Karl's Reading List

Published by Orbit Books: Great Britain, 2013 (1991). First published 1990. Book 1 in 'The Wheel of Time.' Followed by 'The Great Hunt.' This is the first book in a series of 14, a series that I was first introduced to by one of my cousins years ago. I read through every book that had been written to that point, but the series was unfinished, so I put it down and never revisited it. Since then, the series was finished (despite the main author dying before the end!) and it has also been made into three seasons of an Amazon TV show. Anyway, finding a copy in a bookswap library inspired me to give it another go. Let's start with the 'negatives.' It's quite slow paced. It IS an epic story, that would have required a lot of books regardless of pace, but there are times when it FEELS slow. The main characters spend over 100 pages of plot before leaving their home village, there are 300 pages before we get a different POV character for the first time, and the a...

Published by Corgi Books: London, 1988 (1985). First published 1983. Book 1 of the 'Discworld' series. It has finally happened! I have reread the first Discworld novel! Discworld being, of course, the series of 50-plus fantasy/satire books written by the late Terry Pratchett, composing a huge cast of characters that grow and develop throughout the years in their own sub-series-within-a-series. The Colour of Magic introduces the Discworld for the first time: a flat, circular world, balanced on the back of four giant elephants that themselves stand on the back of a giant turtle that swims through space. Pretty much every magical or mythological character you can think of exists on the Discworld somewhere, and as the series progresses, Pratchett uses this fantasy lens to poke fun at various aspects of our reality. Such a huge undertaking as a 50-plus book series satiring reality through a fantasy lens, however, is likely to be one that finds it rhythm over time, and this holds tru...

Published in an omnibus edition by Penguin Classics: London, England, 1998. First published individually 1865. 'The Centenary Edition' includes 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass' with commentary and short stories. You know, I've never read Alice in Wonderland before!  The closest I've come is a memory I have of a relief teacher in primary school reading out an excerpt from the chapter 'A Mad Tea Party', including the unanswerable riddle about a raven and a writing desk, a clock that tells you what day it is, and a story about sisters in a treacle well who draw treacle. It is very odd, but I remember thinking that the puns were clever, and thus, my impression of the Alice stories have been - from childhood - just that: odd, but clever. Maybe I had built it up too much in my imagination. This first Alice story is certainly odd! But clever...? Maybe...? The edition I read has many endnotes, many of which try to ti...

Published by The Text Publishing Company: Melbourne, Australia, 2023. Book 1 in 'The Hierarchy.' Followed by ' The Strength of the Few. ' Recently, I came across some "Book-Tok" style videos on YouTube, and this book was one that I began seeing reviewed favourably. I kept an eye out for it, wondering if I could borrow it from the local library, but finding it consistently on loan (perhaps others had been watching the same videos).  Then, one Saturday morning, I went to get coffees for Elise and myself, and on the book-swap shelf of that particular cafe, this book was proudly displayed. So, I took it. Hooray! And, now having read it... ...I can see what the fuss is about. This is a well-written high fantasy book set in a Roman-Empire-style society called Caten. The Catenan Empire has conquered the known world, with the help of their 'Will-infused' magic system/social hierarchy. Lower ranked individuals 'cede' half of their available 'will...

Published as an audiobook by Dragonsteel, 23-04-2023. Narrated by William DeMeritt. Originally published 2023. This is one of four 'secret project' books that Brandon Sanderson released in 2023, along with Tress of the Emerald Sea , The Frugal Wizard's Guide to Medieval England , and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and is the third I have read. It is also the one of the four that has the strongest connection to Sanderson's 'cosmere' universe, often referencing characters and even events from his Stormlight Archives series, that began with The Way of Kings. If all this sounds like a lot of connective tissue, then brace yourself. The Sunlit Man may take place on a planet that has previously not been visited within the cosmere, but the main character, Nomad, is someone who has in the past been a knight radiant on Roshar (the main setting of the Stormlight Archives ). Not only that, but as the story progresses, it is revealed that he is a specific character from the...

