2018: The Third Quarter Summary

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It wasn’t too bad a quarter, at least not as measured by the number of books completed. I was helped along by the fact that many of them contained Elric stories, and I developed an interest in these stories, and a desire to finish them. (I didn’t quite finish all the Elric material, but I got through the majority of the older stories.)

Books Completed

I’ve written extensively about the Elric books in the blog. Several of these really did not seem to be worth my time, especially Elric: The Fortress of the Pearl and Elric: The Revenge of the Rose. Also, as I have discussed, it did not seem to improve the Elric stories to read them in their in-universe chronological order, the way the Gollancz Michael Moorcock Collections volumes present them.

Butcher Bird was unimpressive, and is on the giveaway pile. The Stephen Brust novels were not bad, but not really great, either. These are the first two books in a series. Maybe I should jump ahead and try a later book in the series, to see if they improve.

Icehenge was a surprise standout — a better book than I expected, and I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson’s work. And Down and Out in Paris and London is a fascinating classic; it troubles a contemporary reader with some bigoted and misogynist bits and pieces, but it remains an interesting study of the subculture of the underclass. The author’s insights into poverty and its causes and effects are still very much worth reading.

Books in Progress

These books were bedtime reading for the kids in quarter three:

Films Watched

TV Shows Watched

Ypsilanti, Michigan
January 2nd, 2019 (yes, very late — I started this summary months ago, but completely forgot to finish it).

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