Books read in 2023: No. 43 - The Gospel According to St. John

published by Zondervan

Started: Dec. 29
Finished: Dec. 31

Notes: Seeing that it's the end of the year, I thought I'd finish my 2023 Bible readings with the last of the gospels.

Mini review: I found this to be the most lyrical of the gospels, and the most different when it comes to the timeline of events revolving around Jesus, which are probably some of the main reasons this book is not considered one of the Synoptic Gospels. Also, perhaps it is because I had fairly recently read the other gospels, but I felt this one was the least informative when it came details about Jesus and his life.

Books read in 2023: No. 42 -- Nemesis: Book One of Indigo

by Louise Cooper

Started: Dec. 21

Finished: Dec. 29

Notes: Here's another fantasy author with whom I was not familiar, so I look forward to expanding my reading experience. I was drawn to this one in a used book store because the typography and artwork on the cover reminded me somewhat of the Elric novels of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Mini review: Unfortunately, this one didn't do much for me. A princess delves into a mystery in her father's kingdom, the results of which opens a door for vast evil to enter the world. What follows is tragic, with the princess ultimately facing a quest to vanquish the evil. This isn't a bad plot, and the writing itself is fair, but the details I found often dull and ultimately unfulfilling. This isn't a novel of action, which I don't have a problem with, but I didn't find the protagonist overly compelling and I felt much of her reasoning to be flawed. One big hang up I had with this novel was the use of illusions by the main antagonist. Some of the illusions were actually a threat, or could have been, but much of the illusions were only meant to terrorize the protagonist, which personally I find silly and cheap; in my opinion, if a protagonist knows (or at least strongly suspects) that an illusion is an illusion, then I wouldn't think they should be strongly affected by the illusion. But maybe that's just me.

Books read in 2023: No. 41 -- A Dance of Cloaks

by David Dalglish

Started: Dec. 15

Finished: Dec. 21

Notes: I've been meaning to read more of Dalglish's work, so why not try what is possibly his most popular novel?

Review: I can see why this novel helped spur Dalglish's writing career. The action here is near constant, and when there's not direct action there is plenty of intrigue and skullduggery. This was a fun novel to read, but I do have a few quibbles. For one thing, there are a lot of characters to keep track of, and while I don't normally have a problem with that, here I felt there was not enough space spent with each character to differentiate them from one another, with one or two exceptions. Too many of the characters here seem like one another, so that didn't make it easy to separate them when a chapter or three had gone by without a particular character or characters making an appearance. But if you enjoy action-oriented fiction, this is a novel for you. If you shy away from lots of killing and blood and gore, this one probably is not for you, though I wouldn't call this the darkest novel I've ever read.

Books read in 2023: No. 40 -- Enchanted Pilgrimage

by Clifford D. Simak

Started: Dec. 12

Finished: Dec. 15

Notes: I traveled for a week to Myrtle Beach recently and I had taken a book with me to read while there. As things turned out, I finished that book and needed something else to read, so I dropped in the Back Again Book Shop, a charming little place, and picked up a handful of books, some new, some used. I picked up this particular fantasy novel because of the author, someone with whom I am unfamiliar, so I look forward to trying out a writer new to me.

Mini review: A young scholar in a fantasy world makes a discovery in a university library, the discovery sending him off on a quest with a gnome, a goblin, and many more friends. This was a rather quaint book, reminding me some of the fantasy writings of C.S. Lewis though this novel was not quite so innocent as the writings of Lewis. The writing here was fair, though not great, yet the characters were interesting despite there not being much depth to them. The plot is a straight-forward quest, but the ultimate goal is not always set in stone. Would I read more from this author? I believe I would, so I'll have to keep an eye out for more of his works.

Books read in 2023: No. 39 -- On a Pale Horse

by Piers Anthony

Started: Dec. 8

Finished: Dec. 12

Notes: Just last year I read my first Piers Anthony novel, and I didn't care much for it. But that had been a book in the Xanth series and was full of puns, and I'm not much of a pun guy. So, I thought I'd give this author another try but with a different series.

Mini review: A young man tries to commit suicide but in the process accidentally kills the Incarnation of Death, and that means the young man has to take Death's place and job, traveling around the world and retrieving souls as they die. Meanwhile, the other Incarnations (Time, War, Nature, etc.) are working behind the scenes to thwart the plans of Satan himself. I have to say, I enjoyed this one more than I did the one Xanth novel I read, so I wouldn't be opposed to returning to this series of books at some point in the future. The writing is pretty solid, though it is borderline silly, not unlike a number of fantasy novels from the 1980s, reminding me somewhat of the works of Robert Aspirin and even some of Heinlein's later works.

