The Sign of the Unicorn, chapter 1

This morning we return, once again, to Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. We pick up the story at the beginning of the third novel in the series, The Sign of the Unicorn. We also move from the first to the second volume of my Doubleday set. Though the cover is green instead of yellow, Boris Vallejo's depiction of a shirtless Corwin in tight jeans and a cape fighting two giant cats remains. I assume this is his encounter with the hellcats from The Guns of Avalon.

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Sign of the Unicorn by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. I recommend reading the book first. It's short, I promise.

OJ Simpson, 1947-2024

Orenthal James (OJ) Simpson died yesterday at the age of 76.

Those of us of an age still remember Simpson as a football Hall of Famer and a sometime actor, perhaps known best for rôles in the Naked Gun series and the conspiracy thriller Capricorn One. But for everyone alive today, all that was upstaged in June 1994.

Christ is King!

If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For "God has put all things in subjection under his feet." But when it says, "all things are put in subjection," it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:12–28)

Today is Easter, the holiest Sunday of the year, celebrating the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

In dying on the cross, Jesus acted as our infallible high priest: unlike mere human priests, who had to offer sacrifices over and over, for their own sins as well as the people's, he had no sins of his own, and hence his atoning death was able to appease his Father's wrath against sinners once and for all and to "save to the uttermost" (Hebrews 7:25–;27). And when he rose from the dead, he showed that the Father was satisfied with his sacrifice. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we too can have hope that there is life beyond the grave.

On that first Easter weekend, Christ conquered our two greatest enemies: sin on Good Friday, and death on Easter Sunday.

Everything has been put into subjection to him. Christ is King!

The Guns of Avalon, chapter 9

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. Unless you're the sort of person who likes skipping to the last page, go read the book first.

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Corwin intends to use firearms to retake Amber from Eric. He and his ally Ganelon travelled to Avalon, a Shadow realm ruled by his brother Benedict, to obtain a large quantity of jeweller's rouge in Avalon to use as gunpowder in Amber, where actual gunpowder will not burn. They then travelled to our Earth to obtain firearms for their siege of Amber. Whole on Earth, Corwin visited his former house in New York state, where he found a letter from Eric, asking him to help defend Amber against attacks from creatures from the black road that has appeared in Amber and across all Shadows. Corwin ignored the request and resolved to continue with his plan to retake the throne of Amber from Eric.

The Guns of Avalon, chapter 8

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. Unless you're the sort of person who likes skipping to the last page, go read the book first.

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Corwin of Amber arrived in a Shadow world named Avalon to obtain a quantity of jeweller's rouge to use as a gunpowder substitute, because gunpowder is inert in Amber, but rouge is explosive. His brother Benedict is the ruler of Avalon. While there, Corwin met and fell in love with Benedict's great-granddaughter, Dara. After purchasing the rouge, he and his ally Ganelon left Avalon secretly to travel to Earth, but they were pursued by Benedict, who wanted revenge on Corwin for a supposed murder. They defeated Benedict, and summoned brother Gérard to retrieve him while they escaped.

The Guns of Avalon, chapter 7

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. Unless you're the sort of person who likes skipping to the last page, go read the book first.

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Corwin and his former enemy, now ally, Ganelon, arrived in a shadow Avalon ruled by Corwin's eldest brother, Benedict. They want to obtain a large quantity of jeweller's rouge in Avalon, and to buy firearms in Belgium on our Earth. Gunpowder will not ignite in Amber, but rouge will, so he intends to use it as a gunpowder substitute. In Avalon, he met Benedict's great-granddaughter Dara, and they fell for each other. Corwin and Ganelon then left Benedict's house secretly.

The Guns of Avalon, chapter 6

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. Unless you're the sort of person who likes skipping to the last page, go read the book first.

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Corwin and Ganelon arrived in a shadow Avalon where Corwin's brother Benedict was the ruler. They decided to stay with him for a time, but he warned them not to use Avalon as a staging area for their planned assault on Amber. Corwin also met Dara, Bebedict's young great-granddaughter, who has a latent ability to manipulate Shadow but has not yet walked the Pattern in Amber that will fully enable her abilities.

