The books of 2025

1. Klätterbaronen - Italo Calvino

Calvino is supposed to be one of the greats, and I will confess I found his Om en vinternatt en resande very intriguing. This one I'm not sure about. Maybe I found it a bit banal, as far as false life of the ancien régime to live in the trees. Cute. But, while it had the feel of Robinson or something of that era, it also felt a bit silly. I think I expected more from this book.

2. Before And After The Duel (Lu Xiaofeng vol. 3) - Gu Long

"Lu Xiaofeng really is Lu Xiaofeng!" is something character always exclaim in these books, with both some admiration and exasperation. He is true to form, still. There are no ordinary murder mysteries, but always intrigue. In this case regicide in the most convoluted way! I liked the characters, Lu Xiaofeng and the others, and it was a pretty smooth read. Sure, it was a very involved conspiracy, but what do you expect from Gu Long? Already thinking I will read the next one soon.

3. SPQR - Mary Beard

I have been thinking a bit abut the Roman Empire lately, reading this book. Aparently the author has a reputation for focusing more on what we don't know than what we know, but I think it made for a good and nuanced picture of the subject at hand. It was interesting to read about some of the pillars of the Roman state, abut its themes and how their focus on who has and who has not underlie so much of how they saw the world. Also illuminating was their approach to empire, even going so far as include and appropriate all the gods of the conquered people into their own pantheon. That they are oh so present in all of our culture is clear, but it's useful to remind oneself of how their thinking was based, when considering how our own is shaped. I'm kind of done with the subject now, though.

4. Time and Timothy Greenville - Terry Greenhough

I bought this book in 1998 in a big pile of other books, and it has been standing on the shelf with an intriguing cover image ever since. Sadly, I don't think it was worth the wait. The plot is really not all that interesting, and the action is for long stretches Timothy Greenville stumbling up the hill near his home to the megaliths up there and getting visions of other times. It's amazing how long the author manages to keep this going. Meanwhile, out protagonist lives his life by being sullen and introverted, and in general behaving like a jerk to the villagers and his father. When the romantic interest shows up, I was somewhat impressed by how the author actually managed to make me curious about who she was, or what she was after. But, shortly I had enough and flipped the pages faster and learned after skipping some chapters the backstory of an alien planting himself as Greenville on this planet and some other humans trying to overthrow a second alien race that had enslaved them. It felt trite and tired. By then I was done with the book. I have a hard time reading books about people who behave like a total arse. Moving on.

5. Into The Riverlands - Nghi Vo

I have been curious about these books for a while, as I really enjoyed her re-telling of The Great Gatsby. The idea of fantasy in a unspecified east asia sounded intriguing, and the fact they where short books was of course also enticing. I liked the characters in this one, and they felt fun and also somewhat mysterious. Clearly they where some kind of xia and could do impressive martial feats. As the focal point character was a storytelling and story collecting monk, it gave me some of the same vibes as Becky Chambers Monk and Robot books. I am going to go all in and buy the rest of this series!

6. The Stardust Grail - Yume Kitasei

I found this among suggestions for things like Becky Chambers stories. It had similarities with a "found family" in a starship, but the relationships never really developed as fully or as complex as in Chamber's stories. On the other hand, this book had a fairly significant action filled heist plot as well, or two. The main character being a lovable rascal, was quite fitting the genre. The aliens was also fittingly weird. Maybe the Indiana Jones section in the end where they ran around while weird stuff happened was a bit hard to navigate, and sure they had been doing a similar jaunt just a few chapters before, so it was a bit repetetive. ButI think it was written in a way that made you engage with it, as the reasons they did the heists where what you cared about. It had some qualities you could probably count as radical or politically significant, like weird pronouns and both straight and gay characters. Personally I would just call that modern and up to date sf. The anti-colonialism was there, but a bit subdued as I had forgotten about until I read about it. The author has written two more novels, and I could see myself read those as well.

7. The Face That Must Die - Ramsey Campbell

Campbell is rightly regardes as a great writer. He doesn't write action packed books, if my two experiences are anything to base an impression on. What he does, though, it write very well about places, and of the sense of a place. This setting felt very much like the grimy Britain of the Thatcher era. Having been to Liverpool I only have to project a small bit some extra misery to really feel it. The main character was extremely odious and repulsive. His sexism, his homophobia and enophobia wasn't very nice to experience up close. But, he felt like a person. All the characters felt like persons, and I could feel about all of them. Mostly I felt sorry for Cathy, and also a bit frustrated by her chauvinistic husband, who spent the majority of the book stoned. Why didn't she just leave that useless git? Well written stuff, but I think I actually prefer my horror to be more explicitly supernatural. But, disgusting as some of the subject matter was, Campbell had me turning pages even though the story was slow paced. Well done.