Published by Fabbri Publishing Ltd: Barcelona, 1992. First published as a novel in Italian, 1883. What a truly weird book. This is the OG version of Pinocchio, and it feels very dated, and odd. I once read half of the book The Adventures of Roderick Ransom by Tobias Smollett, and it gives me vibes of that, in the way the story unfolds without much overarching structure; rather, it simply feels like a rambly bed time story being continuously extended with plot points that feel like the author is just going: "and then, this happened!"  In some ways this makes sense, as the original stories were published in serial format before being grouped together as a novel, but authors like Charles Dickens shows that these can still be coherent narratives. Pinocchio doesn't really worry about things like that! Sure, there is a through-line in that Pinocchio is a disobedient puppet who continuously makes poor choices - surely, meant to be a morality lesson for the reader - but other bit...

Published by Harper/HarperCollinsPublishers: 2008. First published 1990. It's been a while since I finished a book, which feels strange! I know why though! In the background I have been reading Moby Dick , which is taking a long time to get through. I've also traded my shorter audiobooks (like Thursday Murder Club and its sequels) for The Institutes of Christian Religion by John Calvin, and that is gonna take a long time to finish! Finally, I've also been reading a few books to do with recent or upcoming sermons, and neither Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard or Jews and Jesus   by Zola Levitt are quick reads. Anyway, all this to say that I picked up Eric from the school library on a whim the other day, and was happy to read something I could finish quickly. This is the 9th Discworld novel chronologically and 4th involving the wizard Rincewind, although the first Rincewind novel that I have reviewed here - previously only having reviewed the 31st Discworld novel Mons...

Published by Gollancz/The Orion Publishing Group Ltd: London, 2024. Book 5 of 'The Stormlight Archive.' Preceded by ' Rhythm of War. ' As of writing this post, Wind and Truth is the most recent book in Brandon Sanderson's epic Stormlight Archive series, although he has planned to write ten books all up. This book also finishes the first "arc" of the series; apparently there will be a time jump afterwards. Wind and Truth also takes place within the 'cosmere', Sanderson's larger universe in which many of his series take place. Without spoiling anything, by the end of Wind and Truth he has also begun to link some of these series together in far more open ways than he has previously done - it will be interesting to see how this changes the future of the cosmere going forward. Focussing in on the plot: at the end of Rhythm of War a contest had been planned between a champion of the evil god Odium and the champion of Dalinar Kholin, to bring about ...

Published by Scholastic Children's Books: London, 2007. The title is a pun! I didn't pick up on it right away, but it totally is! Here Lies Arthur is a retelling of the Arthur legends of ancient Britain, from the perspective of Gwyna, a young girl who becomes the assistant of Myrddin (Merlin). But rather than tell the stories in a 'straight-forward' way, Here Lies Arthur creates whole new versions: deconstructed, demythologised, and with Arthur nowhere near as heroic or noble. In fact, the Arthur of legend is shown to be a creation of Myrddin, who tells tales of Arthur's exploits to build him up and make him seem more heroic, hoping to unite all of England behind him to drive out the Saxon invaders. The 'real life' Arthur of the book doesn't deserve this praise; he is violent, stubborn, set in his ways and only out for his own rewards.  Other characters too are reimagined. Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere) is a 'pale heron' of a woman, whom Arthur never rea...

Published by Voyager/HarperCollinsPublishers: Hammersmith, London, 1996 (1995). Book 1 of 'The Farseer Trilogy.' Followed by 'Royal Assassin.' Hey writers. Have you ever had trouble coming up with a name for your protagonist? It is possible that Robin Hobb did, as the main character in Assassin's Apprentice is a nameless boy, whose father happened to be the heir-in-waiting to the Seven Duchies. As a bastard (a term that gets flung his way often throughout the book) the boy is mistreated by many of the people in his life, with the main result being that it takes a long time for anyone to get around to giving him an actual name, and even longer for him to be given a name that everyone accepts as his name. It's quite an interesting element in a fairly interesting story, one that I got through a lot quicker than the much shorter Jungle Books.  Our protagonist - generally called 'Fitz' (which, if you know your etymology, means bastard) - is adopted into the r...

