Where are you in Fantasyland? February 2024

I'm in England with Unnatural Issue. Where are you finding yourself in your reading this February?

I'm in Hell with Satan and his colleagues in Paradise Lost. I was finally moved to buy it after reading a biography of Milton about a year ago, but it's taken me a year to start his masterpiece. I'm finding it surprisingly readable, and very good. The epitome of epic!

I'm in New Haven, rereading Ninth House before carrying on to Hell bent.

Still on the Discworld in Djelibeybi with Pteppic.

In Murk hanging out while Viv recovers from her first big wound, in Bookshops and bonedust.

>5 karenb: me too! Read it as part of the SFFKit february challenge - creatures and critters.
A bit disappointed with this one. Very one trick pony, lets add noughties American cultural imperialism to make it work.

I'm heading to Toot Hansell for Yule Be Sorry.

I'm back at Basgiath in Iron Flame.

>6 amberwitch: I'm confused; I don't recall much that was explicitly American cultural imperialism about the story or the characters. Unless I missed something in the news in the early oughties (necromancers? surely I'd have remembered that). Would you be willing to talk more about that?

I'm in England with A Tainted Cup. Before that I was in ancient China with some Mo Xiang Tong Xiu as a palate cleanser.

>10 Watry: I'll be interested in reading your thoughts. I have A Tainted Cup on my wish list but haven't pulled the purchase trigger yet. Bennett is an author that I have really been getting into ever since experiencing The Divine Cities.

>9 karenb: So this is an outside view as I am obviously not an American, and lived through the starbuckification of my cityscape in the noughties - not complaining as such, we had a French cafe wave back in the eighties which similarly changed the city.
But the whole Legends and Lattes plot revolved around evolving a starbucks-clone. The Bookshop and bonedust did the same, just with bookstores - I would say Barnes and Nobles type thing perhaps?. I mean, eating and drinking in a bookstore screams American to me; instant gratification. The whole idea of food and liquids near books...

>12 amberwitch: Oh, I see, that makes sense. Living in the States, I'm used to various kinds of coffee shops and bookstores, not just the big chain ones, so I didn't really pick up on the clone thing.

Yeah, I kept waiting for the bookstore to start selling baked goods, but fortunately they kept just giving them away (AFAICT). And had a small creature on cleanup duty (a pet living in a bookstore is another thing that I have mixed feelings about).

>11 ScoLgo: I really enjoyed it! If by some chance you've read The Affair of the Mysterious Letter, you'll find it quite similar in parts (though the Bennett is much darker). It's not the most amazing fantasy mystery out there, but it's worth reading.

(Also, very much not England. I probably assumed that from the Sherlock expy.)

Returning to Jen Williams' Winnowing Flame with The Bitter Twins.

I finished my re-read of The Silmarillion. Excellent the second time around. The only imperfection was the avalanche of names (in multiple languages) - it was very hard to keep track of everybody, especially since some of the stories overlapped in time.

I just started A Little Hatred. I really liked the First Law trilogy and Best Served Cold, so hopefully Joe Abercrombie can meet the high standard he set with his earlier works.

I started in the Detroit area but traveled around Earth with some of the Eight billion genies by Charles Soule & Ryan Brown, all issues collected in one handy volume.

>16 drmamm: I loved that series! It brings a whole new view to the industrial age...

I'm still trawling around Antea and the world, now in book 4 of Daniel Abraham's the "The dagger and the coin" series with The widow's house.

In Sanctuary with Thieves World.

I'm in Estcarp & nearby lands, having started a many-years-later reread of the Witch World series. I'm reading a yellowed mass market PB which I first read about 55 or 60 years ago. I can't complain about the paperback; I'm showing my age too.

On Discworld (still) with Brutha this time and the great god Om.

I'm in Sartorius-Deles with A sword named Truth.

I've had a craving lately to reread some Edward Eager, so I got two. I just finished Half Magic and enjoyed it, including the many nods to other books & authors. I also have The Time Garden, which I'll find time for soon.

I finished A Little Hatred, by Joe Abercrombie. Excellent as usual. Although the pacing could be uneven at times, his characters, dialogue and world-building are top-notch. I decided to read the Age of Madness series in one go and just started The Trouble with Peace.