Where are you in Fantasyland? January, 2022

New topic for the new month and the new year.

Happy New Year!!

I'm starting the year off with Unsouled.

About halfway through The Bear and the Nightingale.

In The Vale reading about The Demon King for a book group.

Also near Costanz, Switzerland, studying fairy tales with the Grimrose Girls at their Academie.

In the world of Quur, working through The ruin of kings.

Added The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix to my rotation.

I am about 60% of the way through Guards Guards!, my first Terry Pratchett. I like it, but I think my expectations were too high going into it, given his reputation. There are some very funny passages though, and other little sentences that highlight Sir Terry's very deep insight into the human condition.

>8 drmamm: I love Discworld, but it really varies a lot over the series. I personally prefer the later books, but I suspect there's something for everyone so to speak.

I am exploring Stallery Mansion while re-reading Conrad's Fate this week.

>8 drmamm: & >9 merrystar: I started with the first ones, The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic and Equal Rites which were the only ones that I found to be LOL funny. After that, it seemed that they got a little too clever for me.

Just wrapped up time in post-WW II London (England) and Liverpool learning about cloth magic and Innate magic.

Just starting a visit to "The Seven Realms" in The Exiled Queen.

I'm slow getting back to this series, but I did really find the first book quite good, so looking forward to this one.

Now I'm visiting regency (I think) era London with Galvanism and Ghouls.

I'm back in Nadezhra untangling The liar's knot.

Just wrapped up a highly enjoyable return to the Old Kingdom in Terciel and Elinor.

I'm growing up with Polly in Fire and Hemlock.

Somewhere along Route 66 with Wayward Souls and meanwhile picking up all kinds of weird places (including dragon islands) in Fantasy & Science Fiction, January/February 2022.

Finished The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix. Not adding anything new into my rotation just yet.

Was roaming around Kaita with Princess Shiori and her brothers, the Six crimson cranes.

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu, very much enjoying it so far!

I'm back in Ambha, 10 years later, in the Realm of ash.

I've moved on to Lake Silence.

Now I'm in Seattle with a Wizard of the Pigeons.

Back on board the Chathrand for more voyaging, with River of Shadows.

I have to finish another book I need to review before I can get to into it but I read a few pages of The Conductors while I didn't have said review book handy today and am intrigued.

Just left Alex Verus in London, finishing Fallen. A common pitfall for these supernatural suspense series (Dresden Files, Anita Blake, etc) is the tendency -- almost the internal need -- to keep raising the ante. More powerful adversaries; more powers for the protagonist(s) and so on. Usually it becomes tedious at some point, not to mention increasingly "stretched", almost a parody of itself. Jacka seems to be handling it so far. This one was quite good, and well thought out.
Of course you have to like the sub-genre. I do. They're like potato chips for me.

>23 Narilka: I really liked that one, & the Megan Lindholm books generally. Somehow I couldn't make the transition to Robin Hobb successfully. But then, I've become more and more an urban fantasy person than an epic fantasy one, though I still read both.

Straddling the line between Farmers and Lakewalkers with Dag & Fawn - finishing up the Sharing Knife series with Horizon

Demonland and Witchland (etc) in The Worm Ouroboros.

After jumping over to SF and finishing The Expanse series, I am back to Fantasyland with The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. Despite being a big fantasy fan, I had not even heard of this author until recently (thank you BookTube!)

New thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/339250