8. Taylor Swift - Hela berättelsen [Taylor Swift The Whole Story] - Chas Newkey-Burden

This is very clearly a book made to order. The big pop phenomenon is exploding, people want to know more, let's write a book. That being said, while it's not very personal, and it's a bit repetitious listing Taylor's achievements one by one, it does give a chronological overview of her carreer. Hang around swifties online and you get all the inside gossip and stories, true and untrue. Read this book and you get the outside framing story. For me it was mostly intersting to learn the basics of how her carreer started, as that was before I started to pay attention to her work. I don't think we will ever get the inside story, as I think Blondie likes to let her lyrics do the talking. I think I like it that way.

9. The Invention of Martial Arts - Paul Bowman

This must be the worst kind of academic writing! It's dense, wordy and theory laden. To make it even worse, it's repetitive! Apart from that, it pick up some interesting ideas and turn them over. We all know how much Bruce Lee and his fame has shaped people's expectations of what martial arts is. But, the author goes many steps further and takes in ads and music videos in his book. I wasn't aware, but somehow not surprised, that in music videos martial arts are almost never takes seriously, and almost always played for laughs. Also quite interesting is the fact that Japanese arts are treated as normalized, while e.g. Chinese ones are always exotified or "weird". Taking the song "Kung Fu fighting" and analyzing it in detail is also quite impressive, even though it might be just an example of where this book is needlessly wordy. Interesting, but not recommended.

10. De Obesuttna [The Dispossessed] - Ursula K. Le Guin

It has taken me a long time to finally read this one. In a way it was an easy read, because it was interesting and intriguing. But it was also a hard read, because it created so many thoughts, and feelings. With some despair I noted that the societies depicted were all quite flawed. On the other hand, they did all feel real. Maybe that was Le Guin's best skill, that she could make the fantastic feel real. There where some things that stuck in the flow of reading, and when reading Delany's critique I found that he got stuck on many of the same things. We both wonder if the author maybe wasn't home blind in a few places, and even when depicting something radical was stuck in her own social mores? Personally I found the scene where Shevek sexually assaults a woman and nothing comes of it as especially jarring. It's a flawed masterpiece, but I'm very happy to have read it.

11. Pubar, Golvdrag och en Kopp Té - Torsten Eherenmark

Witty and ironic columns from a correspondent in London just after the war. Both Sweden and the UK have changed a lot, but cultural clashes approached with a amused distance is stil quite funny, well presented. I got a few laughs, which is what I expected. Enough, that.

12. Ode to Gallantry - Louis Cha

A decent romp of a wuxia novel. Sadly the translation, a fan made one, is very uneven and in some places really bad. I'm actually unsure is some of the meandering monologues in there are because the translator couldn't do better? There are also in the beginning some fights somewhat overstay their welcome. The basic concept is kind of fun. Mistaken personalities are dime a dozen in wuxia, but in this book everyone mistake the main character for someone else, and the best thing is he have no idea who he is either, and his "mother" dies before it gets resolved. But, the idea that everyone treating him like he is someone else in the end turning him into that person is a neat twist. Even the main conceit of the book, the invitation to come to the isle of heroes is not what it seems. It was a fun read, but it was too long, and could really have used an editor.

13. Bimbos of the Death Sun - Sharyn McCrumb

The corny title and the cover made me curious, but the fact it had won an Edgar, and was published by TSR made me buy it. I had no idea TSR published mysteries. Their baroque adventures in book publishing was part of their undoing, but maybe they published something good, it did win a price after all? It turns out this is a murder mystery, set at an sf convention. The author has either made some research, or participated, because the parody is spot on. The ties to gaming is that the way to expose the murder is to play a game of D&D! The fact that the murder dosn't take place until galvway through the book, and the deductions by the sleuth is mainly guesswork doesn't take away from the fact that it's fun. I do suspect it won that price because it's funny and it's an easy read, because I have read better mysteries. It was fun, it was ridiculing some odd fannish behaviour and it was cheap. Entertainment enough.

14. Linda och Valentin Samlade Äventyr 1 - Pierre Christin/Jean-Claude Mézières

The first ever story is kind of goofy, but it quickly becomes better. In the second one, the flooded New York City is very moody and the details give a great sense of atmosphere. The third one we see the mix of technology and and social stratification, where the rulers lord over the peasants with medial hi-tech. Great visuals of massive temples and the seedy underbelly of the city with scheming merchants. Beautiful and lively visuals, and a more overt political tone than I remember.

