WWW Wednesday 29th March 2023

Welcome to WWW Wednesday, which consists of answering three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

That’s it. WWW Wednesday is hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words so credit to her.

Now it’s been a long time since I’ve done of these and honestly, the main reason I’m doing it is to remind myself just what the fuck I’m reading.

Now, I did manage to finish *counts* a whole six books off of the list! Check out the badass over here. I suspect more than six books will go on. No, I don’t want to know exact totals.

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?

Empire of Exiles by Erin Evans – I haven’t touched this one at all and while I will probably revisit due to it being loved by two cool people, there’s little in the book that makes me want to revisit other than a distant memory of the opening tone really hitting for me.

The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams – After pushing through around fifty thousand words, I’ve finally hit a place where I’m interested to see what happens on the next page. Also there’s a very fine cat.

The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah – I was going to DNF but if I can The Dragonbone Chair that much patience, I can give this one that much patience too.

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki – Lying fallow because I keep forgetting my kindle exists.

The House of Cats and Gulls by Stephen Deas – Ditto

Salt Acid Fat Heat by Samin Nosrat – Still kicking myself about not reading more here.

Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint – Too dense, too slow, for me to easily get into.

Duma Key by Stephen King – I put this one by the wayside as I wanted to focus on one horror read but one of the books I’m most eager to get back into.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (trans Gregory Rabessa) – Was on the burner

The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu – The main PoV remains a delight, the others are… okay? Still not truly grabbing me but I want it to grab me. Good enough that I’m actually remembering my kindle exists.

Quantum by Manjit Kumar – Making a little progress with this one. It’s fascinating, but not casual.

Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko – Need to get back into

Earthwind by Robert Holdstock – I nibble and it’s kind of intriguing in its premise but it’s very dense and not very hooky.

The Serpent by Jane Gaskell – Completely forgot this one existed tbh

The Spear Cuts Water by Simon Jimenez – Ditto

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty – There is no other book I told myself I should read more of in March but didn’t read. Now I type this… I dunno, not a whole ton of enthusiasm here.

A lot of fantasy history books – I’m not saying which ones unless I finish them because I’m flitting hither and thither. But I have an absurdly overambitious project in mind, and for that I need to hit the books.

Deerskin by Robin McKinley – Very fairytale-esque. Has opened intriguingly. Needs more time to really unfold. If it is one flaw though, it is high on density and low on intriguing incongruity to create a hook. How do I read so fast? I don’t read slow books. The books that stick on this list are, mostly, slow. I think Deerskin might end up one of them.

The Everything One Pot Mediterranean Cookbook by Peter Minaki – I asked for this ARC from Netgalley the moment I saw it and my wife was even more excited than me

Lord Foul’s Bane by Stephen Donaldson – Starting in on my next piece of Chronscast reading (even if I got it wrong, and I’ve got Watership Down up next with someone a bit barking instead). It’s… interesting? It’s very easy to see why people see Zelazny as an influence on Donaldson.

The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms – Not happy with having no idea how the universe works, I decided to find out how little idea I had on how we perceive said universe – that is, with our minds…

WHAT DID YOU RECENTLY FINISH READING?

To keep this post at a reasonable length, I’m only posting stuff that’s featured on the above list or the below

The Fisherman by John Langan – Stuck with it, finished it, loved it.

Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake – I hated this on finishing it. I had next to nothing good to say about it. Once the frustration wore off and I started thinking about everything it did, I appreciated it more.

The Italian Squad by Paul Moses – Solid non-fic

Kushiel’s Avatar by Jacqueline Carey – Really frustrated me by the end, but the good still outweighed the bad.

Kushiel‘s Scion, Kushiel’s Justice, Kushiel’s Mercy by Jacqueline Carey – After finishing the above, I felt the need to binge. Just very, very satisfying.

The Dreamstone by CJ Cherryh – So atmospheric.

Darkness Weaves by Karl Edward Wagner – Too much thud and blunder but still rather good

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay – Was so good.

DNF

Borderlands ed by Terri Windling – Yeah the first short story just didn’t work for me and honestly, I can’t be bothered to read the beginnings of urban fantasy right now.

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL READ NEXT?

I need to resist the voice urging me to go berserk and do something about my Netgalley ARCs. There’s 27 of them so I won’t namecheck them all but yeah, that’s got to be the next point of attack.

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