Published by Gollancz/Hachette UK: London, UK, 2024 (2023). The back cover promises a story that will appeal to fans of The Princess Bride, and that - along with being a stand-alone book that isn't over 500 pages - was enough to sell this as Elise's first exposure to Brandon Sanderson. Tress (whose real name is Glorf, but who prefers to be known as Tress due to her unruly hair) lives on a planet where the 'oceans' are made up of spores dropped from the various moons, each one a different colour and having a different (usually deadly) reaction to water. When her true love gets captured by the evil Sorceress of the Midnight Sea, Tress must sneak off her island home and set sail to rescue him. Along the way she encounters numerous characters to aid or hind her, from the talking rat Huck, to the chronically-poor-aim assistant cannonsmaster Ann, to Fort, a huge mute who can only communicate via a magical writing board. In true Sanderson fashion, each of these characters has ...

Published by Gollancz/Dragonsteel, LLC: London, 2024 (2020). Book 4 of 'The Stormlight Archive.' Preceded by (spinoff) ' Dawnshard ' and (main series) ' Oathbringer .' Followed by ' Wind and Truth. ' Remember Black Widow, the MCU movie that finally gave Natasha Romanov her solo feature, but (spoilers for the MCU) waited until after her character had died to do it, and then pitched it as a prequel of sorts? As a result, the movie - though entertaining - felt less 'significant' than most of the MCU movies had until that point, even as it tried to keep itself relevant through it's post-credit scene. Rhythm of War has some unfortunate parallels to that movie - although by no means is it as 'irrelevant' to the Stormlight Archive series as a whole. These parallels come through the choice to focus this book's flash-backs (a staple of the main books in the series) on the characters of Venli and Eshonai, the latter of whom died all the way...

Published by Huia Publishers: Wellington, Aotearoa, NZ, 2023 (2021). This is the second book I've read by this author, and - I think - the second book by this author, too! The first book, Flight of the Fantail , was very weird, and in my review I mentioned that I was still processing whether I liked it or not. Falling into Rarohenga is somewhat similar in that way. We follow twin siblings, Tui and Kae, who live with their mother after their no-hoper father left. Tui is the academic, Kae is the musician slacker, and both have that semi-antagonistic-but-secretly-looking-out-for-one-another thing that many siblings do, both in fiction and real life. The twins arrive home from a bad day at school (Tui loses her prefect status and Kae is suspended) to find that their mother has gone missing, kidnapped by their father and taken into Rarohenga - the Māori Underworld. Tui and Kae then also end up on Rarohenga, and must try to rescue their mother while resisting the urge to eat anything fro...

Published by Titan Books: London, 2022. Book 3.5 of 'The Stormlight Archive.' Preceded by ' Oathbringer .' Followed by ' Rhythm of War. ' Another spin-off novella, Dawnshard follows Rysn, a very minor character who has mostly appeared in 'Interlude' chapters until now. Paralysed from the waist down by an accident she suffered back in (I think) Words of Radiance , Rysn now has been given her own ship, and is eager to become a trading merchant like her mentor, despite her disability. At the beginning of Dawnshard, Rysn's pet 'larkin' is sick, and she believes it can only be healed by travelling to the island it came from. Fortunately for her, Navani wants to hire a ship to go to that island, a mysterious and dangerous place that we know (from another interlude in Oathbringer ) is being protected by mysterious and dangerous creatures. Rysn is accompanied by a suspicious crew and a small group of radiants and ardents, of whom the most prominent i...

Published in Two-Volume Paperback edition by Gollancz/Orion Publishing Group, Ltd: London, 2019. First published 2017. Book 3 in 'The Stormlight Archives' series. Preceded by (spinoff) ' Edgedancer ' and (main series) ' Words of Radiance. ' Followed by (spinoff) ' Dawnshard ' and (main series) ' Rhythm of War. ' The third 'proper' entry in Sanderson's planned ten-part epic, Oathbringer picks up after the Knights Radiant have been reformed, effectively introducing superheroes into the world of Roshar.  I made the comment at the end of Words of Radiance that the series could have ended with that entry, and it is true that the series now feels quite different. It does, however, still have the same characters with the same quirks, and I continue to enjoy it. With such a sweeping epic planned, some minor characters become more prominent in this entry, and it seems like further storylines will spin off as the series continues. Of course, t...