15. Moonday Letters - Emmi Itäranta

I for got to write an entry for this as I had finished it, so my memories are a bit muddled. I thought the couple in this book was a bit weird. The one called Sol, hir whole life was an act! The main character was spending her life with hir, but they where in fact living another life as an eco terrorist. I felt that was such an act of betrayal! You are supposed to share your life with your spouse! It was an epistolary novel, which gave it a distanced feel. It was a cool detachment to the novel. I am not sure what to make of the shamanistic parts of the protagonists life. Personally I think it's all bogus, and it felt odd to have that in a book that otherwise felt so much like hard sf. Did I like it better when I had just read it? Now I'm not that positive. The lingering impression is not wholly positive, let's say.

16. A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller Jr.

I expeced something else. I thought there would be mistakes about old finds, and treating tech as objects of reverence. Instead it was a quite serious book about dedication, belief and humanity. You can tell the author was a catholic himself, and that he had studied the subject. It was a very dark book when it comes to its take on history as a cycle of madness and destruction. I wasn't surprised when I read the author had been in the war, and had PTSD. But, at the same time the monks struggle on, preserving knowledge. Even the dullards might be considered saints when the centuries roll on, if they do their simple tasks. While some of that was funny, it was also reminding me of "the meek shall inherit the earth". Hubris and humility are probably the two themes of this novel.

17. Phaedra:Alastor 824 - Tais Teng

So can you write a book like Jack Vance? Not really. His language, his sarcastic wit, bumbling protagonists and weird cultures are hard to copy well. The author did manage in this work to create a main character that feels like Vance's, and a set of other characters with all the pompousness, odious habits and weird dress. He also managed to create a fairly engaging plot. There I think he might actually have surpassed the master, who sometimes probably just stopped writing when he became bored, and not because the plot said so. He did not try to imitate the language, and that was probably for the best. Some characters do sometimes sprout flowerful sentences that reminds you of Vance. All in all a very enjoyable space opera in the style of one of the greats!

18. Linda och Valentin Samlade Äventyr 2 - Pierre Christin/Jean-Claude Mézières

These three stories, Stjärnlös Värld, Kampen om Teknorog and Härskarens fåglar are the core adventures that defined the look and feel for me of Valerian. Reading them now I'm surprised how unapologetically political they are! It's very much the story of worker's rights told in three different settings. As such, the stories are not that sophisticated, but the visuals are stunning!. This is the look of space opera. In these stories we also see our female protagonist step up and criticise her male collegue for his ineptitude and willingless to follow along whatever The Man suggests. The way I remember it, the plots did develop in the later albums. We'll see if that's as I remembered it.

19. Musan - Mats Strandberg

A Swedish horror novel, by a writer I've heard much about, but never read. It turned out to be pretty good! It was quite tense from the beginning. I was told it was more of a family drama by my wife, who's not a horror reader. I felt it worked as horror almost from page one. It was quite tigtly plotted, and you realized in the end what things that had happened earlier meant, and how the author hand planted all those seeds. Well done. I always wonder in stories about parents and their kids, how I would have read it before I became a parent? I know it changed me forever, significantly, and this was definitely special for those readers. I liked the ending, where you realized, there are more of those out there. Neat.

20. On Mars_ - Sylvain Runberg/Grun

I picked this graphic novel up because the cover looked dramatic, and it was drawn in a realistic style, which I prefer. Visually I think it is quite impressive, but as sometimes happen with realistic drawings, they can be bit sterile and sometimes people don't look distinctly different enough. I think this was pretty good, but some of that "stiffness" was shown in some sections of the book. The story was well thought out, and the conflicts tense all throughout the book. The ending was really grim, but maybe that should have been expected, considering how the setting was one of - in effect - use of slavery to colonize Mars. Maybe the fact that some of the players in the conflict where totally insane depicted the fact of colonizing Mars in general is an insane idea. When I have processed the excessively brutal ending I might actually enjoy the small neat things like the UN HQ being in Mumbai, India, and China being the world's biggest democrazy. But one thing that will nag me is the last page. "Three years later" and a landscape picture through a lens. What am I seeing? What am I supposed to think of this? I need something more explanatory, please.

21. Linda och Valentin Samlade Äventyr 3 - Pierre Christin/Jean-Claude Mézières

These three stories, Ambassadören som försvann, Den Falska Världen and Vårdagjämningens hjältar are once more clerly political. It's imperialism and other ideologies pitched against each other in comparison and ridicule. The wild picaresque around Point Central is great fun,showing off many weird and wonderful species. The setting of the last one is once more gorgeous visuals. The middle one, is both a onthological merry go round, and a showcase of Mézières' love of some real life places. In all of them the story is sometimes quite thin (like the first one), or kind of silly (like the third one). It's very clear now that Linda (or Veronique) is the more competent of the two, and even when not being on the page as much as Valerian, she is very much a driving force. Space Opera at its most visually impressive and creatively flowering with possibilities.