The Guns of Avalon, chapter 5

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. Unless you're the sort of person who likes skipping to the last page, go read the book first.

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Corwin of Amber and Ganelon, steward of a Shadow world called Lorraine, have formed an alliance to retake Amber from Corwin's brother Eric, who has placed himself on its throne. They are former enemies, but Corwin helped Ganelon defeat a dark Circle in Lorraine, a by-product of a curse Corwin placed on Eric. They travelled to a shadow of Avalon, the realm that Corwin once ruled. Corwin plans to obtain a quantity of jeweller's rouge in Avalon, and use it as the propellant in firearms purchased on Earth, because Corwin once discovered that unlike conventional gunpowder, jeweller's rouge will burn in Amber.

The Guns of Avalon, chapter 4

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. Unless you're the sort of person who likes skipping to the last page, go read the book first.

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Corwin has been living in a Shadow world named Lorraine. The steward, Ganelon, is known to him from centuries past when he ruled another Shadow world called Avalon. However, he banished Ganelon for rebellion. Using the pseudonym Corey, Corwin helped Ganelon defeat the evil creatures of the dark Circle that had appeared in Lorraine as a consequence of Corwin's curse against his brother Eric. Ganelon finally recognized Corwin, but no longer hated him.

The two form an alliance and travel together to a Shadow resembling the original Avalon, which had fallen ages ago. Ganelon catches a youth stealing food from their camp. He is a deserter from a battle against some "hellmaids" that emerged from a cave in Avalon. They let him go, and approach the military camp, posing as mercenaries. They are brought into the camp, where they meet the commanding officer and Protector of this Avalon—who is none other than Corwin's eldest brother, Benedict. He lost an arm during the battle. They catch up on current events. Benedict informs Corwin that he desires peace and will not support any conflict between him and Eric; he is welcome to reside as a guest in Avalon but not to stage an attack against Amber. Afterward, when Corwin beds down outside Benedict's tent, he spies him using his deck of Tarots, but does not know who (if anyone) he contacted.

This chapter is heavy, and I mean heavy, on exposition. Much of it is simply a recap of the story so far. But it introduces a new major character: Benedict. He's been mentioned a few times already. He is Corwin's eldest brother and arms teacher, being the best swordsman of all the Amberites. He has been missing, and nobody knew whether he was alive or dead (Corwin tried to contact him via his Trump in Nine Princes and got no response).

Benedict's namesake is probably St. Benedict of Nursia, the fifth-century Catholic monk who founded the Benedictine order: basically, the father of Christian monasticism. Benedict of Amber has become disenchanted with the court politics of his world, and chosen to remove himself from all that strife, disclaim his entitlement to the throne, and live separated from Amber. In a certain sense, he's become a hermit.

Benedict is encouraged that Corwin regrew his eyes, because it means he may in time regrow the arm lost to the hellmaids, though his ability to regenerate is not what Corwin's is. Corwin feels responsible for that loss, as well as for bringing that corruption to Avalon.

This Shadow Avalon was also once ruled by a shadow Corwin, and like the Corwin of Lorraine, he is not fondly remembered, to say the least. Benedict does not make their kinship known. I am beginning to anticipate that we might actually meet some shadow Corwins in the future. There seem to be a lot of them. As ruler of the original Avalon, Corwin was harsh but not tyrranical. Perhaps the farther the Shadows emanate from their source, the more distorted they become. Could there be some really evil Corwins out there?

Amidst all the exposition in this chapter, we learn a lot more about the Amberites. Benedict is the eldest, who has distanced himself from family politics. He regards any ambition to seize the throne as a usurpation, since Oberon is missing but not actually dead. (Corwin does not tell him that Oberon himself encouraged him to take the throne from Eric, nor is it suggested that Benedict would support him even then.) Eric is older than Corwin, but Corwin says he has the more legitimate claim. He also calls Eric a literal bastard, implying that although they are full brothers, both being sons of Oberon's second wife, Eric was born out of wedlock while Corwin was not.

