Hugin & Munin Journal

I have not actually finished any of the books from my January reading update , but I have made good progress on most of them. Ben Elton’s Time and Time Again really went off the rails once I picked it up again, so I am especially curious to see where it ends. I am about two-thirds of the way through The Last Wish and am still enjoying it. In the meantime, I finished the first season of The Witcher , and parts of the television series follow the book remarkably closely—for better or worse. The stories are full of references to classical fairy tales. These can be entertaining, but they also introduce a certain silliness that makes the material difficult to take entirely seriously. In many ways, the stories remind me of classic pulp adventures. That, too, can be either a strength or a weakness, depending on what you expect from them. Cover image: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, published by Tor Books. Used here for purposes of review and commentary. ...

I have always found it interesting to see what other people are reading and to hear their thoughts on books, especially when I have read the books myself—or when I am looking for recommendations. Not that I really need more books to read. The to-be-read pile is not exactly shrinking. I have a bad habit of reading several books at once, so this first current-reading post will be a mixture of early impressions and random musings about the books currently competing for my attention. Cover images: The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski, published by Orbit, and Time and Time Again by Ben Elton, published by Black Swan. Used here for purposes of review and commentary. I started reading The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski after watching a couple of episodes of The Witcher on Netflix. The show did not immediately capture my interest. Part of the problem may simply have been misplaced expectations: I knew the series largely through the reputation o...