THE SLUMP GOT WORSE

As some of you might recall, 2017 was not a great year for my fantasy genre reading with all of five books read that entire year.  I was hopeful that the slump was just a fluke and 2018 would be the year I bounced back.

Dear reader, IT GOT WORSE. I'll finish this year with all of three fantasy novels under my belt. Three, as in more than two and less than four. Yikes. So what were the three books?

The Fifth Season was a fantastic book and easily one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read. The hype surrounding this book is real, folks.

A sure sign that I love a book is when I re-read it. I don't think I'll ever get tired of doing so.

I've seen this series recommended on the interwebs and I decided to take the plunge. While I felt that the part of the book with Sonea hiding out from the eponymous Magician's Guild was stretched a bit too long, I could not put this book down and the trilogy is definitely on my "to read" list for next year.

Having said that, I have been reading different novels over the past year. More like sampling, really. One of those books is Raymond E. Feist's newest work, King of Ashes. It's different from the Riftwar books I've read. It feels more, I don't know, up to date?  It's much more violent and adult than what the Riftwar trilogy felt like.

Brandon Sanderson is another writer I've been checking out. Warbreaker looks interesting and I want to give Mistborn another shot. The Way of Kings is daunting because of it's sheer size, but I'm willing to give it a try.

I'm currently reading The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley. Different in some ways, familiar in others, both mixed in a way that's appealing.

2018 has been a pretty crappy year in general and so all I can is here's to a much better 2019.

Revisiting The Belgariad (again)

First, an apology for the lack of updating on this blog. Sadly, my fantasy reading slump from last year has carried over to this one and at this point, I'm prepared to upgrade it from a slump to a drought. N.K. Jemisin's excellent The Fifth Season is the only fantasy book I've read this year to completion. I made a worthy effort with Robin Hobb's Royal Assassin, but even that couldn't hold my attention. Strangely, the fantasy genre is the only thing affected, as I've no problem reading SF and other genres.

So I've decided to go back to basics and start afresh by reading (or re-re-reading in this case) some classics of the genre, which brings us to my current book, Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings.

This would be my second read through and much like the prior two times, I'm enjoying it. Indeed, I'm almost finished with it and I only started it the other day! I don't know what I'll read after PoP. Queen of Sorcery, the second book in The Belgariad would be an obvious next step but I'm not sure if I want to jump straight to it. I could finally sit down and read The Sword of Shannara or venture to the Underdark with the first Drizzt book, Homeland. The Last Wish would be another choice, but might be too "new" be the kind of classic I want to read right now. The whole idea is to ease my way back into reading the fantasy genre, basically.