Corwin spells out his plan to retake Amber. is spelled out. I correctly guessed that he wants to obtain jeweller's rouge from Avalon. Then he will travel to Earth where, employed as a mercenary, he had made connections with Belgian arms dealers from whom to buy a considerable quantity of firearms. "My order would be complicated and expensive, I realized, because some ammunition manufacturer would have to be persuaded to set up a special production line": in other words, his plan requires custom-made ammunition using rouge as a propellant instead of gunpowder. I hope someday we're given an explanation for this wonky chemistry, in which an explosive like gunpowder will not ignite, but a relatively non-combustible substance like jeweller's rouge (ferric oxide) is energetic enough to propel bullets. I don't think I would find "because that's the way it is" a particularly satisfying answer.

Lastly, whom did Benedict try to contact with his Trumps, if that's what he was doing? Is it friend or foe? Is Benedict really as aloof from all this as he appears? The story continues next Thursday.

The Guns of Avalon, chapter 3

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. Unless you're the sort of person who likes skipping to the last page, go read the book first.

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Corwin, having escaped from the dungeon of his brother Eric in Amber, set out in search of Avalon, a Shadow kingdom which he once ruled. Instead he found a realm called Lorraine, ruled over by Ganelon, whom he had banished there from Amber. Disguising his identity, he joined with Ganelon to destroy the dark Circle that had appeared in Lorraine, apparently an extension of the dark rift he opened in Amber when he pronounced a powerful curse on Eric. He began a relationship with a woman, also named Lorraine.

The Guns of Avalon, chapter 2

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. Unless you're the sort of person who likes skipping to the last page, go read the book first.

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Prince Corwin of Amber has escaped after his brother Eric took the throne of Amber, blinded him, and threw him in the dungeon for three years. Travelling through Shadow, looking for a former kingdom of his called Avalon, he encounters a wounded knight named Lance and takes him to the Keep of Ganelon—under an alias, since he had exiled Ganelon from Avalon 600 years earlier. He learns that Ganelon's realm, Lorraine, is home to a darkened circle of land from which evil beings emerge to attack the surrounding area. Ganelon hires Corwin as an arms trainer for his troops.

The Guns of Avalon, chapter 1

Good morning! After a two-week hiatus, we return today to our readthrough of Roger Zelazny's fantasy series The Chronicles of Amber, the first five books of which were published from 1970–78. This is a reread, but it has been over 30 years since I last read them, and I remember next to nothing. So what you are reading is basically my first impression.

I paused at the end of the first book, Nine Princes in Amber, and we pick up the story again today with the second, The Guns of Avalon.

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. Unless you're the sort of person who likes skipping to the last page, go read the book first.

Nine Princes in Amber, chapter 10

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Nine Princes in Amber now. I promise I won't be offended.

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After being blinded and imprisoned by his brother Eric in the dungeons of the castle of Amber, Corwin regains his sight, thanks to his quick healing power. His opportunity to escape comes from a chance meeting with Dworkin, creator of the Trumps that allow the Royal family of Amber to communicate with, and teleport to, each other. Dworkin draws a Trump of the Lighthouse of Cabra on Corwin's cell wall, and Corwin uses it to escape.

At the lighthouse, Corwin poses as a castaway named Corey and gets aid from Jopin the lighthouse keeper. He stays with Jopin for several months. When he announces his intention to leave, Jopin reveals that he had recognized Corwin and tells him, before he goes, to look at the Vale of Garnath through the spyglass. Doing so, he realizes that the valley has turned into a new opening into Amber that evil things are using, and it is a result of a curse he had placed on Eric while imprisoned. Sailing away from the lighthouse, he sends a message to Eric via a black bird that he is coming for him.

Nine Princes in Amber, chapter 9

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Nine Princes in Amber now. I promise I won't be offended.

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Corwin, Prince of Amber, has failed in his attempt to take the throne of Amber from his evil brother, Eric. He was captured, forced to offer Eric the crown at his coronation, then blinded and imprisoned.

Three years later, Corwin is still in his cell in the dungeon. But he realizes that thanks to his unusual ability to recover quickly from injury, his eyes are growing back. The next time Eric trots him out for a celebratory banquet, his recovered sight will be discovered. So Corwin starts planning his escape.

