finish it, I'm hoping that was either him not being at his best or some specific to me mismatch.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Finished Ten Thousand Doors of January and liked it enough that I've put in a hold at the library for another book by the author.

 

[prabe]

Finished Ten Thousand Doors of January and liked it enough that I've put in a hold at the library for another book by the author.

That was my wife's favorite book she read in 2023 (I might have mentioned that before, sorry). I'll probably put her copy in my stack at some point.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I thought House of the Dragon did a better job at avoiding the pitfalls and lazy tropes that you sometimes get with Grimdark than GoT, at least so far. Looking at the source material (Fire & Blood), there is some very egregious violence against women in it.

I'll take your word for it. Someone on the television team, though, really enjoys lingering over women dying in childbirth.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

It was pretty clear looking at the cover that had to be about being in a band, even without the blurb. I'll probably give Hendrix at least one more try. It took me like halfway through How to Sell a Haunted House before I was sure I was going to want to finish it, I'm hoping that was either him not being at his best or some specific to me mismatch.

I haven't read that one, so I can't speak to how it stacks up against We Sold Our Souls. A couple of my friends swear by everything Hendrix wrote.

I'll take your word for it. Someone on the television team, though, really enjoys lingering over women dying in childbirth, though.

That was gratuitous, to be sure.

 

[Zaukrie]

Read the Last Colony by Scalzi in one day. Was supposed to be golfing, but torrential rain stopped that idea. Hoping not to read more on this trip...

 

[MoonSong]

For my birthday I got Reinventing Comics by Scott McCloud. I'm still in the middle of it, but I can't believe how dumb I was in ignoring it thus far. It is very good actually. The only downside, since it was an impulse purchase, is that I bought a translation made in Spain, and Spanish translators are extremely insular and not very good at doing it seriously, so I'm stumbling with some words that are near gibberish to me.

I'm just starting part 2 of the book.

 

[overgeeked]

For my birthday I got Reinventing Comics by Scott McCloud. I'm still in the middle of it, but I can't believe how dumb I was in ignoring it thus far. It is very good actually. The only downside, since it was an impulse purchase, is that I bought a translation made in Spain, and Spanish translators are extremely insular and not very good at doing it seriously, so I'm stumbling with some words that are near gibberish to me.

I'm just starting part 2 of the book.

His trilogy on comics is fantastic. Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, and Making Comics. The only other books that come close are Will Eisner’s two on the topic. Comics and Sequential Art along with Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative.