I have to imagine your library fines on those books now are staggering ;-)
What are you reading in 2026?
- Thread starter Alzrius
- Start date
At this point, "borrowed" isn't exactly the word, is it?
Voadam
Legend
I just finished S. Petersen's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors. My son got me the hardcover for Christmas. 128 pages of monster and Great Old One descriptions with lush art. Statless and in character. Two page spread plus a big piece of art for each entry, 53 entities covered, plus a size comparison chart at the end and a three page bibiliography, one column of real books like Call of Cthulhu ones and two and a half of in world stuff from Arkham Press, Miskatonic University, Harvard, University of Michigan Press, Innsmouth Society, etc. across a vast swathe of publishing time (most 20th century but certainly not all) and including mostly reasonable sounding names but also things like stuff from Randall Carter and even James Moriarty.
Back in college I was intrigued by the two guides to Lovecraftian Horrors and Guide to the Dreamlands but did not pick them up then, this looks like a compilation of the two. I love this kind of stuff.
I really like about 90% of this, a few things grate on me though. It says it is comprehensive, but while it has Azathoth and Yog Sothoth and Tsathoggua it does not include Hastur or Dagon (except in the end two-page size comparison chart) and Cthulhu himself is only referenced as a Star Spawn of Cthulhu and not in his own entry. We get Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath, but not Shub herself. I was hoping to see Tcho Tchos that I have seen referenced but not directly read a story on but they are not here.
The art is overall fantastic and evocative, but a few don't hit for me. The cover is evocative and a great mythos horror,
But then I found out this is supposed to represent Cthulhu himself in the star spawn entry and that is not what I expect for Cthulhu from Chaosium.
Also for the elder things they get the described five legs, but then gave up on described five wings and gave them hands the description does not mention and seem out of place on the otherwise very alien things who created shoggoths.
The little editorial errors and typos stood out to me as well, they have a neat section on distinguishing each entry from the closest similar things but then in a deep one reference the distinguishing cross reference contradicts the main entry on whether they have tails or not. The Fungi from Yugoth never uses the word Mi-Go, but that is how they are referenced in the end size chart.
The entries are short on description, a couple light paragraphs and done, I tend to like a bit more but these were decent and fun. They include citations to the scholarly made up works in the bibliography. Each also has unexplained singular rune symbols and runic phrases (spelled out names?) No explanations, but I could see using these for summoning circle formulae type stuff in a game.
Overall very fun for me, I saw things I have read about in Lovecraft stories and some I do not remember reading any stories on.
Back in college I was intrigued by the two guides to Lovecraftian Horrors and Guide to the Dreamlands but did not pick them up then, this looks like a compilation of the two. I love this kind of stuff.
I really like about 90% of this, a few things grate on me though. It says it is comprehensive, but while it has Azathoth and Yog Sothoth and Tsathoggua it does not include Hastur or Dagon (except in the end two-page size comparison chart) and Cthulhu himself is only referenced as a Star Spawn of Cthulhu and not in his own entry. We get Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath, but not Shub herself. I was hoping to see Tcho Tchos that I have seen referenced but not directly read a story on but they are not here.
The art is overall fantastic and evocative, but a few don't hit for me. The cover is evocative and a great mythos horror,
But then I found out this is supposed to represent Cthulhu himself in the star spawn entry and that is not what I expect for Cthulhu from Chaosium.
Also for the elder things they get the described five legs, but then gave up on described five wings and gave them hands the description does not mention and seem out of place on the otherwise very alien things who created shoggoths.
The little editorial errors and typos stood out to me as well, they have a neat section on distinguishing each entry from the closest similar things but then in a deep one reference the distinguishing cross reference contradicts the main entry on whether they have tails or not. The Fungi from Yugoth never uses the word Mi-Go, but that is how they are referenced in the end size chart.
The entries are short on description, a couple light paragraphs and done, I tend to like a bit more but these were decent and fun. They include citations to the scholarly made up works in the bibliography. Each also has unexplained singular rune symbols and runic phrases (spelled out names?) No explanations, but I could see using these for summoning circle formulae type stuff in a game.
Overall very fun for me, I saw things I have read about in Lovecraft stories and some I do not remember reading any stories on.
slobster
Hero
Oh things definitely happened with wider ramifications, it's just not a very good self-contained Dresden-style mystery adventure plot. IMO, of course. That's okay though, because it's not really a rip-roaring story of supernatural peril and intrigue this time, it's a story of healing and grief and processing pain, and for that stuff I find it really nice.
On the other hand,
I do think Lara was done incredibly dirty. It's very meh that she was reduced to being Harry's little trophy wife that is literally addicted to him, it's absolutely irritating that it was done with almost no pushback or agency on Lara's part. I imagine, I hope, that future stories will show her counter-attack on being so completely controlled by Winter, but in this story it's absolutely a real stinker of a subplot for one of Harry's longest running frienemies.
I personally haven't loved the recent Dresden novels, so while this one isn't a return to form for the series (it's too different to be the same sort of story as the books I really loved from the middle of the series to be very comparable), I find it at least an improvement on the recent slump and hopefully an augur for more good stuff to come.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I just finished reading Lee Child's 1998 novel Die Trying, the second book in his Jack Reacher series.
I mentioned a few months ago that I'd picked up a Jack Reacher book out of a Little Free Library in my neighbor's front yard, and decided to move this one up in my queue (mostly so that I could return it, freeing up a bit of space in my book-crowded house).
Normally I wouldn't have started a series with its second book, but my understanding was that each of the Reacher novels is a stand-alone tale. Throw in the fact that the first book, Killing Floor, was the basis for the first season of Amazon's Reacher show (which I've seen), and there was no real reason not to give this book a whirl, since I liked the Amazon production.
Having said that, this one wasn't quite the same beast. I've heard how people will talk about the way Ian Fleming's James Bond books are quite different in tone than the films, and while I can't comment on that, I feel like there's a similar (albeit, I suspect, lesser) dissonance here. It's not that the character is different (though he comes across as slightly more human, having rare moments of self-doubt and even fear), but more about how things are presented.
For instance, Child's writing is choppier. Lots of short sentences in sequence. Articles frequently omitted. Could be seen as workmanlike by some. But really it's more about processes. Lots of processes get described here. Things snipers take into account. Procedures used to investigate kidnapping cases. How to disable radio receivers.
All of which sets the tone for the book as a whole, which is one that's far less action than the Amazon show and more like a slow and sustained siege. Jack Reacher is presented as a force to be reckoned with, but spends a lot of time analyzing people, locations, and circumstances before taking action. Even then, that action is often about where, when, and how to place a strategic shot than about him overwhelming a bunch of thugs through sheet brute force. He's more of a tactician than an action hero.
Also, I didn't anticipate the degree to which the secondary characters would be given coverage. There are significant portions of the book where we follow the villains or law enforcement as they pursue their own agendas and react to what happens, laying down plot threads far in advance of when they start to become aware of each other, much less come into contact.
The overall takeaway is that this wasn't a bad book by any means, but is more of an adventure-thriller than any sort of power fantasy. Reacher busting heads or blowing someone away is a thing that happens more than once over the course of the story, but is invariably something he can only do after what feels like long periods of maneuvering rather than acting like a human Hulk. And given how much maneuvering there was—the mass market paperback is just over 550 pages, not including the previews for further stories in the series—this came perilously close to feeling like a slot at times.
Still, it wasn't anything I regretted reading, but the no-nonsense presentation lacked the panache that I was hoping to find here, giving the whole thing an emotionlessness that felt more like The Terminator than Rambo. It's not bad, but I don't see it being for me; in the future, I'll stick to the Amazon series to get my Reacher fix.
I mentioned a few months ago that I'd picked up a Jack Reacher book out of a Little Free Library in my neighbor's front yard, and decided to move this one up in my queue (mostly so that I could return it, freeing up a bit of space in my book-crowded house).
Normally I wouldn't have started a series with its second book, but my understanding was that each of the Reacher novels is a stand-alone tale. Throw in the fact that the first book, Killing Floor, was the basis for the first season of Amazon's Reacher show (which I've seen), and there was no real reason not to give this book a whirl, since I liked the Amazon production.
Having said that, this one wasn't quite the same beast. I've heard how people will talk about the way Ian Fleming's James Bond books are quite different in tone than the films, and while I can't comment on that, I feel like there's a similar (albeit, I suspect, lesser) dissonance here. It's not that the character is different (though he comes across as slightly more human, having rare moments of self-doubt and even fear), but more about how things are presented.
For instance, Child's writing is choppier. Lots of short sentences in sequence. Articles frequently omitted. Could be seen as workmanlike by some. But really it's more about processes. Lots of processes get described here. Things snipers take into account. Procedures used to investigate kidnapping cases. How to disable radio receivers.
All of which sets the tone for the book as a whole, which is one that's far less action than the Amazon show and more like a slow and sustained siege. Jack Reacher is presented as a force to be reckoned with, but spends a lot of time analyzing people, locations, and circumstances before taking action. Even then, that action is often about where, when, and how to place a strategic shot than about him overwhelming a bunch of thugs through sheet brute force. He's more of a tactician than an action hero.
Also, I didn't anticipate the degree to which the secondary characters would be given coverage. There are significant portions of the book where we follow the villains or law enforcement as they pursue their own agendas and react to what happens, laying down plot threads far in advance of when they start to become aware of each other, much less come into contact.
The overall takeaway is that this wasn't a bad book by any means, but is more of an adventure-thriller than any sort of power fantasy. Reacher busting heads or blowing someone away is a thing that happens more than once over the course of the story, but is invariably something he can only do after what feels like long periods of maneuvering rather than acting like a human Hulk. And given how much maneuvering there was—the mass market paperback is just over 550 pages, not including the previews for further stories in the series—this came perilously close to feeling like a slot at times.
Still, it wasn't anything I regretted reading, but the no-nonsense presentation lacked the panache that I was hoping to find here, giving the whole thing an emotionlessness that felt more like The Terminator than Rambo. It's not bad, but I don't see it being for me; in the future, I'll stick to the Amazon series to get my Reacher fix.
gnarlygninja
Hero
I read The Killing Floor on the basis of the Amazon series and I'm also sticking to the tv show. My view of Lee Child's writing is much dimmer though, it was bad enough that I didn't even finish the book and have no interest in ever picking up another one. He's admitted that writing the books are just a job to him, and he cranks them out very quickly, and it shows imo. But I like Reacher's characterization in the books more.
Ralif Redhammer
Legend
The art in those original guides was great. It was detailed yet weird and mysterious, with distinctly squeamish vibes.
Pls be sensitive of spoilers on Twelve Months, some of us are still waiting to get our hands on a copy (6 people in front of me at the library!). Thank you to everyone who has covered important discussions with the forum's spoiler tools
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