Where are you in fantasyland? October 2023

I'm just departing Lydar and Antiagon Fire for a visit to the world of FireFax.

I'm in Caer Leon with Spear.

I just left Autobiography of Cassandra. 30+ years old and more outspoken than Circe and Ithaca.

I am in the Cosmere with The Sunlit Man.

Finished my re-read of The Dragon Reborn. Very enjoyable, although I liked The Great Hunt a *bit* more the second time around. Wheel of Time goes back on the shelf until Season 3 of the show!

Whoops! I fell through a portal into Zunidh again. I have to find my way back to Our Share of Night.

I've just left Ljosland with Emily Wilde's encyclopaedia of faeries which was a great read, and am now searching for Nettle and Bone. Loving the dark fairy tale vibe.

>6 quondame: I though Our share of night was excellent. Very dark and often gruesome, but I really cared about the young characters.

Still in Lydar with Regis Rex. Reading two early reader YA novels in between times.

Just spent time mainly in Raleigh, North Carolina & San Francisco's Chinatown, thanks to Bitter medicine by Mia Tsai. Lovely.

I've left the slimy claustrophobic horror of Our Share of Night mostly set in Argentina.

I've just left North Carolina and Legendborn. I'm not sure yet where I'll be going next.

I just raided a fortress on the Iberian peninsula with a motley crew of vikings.

I'm in Coldtown with Tana.

I'm in a small southern town in The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic.

Spent some time on the Isle of Skye with Ropa Moyo and folks in The mystery at Dunvegan Castle by TL Huchu. Takes place around the annual conference for Scottish magic, with older ghosts, magicians from outside of Scotland, and a castle to stay in not just visit as a tourist.

>16 karenb: I just read the first book in this Edinburgh Nights series, and was on the fence about continuing with the next book. The first one was an interesting premise, but the author seemed a little rough at first; I'm hoping maybe the writing gets smoother? What do you think?

I'm about to leave Thune where I've been enjoying the coffee at Legends & Lattes.

I finished my long sojourn into Deverry with The Silver Mage and I'm now back in Redwall country following Martin the Warrior.

I'm exploring Yale's campus in Ninth House.

I keep trying to stay with the characters in Call Down the Hawk and re-entering Zunidh every time I think of a question.

I'm in Arvalonia reading The Dangers of Being Brave and True

>17 Darth-Heather: I'm not sure I'm the best judge of the smoothness of a book in any sense, as I tend to read things even when they're rough or uneven. I liked the second and third books, which have different situations and come across as less gritty. But that's down to further exploration in the systems & institutions of Scottish magic as much as the author's writing style. The second one is worth looking at, if you find a sample or see it in a shop/library. (And if you do read it, let us know what you think?)

I'm in Charisat, the City of Bones.

I'm back in Leeds with Gobbelino London and a Complication of Unicorns.

I'm in Texoma with Gunnie Rose. All the Dead Shall Weep.

I'm back in Solidar in L'Excelsis reading the Imager Portfolio again.... this time Madness in Solidar

I'm returning to Victorian London with The Watchmaker's Daughter.

>26 quondame: I didn’t know there was a fifth book in the Gunnie Rose series! Thanks for sharing.

Not fantasy (or even fiction), but I finished an interesting history book The Verge: reformation, renaissance and forty years that shook the world, by Patrick Wyman. It may interest fantasy fans, because the time period (late 15th century and early 16th century, think Ferdinand/Isabella to Charles V) inspired a lot of fantasy settings. I definitely see a lot of parallels between this book and the First Law/Age of Madness books by Joe Abercrombie (including the mention of a famous mercenary with an Italian name who couldn't always be trusted...)

>30 drmamm: That's strange. I just read The Swerve: how the world became modern by Stephen Greenblatt, which was published almost at the same time, and covers the same period. He focuses on humanist book hunters, and specifically on the rediscovery of On the Nature of Things by Lucretius. He has a number of assertions that seem over-inflated to me, most of all the insistence that that particular book's discovery changed world history all by itself. But as you said, lots of detail and personalities from a period of some relevance to fantasy readers. I wonder what the authors' reactions were to finding that another historian had written such a close parallel almost simultaneously.

I’m in London waiting for the end of the world with Azerephale and Crawley in Good Omens.

Suspended above Jupiter in The Mimicking of Known Successes.

Still in Solidar with Treachery's Tools

Just left New York to the Chosen and the Beautiful.
Not as engaging as her other books (probably because I never was that fond of Scott Fitzgerald or The Great Gatsby in the first place.
The paper magic was interesting though.

I've just left London in the capable hands of Peter Grant after finishing The hanging tree.

Among the Ortelga in Richard Adams' Shardik.

>32 varielle: Ooh, good stuff. It saddens me that, unless they lived in London in the '90s, no one understands the significance of the dread sigil Odega.

About to enter the Old Kingdom with Sabriel.

I'm hopping about Newford in Moonlight and Vines

I've left Charisat, the City of bones, having thoroughly enjoyed the trip. I highly recommened this early work by Martha Wells. Now I'm waiting for the Day of fallen night.

>40 Sakerfalcon: I think that's the wrong City of Bones in your touchstone. I'm putting the right one on my wishlist. Thanks.

>41 vwinsloe: You are absolutely right! Thanks for pointing that out. I've fixed it.

>42 Sakerfalcon:. No, thank YOU for recommending it.

>39 quondame: lovely! I really enjoy Charles de Lints earlier Newford books - especially the short stories.

Not so impressed with his new Juniper Wiles series, feels like a he’s doing a Mary Sue.

>40 Sakerfalcon:, >41 vwinsloe: Great stuff - The first Martha Wells I read. Pure happenstance I found it at the only SFF bookseller in the city (probably the country) and it was so good I just had to get everything else she had written.

Leaving Buckley, Michigan and heading for Manhattan (the one in New York) Backpacking through Bedlam

I'm in an arctic-like island, investigating the Folk to add to Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries.

Hmm, I just left Newford and was trying to survive a haunted house in The Theory of Haunting