... and follow with Queen... and Memnoch. It's downhill from there (and in Tale... too), though there is something to be said about Blood and Gold too. And actually even the newer Prince Lestat, if you take it as sort of Queen... 2 and know what to expect, a lot of atmosphere and being taken back there. May actually help if read years after the others though, so...

LOL. I finally purchased it last week, and in fact it is preparation for my first playthrough of the game that is the reason I am reading these stories. :)

EDIT: I included The Vampire Lestat in my list, as I am almost finished with it. I will read The Queen of the Damned again, or at least parts of it, but I will skip The Tale of the Body Thief. The only other in the series I possess is The Vampire Armand, which I will attempt. I also have The Mummy and Vittorio the Vampire, neither of which I have read.

@Cavalary I will check out Prince Lestat, but I didn't find The Queen of the Damned to be as engaging as The Vampire Lestat. I really enjoyed certain parts, but I didn't find it to be anything near as cohesive as The Vampire Lestat, to say nothing of Interview with the Vampire.

They do rather need to be read in order. Armand will likely make little sense without Memnoch, but then again it's not exactly a good one either way. Body Thief can largely be skipped, yes. It will be referred to in later ones, but you can get the gist of it. Rice herself utterly ignores the events in Merrick, Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle, and also Vittorio, in Prince Lestat (heh, ended up writing a heck of a long review of that); those are largely to be discarded.

And enjoy the game. And the preparations for it :)

Aviatoarea (The Aviator)

Got this from a book exchange, so didn’t actually pay for it at least. Wouldn’t have given much even because of the size alone anyway, a more serious magazine likely being longer. Admittedly, that at least meant I could go through it quickly, but some problems could have been fixed by writing more, a lot more, if that’d have meant adding explanations, worldbuilding, making things make sense and have some depth. As it is, I wonder why it’s considered science fiction, since there’s no science in it, and I’d say it can’t be called fantasy either, since that should also make sense, be internally consistent, even if in a place where the laws of nature differ, and there’s nothing of the sort here. I guess it could be seen as some sort of fairy tale, but that’s about it.
For example, how come there are so many messenger pilots and planes and apparently even common, everyday messages are delivered in person by plane? How come this happens in a village, and how come it has an academy to train the pilots for that matter? Then, how were the children just forgotten in said village right away, and how come nobody cared when they were noticed again? Even if you allow for some interventions according to what’s explained at the end, none of that makes any sense. Interestingly, the stranger things that happen later could make some sense, assuming fantasy “rules”, and the last 30 pages are actually much better in every way, but there are few attempts to explain and everything, whether we’re talking of events, character development or feelings, is rushed through and… At times sort of in a fog, if I may say so.
And then there’s the matter of the dialogues, which are completely forced, not natural or believable in any way. The writing style itself can be passable otherwise, but definitely not when it comes to anything spoken, that being so bad that it actually made me check whether it wasn’t somehow written in a different language at first and then translated, badly.

Rating: 2/5

A man of quality - Georges Simenon

Third installment in the Maigret series. Still a slow pace and a wonderful social study, this time on hidden secrets and double lives. Middle-class people are really "middle", but rich or noble people are not much better, either. In addition, written in the 1930s, it's an interesting mirror of past french society.

Un travelo nommé désir Noël Simsolo

Another installment in the "Le Poulpe" series. A political/crimeworld story, with a background in the red light districts and the prostitution industry. Each story of Le Poulpe is written by a different author, following the same guidelines, but that one really felt... bland. The author followed the guidelines, but with no "genuis". You felt he understood the concept of Le Poulpe, but not really the character itself.

So far in 2018: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/books_finished_in_2018/post9

Dark Tower Series: Song of Susanna

Slugfest, by Reed Tucker. (Every time I see that name I have to remind myself that the World's Toughest Milkman was Reid Fleming.) About the Marvel vs. DC Comics rivalry. This book reminded me a bit of Console Wars, another popular history about a corporate rivalry in a nerd industry, in both positive and negative ways.

Tucker admits right off that he's a Marvel guy. He hits most of the traditional main points when people talk about the two companies - DC created the superhero genre but is stiff and conservative, Marvel is freewheeling and does soap opera really well. It pretty much starts in the early 60s with Marvel creating Fantastic Four as an industry underdog, and eventually ends up talking about the competing movie universes, finishing with a depressing final chapter on how both companies have been completely subsumed by their corporate masters, the comics haven't made any actual money in decades, and they each really only are kept around as little IP farms for Hollywood and merchandising.

