Christmas is now allowed to happen. I finished reading the Dragonlance Legends books I got myself last year.
I’d forgotten a lot of these books. Like I’m trying to remember if I even actually finished them in high school or just skimmed them and handed them back.
The first two chronicles books are still the tightest of the series to me but the Legends series spreads it’s weird lingering stuff out more evenly as opposed to just flying apart at the end like the third Chronicles. I found book 3 of Legends a lot stronger finish. I found the stuff at Palanthas with Tanis and Dalamar better than all of Tanis in Chronicles 3.
One of my buddies allowed that all he really remembered was fat Caramon and Raistlin with his gully dwarf friend. That was my memory as well, and mind-bogglingly, Raistlin and Bupu never actually meet during the trilogy.
Bupu is with Tass and Crysania in book 1 and then her corpse is in the future early in book 3 and then Raistlin hallucinates her late in book 3.
While there is nothing wrong with this book I also found little of interest. I really enjoyed Scalzi’s short stories so I thought I’d read this. While it is vaguely amusing in places I got this overwhelming sense of “I’ve read this before” from the book.
After Jim C. Hines’ Terminal Alliance, I read the rest of the trilogy, Terminal Uprising and Terminal Peace. It was a very enjoyable series, with a lot of Hines’ trademark humor, but with some rather touching elements, especially in the final book.
After those, I finally got around to Legends and Lattes, which was a pleasant read and very cute. Looking forward to the sequel, which I put on my Christmas list.
Then, got to Timothy Zahn’s The Icarus Plot, which reminded me why he has been one of my favorite authors forever. Looking forward to the sequel to this as well, which is also on my Christmas list, and comes out next month.
Now reading Gammalaw: Smoke on the Water by Brian Daley, which I feel like I have heard about for a long time, but never got around to.
I did it again… sigh
I started reading a Scalzi at 10:30pm, and stopped when I finished it at 3am. Every chapter was “Well, just one more, they read so fast, I can stop after the next one” until it was done.
This was an old one. The Last Colony, part 3 of the Old Man’s War series and nominally conclusion (technically just the end of the John and Jane Perry story). I have book 4, Zoe’s Story downstairs, and I’ll start, but not finish, that one very soon.
What can I say about TLC? It’s a Scalzi, but a relatively early Scalzi (2006). It’s very good. He’s quite funny, his plots are sudden but inevitable, the characters are all interesting and the tiny bit of deus ex machina (almost literally) near the back 1/3rd of the book is well telegraphed and excusable.
If you don’t like Scalzi’s other work you won’t like this one, but it’s part 3 of a trilogy. If you don’t like his work, why would you read it?
For me, Scalzi is just a perfect craftsman. Exactly the right amount of story, and no more. Exactly the right amount of flare, of humour, and of emotional punch, but no more than that. It was really good.
But one of these days I have to learn how to put them down before I finish the whole thing.
I am reading James Acaster’s Guide to Quitting Social Media, Being the Best You You Can Be and Saving Yourself From Loneliness, Vol. 1.
Not that I’m on Social Media. But with James Acaster’s wise words squirrelled away in my brain, I’ll know exactly what to do in case I ever succumb – including how to get the tar, and in specifically which Welsh seaside town to bury everything.
After regretting not getting the Malazan Bundle on Humble when it was there the first time, I snapped it up in their advent calendar. It’s still on there for another 11 hours or so…
IT appears they can but only up to 50Mb so not sure how big the books are. You can relatively easily convert files tho apparently so might still go and buy them