Nine Princes in Amber, chapter 8

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Nine Princes in Amber now. I promise I won't be offended.

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Corwin's and Bleys's assault on Amber to retake the throne from their brother Eric has failed. Their entire army was obliterated, Bleys fell almost at the gate to Amber, and Corwin was captured.

Imprisoned in the castle dungeon, Corwin is brought in chains to a banquet at which Eric is crowned king of Amber, in spite of many insults from Corwin. Eric has Corwin blinded and thrown back in his cell. He is left alone for over four months, until a knight named Rein, whom Corwin had befriended centuries ago, secretly brings him a gift of good food, wine, and cigarettes. On the anniversary of his coronation, Eric again drags Corwin out to a banquet. "Thus ended the first year of darkness."

Friday in the Wild: February 9, 2024

It's Friday, and that means it's time for the weekly roundup of good stuff from around the blogosphere. I've got three articles this week.

Nine Princes in Amber, chapter 7

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Nine Princes in Amber now. I promise I won't be offended.

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In their attempt to take the city of Amber and overthrow their brother Eric before he can be crowned king, Corwin and Bleys have reunited on land after Corwin lost his naval fleet to brother Caine. They march over land toward Amber, but when they reach the forest of Arden, Eric burns it down while Julian deploys archers against them. Eric escapes the fire and arrows by swimming down the river alongside the forest.

Corwin returns to Bleys's camp, where only 5,000 troops remain, and they march on Kolvir, the mountain on which Amber sits. They ascend the mountain and then the long staircase to Amber, with Eric's men eliminating theirs all the way. Bleys is struck near the top and falls, but Corwin throws his Trumps after him in a desperate attempt at a rescue. Corwin himself makes it into Amber, but he is captured and imprisoned—the last one alive.

Nine Princes in Amber, chapter 6

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Nine Princes in Amber now. I promise I won't be offended.

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Corwin, prince of Amber, has recovered his memories and his ability to magically travel to and from Amber. He faced his brother Eric and declared his intent to take the throne of Amber from him.

Corwin is now with his brother Bleys, who has allied with him to March on Amber and take the throne. They travel throughout Shadow, raising a military force large enough to defeat Eric before his coronation, which is to take place in three months.

Nine Princes in Amber, chapter 5

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Nine Princes in Amber now. I promise I won't be offended.

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In the previous chapter of Nine Princes in Amber, brothers Corwin and Random have made their way from Earth, in the Shadows, to the real world of Amber. They found and rescued their sister Deirdre, who had been captured by their brother Eric's men. They decide to go to Rebma, an underwater city that is the reflection of Amber.

As they descend the undersea stairway to Rebma, Corwin discovers he can breathe, nonetheless. They are pursued by horsemen, whom they fight and defeat on the stairs just before they arrive in Rebma.

I Begg your pardon?

Recently, in an interview, radio pastor Alistair Begg (host of the Truth for Life program) recounted a conversation he had had with a Christian lady, whose grandson was going to marry a transgender woman. She didn't know whether she ought to attend the wedding. Begg counseled her to attend the wedding and provide a wedding gift.¹ Social media blew up, as social media is wont to do, with Christians roundly condemning this advice. The American Family Radio network also announced that it was dropping his program.

Nine Princes in Amber, chapter 4

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Nine Princes in Amber now. I promise I won't be offended.

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In the previous chapter of Nine Princes in Amber, Corwin received a phone call from his brother Random in California, who was being pursued and needed protection. In chapter 4, he arrives at the front door of their sister Flora's New York mansion—much to Flora's alarm.

Friday in the Wild: January 26, 2024

Last week's Friday in the Wild was a long one; conversely, this week's is short, as was my time for reading blogs.

Nine Princes in Amber, chapter 3

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Nine Princes in Amber now. I promise I won't be offended.

