Books: 2018-12

December was not very impressive, books-wise. I started Malazan (), which I didn't manage to get into at all, and then there was the whole business of Chaos Communication Congress, so I kind of didn't read at all. One book, and one short story, and that's it.

I can link you to my GoodReads Year in Books, though: Apparently I've read 67385 pages across 184 books, will you look at that. I'm a bit impressed at the average length of 366 pages per book, seeing as I read and log a lot of short stories.

As for this year – my reading list continues to grow, but as I feel a bit tired in every regard (Chaos Communication Congress meant three months of 15h/week extra work, plus the event itself), and I'll start a new job soon, I think I'll set my goal for 2019 at 50 books – that seems reasonably low. Upside: Shorter blog posts!

Reading list length: 427

Red Sister

Red Sister is a beautifully written fantasy novel that switches flawlessly between intimate characterisation, lyrical prose, and gripping action, all set in a deeply fascinating world. And by fascinating I mean: the moon is a parabolic mirror that heats a liveable strip of land at night, keeping the encroaching masses of ice at bay. Yess. And no, it's not scifi, it's deeply fantasy. I loved everything about this book, including the main cast, the supporting characters, the plot, the unpredictable turns, … wow!

Short Stories

• Probably Still the Chose One is a lovely fantasy short story. Given the choice of reading the Narnia books or this story, I'd go with the story, which goes on about many of the same things (but then again, I never liked Lewis and his Christianity-inserts).

Do not recommend

Malazan: Gardens of the Moon seriously put me off reading, which is rare for me even under stress. I'm not quite sure what happens there, as many, many people love that series. It felt sterile in too many ways to me, and while I liked the parts where I puzzled out the world (or started to, as I stopped reading about 80% in), I didn't enjoy feeling distant from everything in there. It was a similar feeling to Dune, actually, which might explain why I dislike both of those books that have a large follower base.