Books read in 2023: No. 38 -- Swords of the Horseclans

by Robert Adams

Started: Dec. 4

Finished: Dec. 8

Notes: Having just finished the first novel in this series, I thought I'd plunge into the second.

Mini review: This book was quite a bit different than the first one, which was a nice surprise as in my experience series novels tend to have the same plots over and over again. While the first book in this series was mostly Sword & Sorcery with bits of warfare, this second book was almost entirely fantasy warfare. In fact, most of the book is about High Lord Milo either fighting battles, having his officers fight battles, or political intrigue which either destroyed enemies or made friends out of enemies. I didn't care for this book as much as the first one, mostly because there seemed long passages of history and exposition, but it was still nice to see familiar names and to read of events following that first novel. Will I continued this series? Not now, no, mainly because I have no other books in the series, but I might well return if I run across more of these books.

Books read in 2023: No. 37 -- The Coming of the Horseclans

by Robert Adams

Started: Nov. 29

Finished: Dec. 4

Notes: I've had my eye on this series for decades now, and a while back when I ran across a couple of the books, I decided it was time to give them a try.

Mini review: An immortal warrior returns after hundreds of years to the prairie clans he founded and sets out with them on a quest to find a prophesied home. One of the not uncommon criticisms of Sword & Sorcery literature is that it seeks to hide masculine bravado behind a shield of righteous cruelty, an opinion with which I rarely agree, but here? In my experience, only the Gor novels go so far (though the Gor novels are generally more interested in sexual matters whereas here the focus is more to do with brutality), but in this case I believe even the Gor books have been surpassed when it comes to ruthless violence. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy this novel to a certain degree, but I did find it rather careless in treating with righteous vengeance and the like. The writing here is not bad, though not exceptionally good. The world building is fair and would have been considered somewhat unique at the time of publishing of this book in the mid-1970s, though today is nothing exceptional. The characters, however, are quite strong for the most part, though I felt more time could have been spent on exploring these characters. In fairness, this is a short novel, so there's not really the space to expand upon the world and characters further, so I'm glad I've another book in this series. Also found here are the common S&S themes of barbarism vs. civilization with barbarism being considered morally superior, which I personally don't necessarily agree with, not because I feel one is more morally superior than the other but that I think of the two more as historical aspects that wax and wane with each having good or bad aspects to them.

Books read in 2023: No. 36 -- The Sunset Warrior

by Eric Van Lustbader

Started: Nov. 26

Finished: Nov. 29

Notes: I've gone all this year reading next to no speculative fiction and definitely no fantasy fiction, so I thought it time to change that before 2023 comes to and end. Also, I've been meaning to read this author for decades now, and I'm finally taking the plunge.

Mini review: The world has frozen over and humanity has been forced to move far underground in order to survive. Here society has become something of a caste system, though one swordsman refuses to bend the knee to any even when civil war appears to be looming among the powerful. Secrets loom and the swordsman finds himself on a quest to learn the truth of not only his reality, but that of all humanity. Mostly a novel of political intrigue, the action quotient kicks up near the end. Also, several revelations near the end were quite surprising to me, which is not usually the case for me. The writing style here reminded me somewhat of Michael Moorcock but without the finesse, which is not a bad thing. The first novel in a trilogy, I'll have to keep my eyes pealed for the other books in the series.

Books read in 2023: No. 35 - The Gospel According to St. Luke

published by Zondervan

Started: Nov. 21
Finished: Nov. 25

Notes: Considering the Christmas season is looming ahead, I thought it fitting to read the next gospel among my Bible readings.

Mini review: Of the three Synoptic Gospels, I find this one the most comprehensive, telling much that appears in the other two, outlining the life of Jesus while adding some few details not in the other books.

Books read in 2023: No. 34 -- Schools and Masters of Fencing

by Egerton Castle

Started: Nov. 3

Finished: Nov. 21

Notes: Of late I've been reading a fair amount about swords in history and I felt like continuing my reading trend for at least one more book. Originally published in 1885, this book covers the periods from the Middle Ages through the 18th Century.