There are some cool anecdotes included about things that happened in the Marvel or DC offices over the years, but Tucker tends to jump back and forth in history within the chapters and he gets sloppy at times. For instance, in the lengthy chapter on the 90s boom and bust, he talks about how the two companies were so hard hit by the bust that they agreed to do a new wave of crossovers together to generate reader excitement. The problem is that the first of these crossovers, the Batman and Punisher stories, came out in 94, when the Knightfall stories were happily chugging along and generating tons of sales. The crash didn't occur until around 1996. Oops.

There are also some odd things he says - when he talks about DC's creation of the Vertigo imprint, the very first title he mentions is Transmetropolitan, a latter day series that was created for DC's sci-fi Helix imprint and then shifted to Vertigo after Helix bombed (my favorite Helix book was Tim Truman's Black Lamb, but no one else bought that one). Sandman, the actual Vertigo flagship title gets a brief mention a paragraph later, and Hellblazer, probably the other major mainstay along with Swamp Thing, gets no mention ever. I have a bit of the same problem I had with Console Wars in that the author is keeping such a broad view of the corporate rivalry that he often overlooks what was actually happening in terms of the companies' particular styles and the comics being offered, unless discussion is unavoidable. Alan Moore, probably the most important post-Silver Age DC writer, is barely discussed as Tucker doesn't bother to go into stuff like DC's recruitment of British writers in the 80s or Marvel bringing in foreign artists in the 70s and how that affected their outputs. You get a good idea of why the companies had this traditional rivalry with each other, but only a hazy view of what they were actually creating.

I did not finish many books this year. One reason being that bad luck destroyed my pile of ongoing books. I had to throw them away :-( Which reminds me I have to replace the one borrowed book in that pile.

But, I did read; mostly cartoons though and mostly such that were written for a bit older readers. No Mickey Mouse for me. Still somehow mentioning those here a lot feels embarressing as it is still considered lower level reading by many.

Yes, many people still consider them not different art-style, but something worse, indeed.

But it's exactly the same with science-fiction, which is considered as some pew-pew-in-space literature and most people don't realize that there is a serious reflection on the world's problems and future in the genre (at least much more serious than in mainstream fiction).

The only comic books I read are those purchased from Humble Bundle from time to time. Just to keep some contact with this interesting art form. However usually I'm disappointed with them. The last great comic book reading I remenber was something about 150 books of "Walking Dead" a year or two ago. I watched only part of 1st season of TV series and was bored with it, but later found out that the story in comic books is just awesome and I've read all of them.

Dear all - I'd like to invite you to the new thread for 2019! :) Feel free, of course, to update also this one, if there are still any readings to be reported for 2018.

Have a great year with a lot of time and full of fantastic readings!

Neil Gaiman's:
Neverwhere
Smoke & Mirrors
The Graveyard Book
The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Stephen King's:
Joyland
Sleeping Beauties (with Owen King)

Murakami's:
The Secret Library
The Elephant Vanishes

Kafka's:
The Metamorphosis

Aldous Huxley's:
Brave New World (re-read actually)

finished lord of the ring

2017
10 - TERRY PRATCHETT [55] - SNUFF - Pb - 23-Dec-17 --> 13-Jan-18
2018
1 - VAL McDERMID [03] - THE LAST TEMPTATION - PCF - 14-Jan-18 --> 20-Jan-18
2 - DAN BROWN [07] - ORIGIN - HC - 31-Jan-18 --> 9-Feb-18
3 - C. J. BOX [26] - OFF THE GRID - PCF - 11-Feb-18 --> 13-Feb-18
4 - PAULA HAWKINS [02] - INTO THE WATER - PCF - 14-Feb-18 --> 18-Feb-18
5 - TERRY PRATCHETT, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen [56] & [04] - JUDGMENT DAY - TRA - FEB'18 --> 24-Nov-18
6 - VAL McDERMID [04] - CROSS ROADS - PCF - MAR'18 --> MAR'18
7 - TOM BAKER [01] - WHO ON EARTH IS TOM BAKER? AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY - PCF - JUN'18 --> DEC'18
8 - C. J. BOX [27] - VICIOUS CIRCLE - PCF - AUG'18 --> AUG'18
9 - VAL McDERMID [05] - THE TORMENT OF OTHERS - PCF - AUG'18 --> 12-Aug-18
10 - TERRY BROOKS [06] - ISLE WITCH - Pb - DEC'18 --> 3-Feb-19
11 - MARTIN CLUNES [01] - A DOG'S LIFE - HC - 26-Dec-18 --> still reading
12 - ROBERT GALBRAITH (J. K. ROWLING) [04] & [13] - LETHAL WHITE - TRA - 28-Dec-18 --> 10-Jan-19

