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

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

Well, if it's any help, the first three (Black Amazon, Queen, Enchantress) are all short stories, while Ginger Star is a novel.

Another good entry point would be The Sword of Rhiannon -- it's not an Eric John Stark story, but it's set in that same version of the solar system, on dying Mars. It's a longish novella/shortish novel.

Our library was fascinating because (although I didn't know this when I was young) it had started life about a hundred years ago as a little Carnegie library; and then in the late 60s they'd wrapped and entirely hidden that Carnegie core inside a very 60s steel & glass structure, so the interior had all of these weird stairways and half-levels and things that only started to make sense when you understood the history.

Jason wrote: "The Hornblower series is good, solid adventure-story fun!"

Yep! It doesn't scale the heights of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books, but it's also, dare I say, quite a bit more accessible. (But now I'm reminded that I need to reread Aubrey/Maturin one of these decades.)

A brief digression: A couple of years ago I was visiting my childhood hometown and stopped by the public library. This is a new library -- they tore down the one I remember back in about 1995 and built a brand new building; admittedly much nicer, but I still miss the weird old building I used to go to. Anyway, I was wandering through the shelves and I found two books that were the same physical copies I used to check out when I was young; one of them was The Indomitable Hornblower: Commodore Hornblower, Lord Hornblower & Hornblower in the West Indies.

And, having finished Empire of the East, I went to something completely different: Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, which I read multiple times in high school & maybe college, but haven't picked up in probably 30+ years. And I'm liking it!

Decided to do a dive into Appendix N with Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East. (I read some number of the Swords and Lost Swords books back in high school, but at that point I didn't realize they were continuations of an earlier trilogy.)

Al wrote: "I heard it's a rip off of Terry Brooks."

Of course Brooks is just ripping off Dennis McKiernan.

Started N.K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon.

SF time again: Started Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks.

Sounds like a fine suggestion to me!

I read most or all of her shorter planetary romance stuff a few years ago (in the very nice Haffner Press hardcovers) but haven't quite gotten around to Skaith yet. Someday ...

Started Joan Haste, another of H. Rider Haggard's Victorian romance/melodrama novels.

Started Empress of Dreams, a collection of Tanith Lee's short stories. Good stuff awaits!

On to The A'Rak, the final Nifft the Lean book.

Continuing on with Nifft's adventures, I just started Mines of Behemoth.

Clint wrote: "@Joseph, speak to me of this Appendix N book club"

It's the podcast that I've mentioned before. Their first hundred episodes have been books/authors from the actual DMG Appendix N, but starting with episode 101, they decided to cast their net a little wider to other books of interest. I support them on Patreon, and one benefit for Patreon backers is that generally before they record the official episode, they host a discussion (the Patron Book Club) in which Patreon backers can join in and discuss the book beforehand.

Here's their website:

https://appendixnbookclub.com/

Finished The Journeyer and am starting to reread Nifft the Lean in preparation for joining the Appendix N Book Club patron book discussion on the 18th.

Growing up, that was one of my favorite series! (Along with John Christopher's Tripods trilogy.) Because I wasn't keeping meticulous records, I'm no longer entirely sure when I read it relative to Tolkien and Narnia, but it might have been my first big multivolume fantasy series?

If I really had to pick, I'd probably say Kull, but that's in large part because my first real exposure was via the Donald M. Grant book with the Ned Dameron illustrations.

The Wilbur Smith Egypt books? I have a stack of those on my Kindle and need to get to them one of these years.

Also in the same vein: Nicholas Guild's The Assyrian/The Blood Star, and Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth.

Started The Journeyer by Gary Jennings, another of his big, fat, sex-and-violence-larded historical novels. This one is about Marco Polo.