Mini review: This turns out not to be a fully comprehensive book on the fencing masters of the period, for the author's information comes from a particular large collection of books available to him at the time of writing, and I personally know of at least a few fencing masters who are note even named within this book. That does not mean this book does not have its uses, nor that is was not interesting, for it did cover plenty of fencing masters including some well known to me. It's worth picking up if you are interested in the history of the sword, and I found the author's personal prejudices related to the sword to be interesting and even sometimes amusing, for he seemed to find perfection in the small sword of the 18th and 19th Centuries (weapons which I personally tend to despise) while he had little love for the earlier rapier and downright disdain for even earlier weapons such as the longsword.

Books read in 2023: No. 33 - The Gospel According to St. Mark

published by Zondervan

Started: Nov. 1
Finished: Nov. 3

Notes: For some reason of which I'm not aware, I believe this is the book of the gospels which I have read the least, including never having read it all straight through. So, considering many scholars believe this to be the first of the gospels to have been written, and the fact I recently finished reading Matthew, it should be interesting for me.

Mini review: From a strict narrative point of view, this is my least favorite of the gospels, mainly because for the first two-thirds of this book there is little narrative structure, the timeline being a jumble of Jesus going around performing miracles and parables in no seeming real order, with the only major event of the life of Jesus to be mentioned being the transfiguration. That being said, the last third of this book is a brief outline of the last days and resurrection of Jesus, though it is so brief as to nearly being uninformative.

Books read in 2023: No. 32 -- The Archaeology of Weapons

by Ewart Oakeshott

Started: Oct. 12

Finished: Nov. 1

Notes: It's only been a little more than a week since I read Richard Burton's The Book of the Sword from the 19th Century. Of course much of the information there was outdated due to historical research over the last century and more, so I wanted to read something more up to date. This book here was originally published in 1960 though my edition includes an update from 1994. Unfortunately the author is no longer with us, so there can be no other updates. However, for decades Ewart Oakeshott was considered by many to be the pre-eminent expert on all things sword related. I have read a number of shorter pieces from him though this is the first book of his I've to read.

Mini review: This turned out to be an excellent book full of plenty of information. I found it to be an excellent follow up to Burton's The Book of the Sword because that book winds down toward the end of the Roman era which is mostly where this book picks up, continuing along until the 15th Century. The Viking era is covered fairly well, and the 11th through 14th Centuries are covered extremely well, breaking down the various parts of a sword and codifying them. And to make clear, most of this book pertains to swords, though there are some shorter sections pertaining to daggers, polearms, armor, etc.

Books read in 2023: No. 31 - The Gospel According to St. Matthew

published by Zondervan

Started: Oct. 6
Finished: Oct. 11

Notes: I'm glad to finally getting to the New Testament. From a narrative point of view, I find it one of the most compelling sections of the Bible. And if you're wondering about the length of the title I above gave to this book, that's the official title from my KJV, though I understand I could have abbreviated it to 'The Book of Matthew' or simply 'Matthew' or something similar.

Mini review: The longest of the Gospels, I found it interesting not only for what it said but what it did not say. For instance, while the Resurrection is detailed briefly, there is no mention of the Ascension. However, the Sermon on the Mount is laid out here fairly extensively, and a number of parables are told.

Books read in 2023: No. 30 -- The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales

edited by Ruth Ann Musick

Started: Oct. 2

Finished: Oct. 4

Notes: It's October, which means the Halloween season is upon us, so I thought I'd re-read one of my favorite collections of ghost stories.

Mini review: Well, that fit the bill. Just what I was looking for. Though it's odd. These tales aren't told in a particularly spooky manner, but more in a folksy manner, but perhaps that makes them all the more spooky.

Books read in 2023: No. 29 -- The Book of The Sword

by Richard F. Burton

Started: Sept. 8

Finished: Oct. 2

Notes: In recent years I have tried to read at least one swording book per year, whether it be a book on dueling, metallurgy, history, etc. This particular book was published in 1884, and I'm sure there's been plenty of historical research since then, but I sometimes like to look back and see what earlier generations thought concerning history. This one apparently covers a period from the earliest of times up to slightly past the Roman era. Originally this was to be the first of three books on the history of swords, but the author did not live long enough to finish the other two books.