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Corwin has escaped from the private hospital where he was recovering from a car accident but actually being held prisoner. He has amnesia, but learns his sister Florimel (or Flora) was the one keeping him there. He finds her and (while hiding his memory loss) learns that he is actually from (apparently) an alternate reality called Amber, and stands opposed to his siblings on some as-yet-unspecified family issue.

In chapter 3 of Nine Princes in Amber, Corwin wakes up the next day in Flora's house. She isn't there, so he searches her library for more clues. He finds a secret compartment in her desk that hides a deck of tarot cards. The trump cards are lifelike representations of himself and his siblings.

Nine Princes in Amber, chapter 2

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Nine Princes in Amber now. I promise I won't be offended.

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Our protagonist wakes up in a hospital after a car accident. He has amnesia, but he learns that he was admitted under the name Carl Corey, and that his sister, Evelyn Flaumel, has been paying to keep him there, under sedation. In Chapter 2 of Nine Princes in Amber, Corey has escaped the hospital and takes a bus to New York to meet with his sister. En route, he contemplates that the car accident that put him there was likely not accidental.

Friday Saturday in the Wild: January 20, 2024

Welcome to the first Friday in the Wild of 2024! Between the Christmas holidays and a lingering cold, it's been a while. But I've been collecting links for the past couple of weeks nonetheless, so rather than waste them, this will just be a longer installment than usual. (I'm also a day late due to time constraints—but hopefully not a dollar short.)

Nine Princes in Amber, chapter 1

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Nine Princes in Amber now. I promise I won't be offended.

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Welcome to the first post in my readthrough of Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. We are beginning, obviously, at the beginning: the first chapter of the first book, Nine Princes in Amber, originally published in 1970.

Our protagonist wakes up in a hospital room. He has amnesia: he remembers being in an accident, but he doesn't know where he is and can't remember his own name. His legs are in casts, but they aren't broken; whatever his injuries were, they've healed. He also realizes that he has been kept drugged.

Reading through The Chronicles of Amber

I first heard of the late Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber in high school. I worked at the public library for three years, and saw many of the volumes on the paperback rack.

On a Saturday in 1989 or 1990, needing some reading material for a bus trip, I came across a two-volume set of The Chronicles of Amber (Nelson Doubleday, 1978) at a used bookshop a few blocks from the Kitchener bus terminal, and I decided to give it a try.^[1] In those days, I was decidedly not a fantasy reader. I hadn't even read The Lord of the Rings yet (and when I tried that, the next summer, I didn't get too far). So Amber was my first fantasy. It was like nothing I had read previously.

2023 readiing review

2023 has come to an end. That means it's time for my year-end review of my reading hobby, my traditional first post of the new year.

My annual goal is to read 50 books of any type. Last year, I fell well short of that target. This year, on the other hand, I exceeded it, reading 70 books. That's a record, surpassing the 61 I read in 2020. According to my stats at Goodreads, by page count I've read only marginally more in 2023 than 2020. That means I've been selecting shorter titles, though for the most part not intentionally. (And not to cheat my way to meeting my goal!)

My first book this year was A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro, whom I resolved to read more of in 2022. During the year I also read his An Artist of the Floating World and The Remains of the Day. The last was meant to be my final novel for the year until I realized it was much shorter than I remembered. Oops.

Anyway, the last novel of 2023 is The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. Technically, I finished it up this afternoon, but I'm not going to begrudge 2023 one last book over the last chapter. This was a re-read of a book that was required reading in my last year of high-school English. Like The Turn of the Screw a few years ago, I found I enjoyed it much more in middle age than my teenage years. Now I feel inclined to re-read and re-evaluate a lot of boring high-school literature. (The Catcher in the Rye and Heart of Darkness are still boring, though.)

The newest book I read this year was The Secret by Lee and Andrew Child, published in October. As the Jack Reacher series are the only books I make a point of reading soon after release, then unless the brothers Child change their publishing timetable or my overall reading habits evolve, this is very likely to be an annual constant.

The oldest book was, again, a play by Aphra Behn: The Dutch Lover from 1673. My original plan was to read all of Behn's plays during a year on weekend afternoons, as I had done with Shakespeare's works. I guess I'm less enthusiastic about Behn, since in nearly three years years I've managed only three out of (I believe) 18 plays. She's enjoyable, though.