NOTE - Not such a good year 2018 with me, for reading ... and 2017 was similar. But some is better than none, and 2019 was a much better year.

We discussed Ivanhoe in the 2020 thread, but I forgot to reply.
I too read Ivanhoe in 2018, so I may as well post my old review here:

"Ivanhoe (1820) by Sir Walter Scott: 4/5

For decades I thought this was a juvenile book, since what I read as a child must have been an abridged and simplified version.

England, 1194.
It's 128 years since the Norman Conquest and the Saxons are still oppressed, they still talk different languages, King Richard Lionheart is imprisoned in Austria and his younger brother John is acting sovereign and planning to remain so, and with hardened and embittered crusaders returning from Palestine lawlessness abounds.
Cedric of Rotherwood is still hoping for a Saxon king again, and tries to arrange a marriage between his ward Rowena who is of royal blood and Athelstane who is the last legitimate Saxon claimant. But Athelstane is more interested in eating than ruling, and Rowena is more interested in Cedric's disowned son Wilfred (last seen fighting alongside the Lionheart in Palestine) than in Athelstane.

The book is essentially three "scenes".
The first is the tourney, with iconic scenes like Robin Hood splitting his rival's arrow in the archery contest, and not one, but two mystery knights, one of them even a Black Knight.

The second, and weakest scene, which drags on for too long, is the siege when Robin Hood and his merry men join forces with Cedric and Athelstane against the buff Reginald Front-de-Boeuf and the malevolent Philip de Malvoisin.

Things improve in the third scene, which is the trial against the Jewish physician Rebecca who is accused of witchcraft by the (fictitious) Grand Master of the Knight Templars. The GM in his puritanical zeal made me think of the Hammerite leaders in Thief: The Dark Project and the trial made me think of the similar trial in Black Adder.

I think this book was pretty influential and created many tropes, but I'm not sure how much of it stems from the Robin Hood tradition on which the book was inspired.

There's a surprising amount of dialogue, and it's old fashioned dialogue ("what sayest thou" style). Apparently the people of England in 1194 were quite eloquent, since it's not merely sentences, but more like speeches.
The use of "you" (which was polite) and "thou" (which was familiar) is not always consistent, both being used in the same "speech" sometimes.

The characters are quite nuanced, but oddly Ivanhoe himself, who spends most of the book off stage being wounded, is a rather sketchy character and comes across as just some generic good guy without much personality.

An important theme in the book is antisemitism.
Apparently the Jews, who entered England after the Conquest, were universally reviled by everyone and only tolerated because they generated money for the nobles to confiscate and were good physicians. They were better off in Muslim countries where they apparently were treated fairly as long as they paid their Jizya.
Scott is obviously sympathetic to their plight, but he still mostly describes them as the traditional avaricious usurers and misers, and even Ivanhoe rather detests them.

And his sympathy lies with the Saxons rather than the Normans, but he still describes the Saxons as superstitious rustics and the Normans as more more refined (although with a silly fashion sense). I wondered if Tolkien, another staunch Saxonist, was inspired by or had mentioned Ivanhoe, but couldn't find anything.

The weakest part of the book is a blatant deus-ex-machina, which the printer of the original book insisted on, and which Scott obviously was so embarrassed by that he put an apology for it in one of the foot notes.
Also, while the book could be called an historical novel, I think all characters but King Richard and Prince John are fictitious, and so are many place names.

Despite the old fashioned language I still found it an enjoyable and surprisingly easy read, with most of the difficult words explained in foot notes. But as when reading Tolkien I find the archaic English easy to read since it's closer to modern Norwegian than modern English is, while I have more problems with obscure words derived from French and Latin. "