Mini review: There is much here that today we know to be incorrect, but this was still an interested read. For one thing, this book showed just how much 19th Century intellectuals actually did know, which is more than many today would give them credit. Also, I found it funny the British author's prejudices, though I don't necessarily mean racism (there were a few hints of this, but not much); mainly, this author was stuck on all things Egyptian, believing these ancient peoples were practically responsible for everything civilized during the last several thousand years, that the ancient Egyptians had or created everything first from civilization itself to philosophy to weapons and more.

Books read in 2023: No. 28 -- If It Bleeds

by Stephen King

Started: August 28

Finished: Sept. 8

Notes: After reading more than a few longer, heavier works, I'm in need of something light, and yes, I usually consider King relatively light reading. Also, this is a collection of four novellas, and I tend to think King's writing is at its best in shorter forms.

Mini review: Though all the stories here were written well and pretty good reads, in my opinion the best of the lot was the same name as the book itself, "If It Bleeds," another of King's Holly Gibney tales, a character of his he had made use of half a dozen or so times in recent years. And I like Holly, so there's that. My least favorite tale here was the last one, "Rat," which was okay but didn't seem so much like a Stephen King tale than it did someone trying to replicate King.

Books read in 2023: No. 27 - The Book of Malachi

published by Zondervan

Started: August 28
Finished: August 28

Notes: Finally I'm at the end of the Old Testament, at least according to the KJV I'm reading.

Mini review: More warnings to the Israelites because of their sins, but also a fair amount of talk of a future Messiah and the coming of the Lord. For Christians all that means one thing, but for Jews another, though perhaps the two are similar in some ways.

Books read in 2023: No. 26 - The Book of Zechariah

published by Zondervan

Started: August 27
Finished: August 28

Notes: My last couple of reads have been fairly long, so I've fallen behind on my Bible readings. Here's to jumping back in.

Mini review: The prophet Zerchariah has more warnings for the peoples of Israel and Judah and for many heathen nations, but in my opinion these prophecies seemed more hopeful than most others of the Old Testament, showing how God will bring his people home better than most other texts. I also noted that this particular book seemed filled with images that Christians would likely interpret as signs of the coming of Jesus and of the end times.

Books read in 2023: No. 25 -- The Mysteries of Udolpho

by Ann Radcliffe

Started: August 1

Finished: August 27

Notes: I've been on something of a Gothic literature reading phase the last year or so, yet I've yet to read anything from this prominent author of the period. Now I'm jumping in.

Mini review: I heard this one called the quintessential gothic novel, and I can see that, because all the elements are here rolled into one. A young French woman suffers the passing of her parents and is then placed under the care of an evil aunt and uncle who force her to move to a haunted castle in Italy where she is held against her will. Along the way our heroine falls in love, is caught up in misadventures with bandits and ghosts and more, cries a lot, and stares out upon scenery of forests and mountains. Most modern readers would probably find this one long and dull, and I can appreciate that, but I've also grown a fondness for such 18th-and-19th-Century novels because I've come to appreciate what the writers are trying to accomplish. Story, mainly meaning plot movement and characters, is king in our day and age, and there's nothing wrong with that, but earlier periods often had what some would consider more artistic motives, usually either with a focus upon the visuals of the outside world (sort of like a painter) or a focus upon the sufferings of the inner world (sort of like an analyst) or a mixture of both, while some earlier fictions were basically travelogues or sort of educational guides for readers who rarely got to see much of the world beyond their immediate area. Again, all this is likely quite boring for modern readers, but I have an occasional fondness for it.

Books read in 2023: No. 24 -- The Clan of the Cave Bear

by Jean M. Auel

Started: June 26

Finished: August 1

Notes: I've been meaning to read this novel for decades after recalling its popularity in the 1980s, as well as the popularity of the movie at that time. The notion of a novel set in prehistoric times has intrigued me ever since, so now I get to experience the book.

Mini review: A long book, in places more wordy than I generally appreciate, but it was worth it. Tens of thousands of years ago a girl who is homo sapiens is separated from her people but found by Neanderthals who then raise her. The tale is more complex than what I've written here, but I don't wish to spoil anything for those who might read this one. I will say this book could be a boon for historical and fantasy writers, as it shows cultures usually unfamiliar to most of us and the novel tells how they survived, mated, worshipped, etc. Now whether this information is correct or not is besides the point I'm making, because historical studies have continued since this novel was published 40 years ago, because writers could still learn from this information how to form their own unique cultures and how to write about survival.