My favourite book of the year? Well … The Remains of the Day has long been my favourite novel, nothing has yet displaced it, and I re-read it just this week (for the fourth time). If I leave it out of contention, however, and look at books I hadn't read before, then the nod goes instead to Stephen King's Revival, a surprisingly good horror story—surprising not because I have low expectations for King, but because his books just prior to this 2014 one were focused on crime (Mr. Mercedes, Joyland), fantasy (The Wind Through the Keyhole), and science fiction (Under the Dome), so his return to straight-up supernatural horror was a welcome one. Runner-up: An Artist of the Floating World. I'll grant this one to Ishiguro.

My least favourite of the year: Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh. I can't put my finger on anything particularly bad about this novel; it just failed to hold my interest. In my ongoing reading of the Hugo- and Nebula-winning novels, I was looking forward to this one, since I had read and enjoyed Cherryh's Rimrunners years ago, but Downbelow Station just didn't live up to the expectations I'd built up in my head. Your mileage may vary. Sometime in 2024 I'll also be reading a follow-up novel, Cyteen, set in the same universe as the other two, and I haven't been prejudiced against it yet. Runner-up: The Gray Man by Mark Greaney. Again, a novel that didn't live up to my expectations. It was entertaining enough to pass the time while travelling, but I thought it predictable and derivative of older thrillers such as The Bourne Identity.

The best new discovery of the year was a genre, rather than an author: the Japanese light novel. This isn't a genre that we have in the West, as such. I suppose the closest equivalent would be a young-adult series—or a comic book, if they came in prose. Near the beginning of the year, I watched the anime series Sword Art Online and Full Metal Panic!, and liked them enough to want to read the source material. I've read a handful of volumes of each series. Of the two, I enjoy the story in Full Metal Panic, written by Shōji Gatō more; but I think Sword Art Online by Reki Kawahara is better written. In fairness to both authors, I can't read Japanese, so I can't tell whether this is due to their own writing ability or the translators'. I'd never read a non-Western novel before the end of 2020, and now I've latched on to blatantly commercial Japanese juvenile fiction as a source of semi-disposable entertainment. Runner-up: The House Without a Key, the first of the Charlie Chan mystery novels by Earl Derr Biggers.

A book I finally finished: Bleak House by Charles Dickens. I visit with a friend weekly, and for many years it's been my habit on the walk back home to listen to an audiobook. In late 2019, I started Bleak House—specifically, the Librivox recording narrated by Mil Nicholson, which is excellent. Now, this is a long novel comprising 67 chapters, and my travel time was about enough for one chapter per week. And then there was the pandemic, which put a halt on those weekly sessions. Even without COVID it would have taken more than a year to finish; as it was, I finished Bleak House three years and ten months after starting. Runner-up: The Once and Future King by T. H. White, which took two years and ten months start to finish; it is, however, a series of four novels.

I aim to read five nonfiction books per year. In 2023, I read eight (and part of three more). Most of these were theology, as I have from time to time been studying issues such as Dispensationalism and neo-Pentecostalism. The best of these was No Quick Fix, by Andrew Naselli, a critique of the Keswick Holiness or “Higher Life” movement.

Finally, my reading goals for 2024 include:

• completing my chronological reading of Stephen King's books, which I began c. 2010. Including the upcoming story collection, You Like It Darker, I've got ten books left. Then I'll have nothing else to look forward to but new Stephen King novels.
• blogging a readthrough of Roger Zelazny's fantasy series, The Chronicles of Amber. I'll post more details about this in the new year.
• reading Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, one of the four great classical Chinese novels. This is a long one. I've read the complete works of Shakespeare, Les Misérables, The Lord of the Rings, and the Bible, and I think Journey to the West outweighs any of them. Reading it is sure to be almost as much of an epic as the story itself.

My return trip to Ottawa is the day after New Year's, and my coach reading (and very probably the first novel of 2024) will be Andrew Klavan's A Strange Habit of Mind, the second of his Cameron Winter mysteries.

Happy New Year, everyone!