Joseph’s Comments (group member since Oct 24, 2012)

Joseph’s comments from the Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" group.

And I guess I'm just in a short story collection mood -- next up is The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure: Classic Tales of Dashing Heroes, Dastardly Villains, and Daring Escapes, edited by Lawrence Ellsworth.

Finished Warriors and started horror collection In a Lonely Place by Karl Edward Wagner, back in print for the first time in almost 40 years.

Eh, the diversity doesn't bother me; and I did like the first few stories, for the most part.

It's not entirely S&S, but I just started Warriors, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, another one of those behemoths in the spirit of Legends. It's a mixed genre bag -- fantasy, SF, mystery, apparently a western somewhere along the line, but all about soldierly pursuits.

Charles wrote: "I'm reading issue 0 of that now"

Yep, same! It sounds like the Kickstarter to fund the first couple of real issues will be going live soon; I'll be following (and backing) with great interest.

Since our custom since before the oceans drank Atlantis has been to start the year with anthologies, go ye forth and anthologize! No, wait, that's not it ...

Anyway, myself, I'm kicking things off with New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine.

I read K.B. Wagers' Beyond the Empire (third in her Indranan War trilogy) in the space of about 48 hours and started Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, which I expect will take quite a bit longer.

S.E. wrote: "Im halfway thru the new Elric, Citadel of Forgotten Myths. It's ok.

kudos to Joseph for helping support Uncle Hugo's store"

Oh, I've been bringing treasures home from Uncle Hugo's since 1990 or so ... Admittedly, less so since I started reading on my Kindle, and since I pretty much ran out of places to put things.

And I finished Into the Riverlands (it's a short, and excellent, novella) and decided to veer into some space opera with K.B. Wagers' Behind the Throne.

Into the Riverlands, Nghi Vo's third Singing Hills novella.

Finished Conan - Blood of the Serpent and still had pastiche on the mind, so I started For the Witch Of the Mists, a Bran Mak Morn book by David C. Smith and Richard Tierney that I picked up recently on my first visit to the reopened Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore.

I'm not quite half way through the new story and I guess so far it seems like a fine fantasy adventure, but I'm not sure how I feel about it as a Conan story.

(And I'm guessing they did themselves no favors by including Red Nails at the end of the book.)

Children of Dune

Still Duning, on to Dune Messiah.

Now it's time for Dune for the first time in about 15 years.

High Deryni by Katherine Kurtz.

Finished Conjure Wife (which was great) and started Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, something completely different, because it's a selection for a book club I'm in.

I'm now most of the way through Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife -- seemed like a good seasonal choice.

Finished Sword and Planet and started The Postutopian Adventures of Darger and Surplus by Michael Swanwick.

Congratulations! And we'll pick up the slack as we need to.

Now I'm on to Sword and Planet.