Published as an eBook by Elle Hartford, 2024. Volume 7 of 'The Alchemical Tales.' This is the second ebook I have received as a free giveaway through LibraryThing, although I'm not sure how often I will apply for them, considering that ebooks really aren't my favourite medium to read in. However, having received A Thousand and One Alibis, I was 'required' to read and review it.  As I said last time, what a sacrifice! It is interesting to jump into a series on Book 7, but I very quickly got the gist of this world: we are in a fairy-tale inspired fantasy world, with each book vaguely inspired by (though not beholding to) the plot of a specific fairy-tale. In this instance, we meet characters called Jasmin, Ja'far and Gene (that one took me a moment), we have the setting of a vaguely Middle-Eastern inspired desert island, and also encounter a mysterious castle that possibly has its source in magic. However, the story that unfolds is not 'Aladdin' at all...

Published as an audiobook by Dragonsteel, LLC., 2023. Narrated by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading. Originally published 2023. As the title might suggest, this is a humorous book about a modern-era man who ends up posing as a wizard in a medieval-style England. As we dig into the story a little, we learn that he's not technically in the real medieval England, but rather a parallel dimension that resembles medieval England. He's also not technically a modern-era man, with the book being set a little into the future (allowing for dimension travel, as well as minor technological augments and nanites). This is smart writing from Sanderson, as it allows him to create a world that seems medieval, without needing to do too much worrying about absolute historical accuracy. In terms of story, our hero awakens in a field, surrounded by scorch marks and the scattered pages of a half-burnt copy of the titular handbook. He has amnesia, which is a great way for us to learn about him as he lea...

Published by Tor/A Tom Doherty Associates Book: New York, NY, 2017. Sections previously published in 2014, 2016. Book 2.5 of 'The Stormlight Archive.' Preceded by ' Words of Radiance. ' Followed by ' Oathbringer .' When I reviewed Words of Radiance I made the comment that a spin-off novel around minor character Lift would be enjoyable. It turns out, Brandon Sanderson heeded my advice, and even went to the trouble of heeding it a few years before I gave it! I realised this book existed after I had purchased a copy of Oathbringer, and, upon opening the book for the first time, was instructed to read this book first. So I paused Oathbringer, hunted this out at the local library, finished reading Night Without End , and then finally read more about Lift. The book opens with a prologue that is simply the previous chapter about Lift repeated from Words of Radiance. Then we jump forward in time a little, to Lift and her spren companion Wyndle journeying to the town of...

Published as an audiobook by Orion Publishing Group, 2012. Originally published 2007. Narrated by Rupert Degas. Book 1 of 'The Kingkiller Chronicle.' This audiobook was a mixed bag for me. It takes a little while to get going, but eventually becomes a very interesting look at the development of a hero, told from the perspective of the now-jaded-and-retired hero narrating his story to a famous chronicler (who calls himself Chronicler). Kvothe (pronounced Quoth), begins life as part of a travelling troupe of entertainers. He is also trained in mystical arcanist arts by his mentor-figure Abenthy, who Kvothe witnessed harnessing the name of the wind, and calls him 'Ben' - like a certain other famous mystical-mentor figure. When tragedy strikes, Kvothe flees and undertakes a number of journeys and adventures as he grows: he lives a beggar for a few years, he learns to play the lute beautifully even with missing strings, he joins the arcanist university at a young age, he sav...

Published by The Reader's Digest Association, Inc./Academy Chicago Publishers: USA, 1991 (1986). Volume 3 of 'Academy Mystery Novellas.' Preceded by 'Police Procedurals.' Volume 3 of the Academy Mystery Novella collection is focussed on 'locked room puzzles', the fun sub-genre of mysteries that involves figuring out how a crime could have taken place when elements in the story suggest it to be impossible that it could have.  I like these puzzles, and this has been my favourite volume so far as a result. The collection of novellas this time are: 'The Third Bullet' by John Dickson Carr.  This is the longest entry in this volume by far, taking up almost half the volume on its own. It is also the most complex and detailed - which makes sense. Judge Charles Mortlake is found dead, with the man who had threatened to kill him standing in the room with him, and holding a gun that had just been fired. It seems open and shut, but the man - Gabriel White - appe...