22. Linda och Valentin Samlade Äventyr 4 - Pierre Christin/Jean-Claude Mézières

These four stories, together make up an arc. I always liked the titles of the first two, clearly related and linked. Tåg till Cassiopeja, tag plats and Tåg från Brooklyn, slutstation Kosmos does sound both like something relatable and something big and cosmic. It implies an outlook onto something greater. The two following are another arc, and the ending of it is just weird. They meet the trinity? God looks like a buffoon in a trenchcoat? The art in these are fantastic, but the story is weird.

23. Some Desperate Glory - Emily Tesh

Hard and tough peope on a space station, training hard and keeping fit to be ready for the alien threat to humanity. In many ways this novel open like so many other stories of science fiction. Then our protagonist jumps ship, and suddenly she together with the reader gets to re-evaluate that classic narrative and its tropes. Fascism is good at sneaking up on you. At one point I was thinking the author used the multidimensional AI, The Wisdom, as a tool to try out multiple multiverses and plot lines. Almost as if she wanted to tell more than one story, and found a way to do it with this narrative tool. Then I realized it was done with more thought. In the last storyline, our main character Valkyr gets to use all those multiverses to learn to see and understand the world, and importantly, other people. The reader gets to tag along for the ride. In addition to this stuff, it's a good space opera with colourful characters, drama and some serious feministic jabs to the ego. It deserves all the plaudits and awards.

24. Linda och Valentin Samlade Äventyr 5 - Pierre Christin/Jean-Claude Mézières

Now our heroes are left to wander, as Point Central no longer connects to home. Earth is lost in time, and they become mercenaries. Doing mercenary work is doing ugly work for money, and they of course respresenting the practical and the idealistic doing that. While they bicker about that, and other things, they are now clearly a couple. These stories are a showcase of wonderous societies and strange customs. The art is scintillating at times, both in space and the urban scenes. Still there are a strong strain of the satire and social commentary in the space adventures. They still work, though, as while making fun of capitalism, consumer culture and warmongering it's still good fast paced adventure.

25. Cromwell Stone - Andreas

I once read a very weird, and curiously creepy story in Heavy Metal magazine, called Cromwell Stone. Imagine my surprise when I see an album at my local library, by that singularly named "Andreas" that's called Cromwell Stone. It turns out the story I read was just the first part of three. Today I finally read them all. This was one of the weirdest experiences in a long while. It is a poetic story in many ways, and as bleak and horrific as cosmic horror can be. I think it nailed the feeling Lovecraft tried to invoke, as I get some of the same bleakness from this as Logotti's writings. The art is black and white, with very stark contrasts and much shadow. The humans are all a bit twisted, and strangely distorted. It's very expressionistic. The pages are sometimes broken into shards, and there are few if any three by three rows and columns. Even when the page depict one big scene, it's broken up into smaller boxes. It's like the cosmic whole can not be contained by the borders of a comic, and the order you take in the frames are confusing and twisting in your mind. There's something extremely weird and disconcerting about it all. Very effective. Lovecraftian in that way it almost never is when described that way. Creepy.

26. Orbital 1: Närkontakt - Sylvain Ruberg/Serge Pellé

A space adventure comic, like Valerian, what's there not to be curious about? It turns out to be more about the complex relationship and politics between different species and cultures in the galactic federation. There's more of a coherent worldbuilding than Valerian. The images are more detailed and it's less fantastic vistas. I somehow feel it's going to be more gritty as well. There are 8 volumes in French, and they have been translated and published two volumes per book in Swedish. I liked the first one, and it feel like there will be more character development and also scheming in the volumes after this one. I get a similar feel as in the Uplift books in this one. Interesting.

27. The Dark Descent - David G. Hartwell ed.

Hartwell postutales that horror as a genre has been a genre dominated by the short for stories, until when it was suddenly transformed into a genre dominated by novels by the boom of the success of Stephen King and others. I don't think he is wrong. It is in fact an interesting observation, and it makes me wonder if it is so that this kind of story works best in the short form? In any case, Hartwell wanted to collect and sum up the short story era. He suggests that "conteporary horror fiction appears in three 3. fantastic". Trying to categorize horror is an interesting idea, but I disagree about these three cateories. This means that I think Hartwell sometimes picks some very weird stories as the best in class for these categories. Some are great stories, like the ones he choose from King and Disch. Some are quirky and interesting, like the ones by Shirley Jackson. Some are actually just plain boring, like the one by Michael Bishop. There are quite a few classic ghost stories in theis collection and while they are quite well done, I wonder if they really represent the best the genre has had to offer and thus woth to be in s aummary like this? While I don't have a coherent theory of my own, I know plenty stories in this collection to me was good, but not horror. I guess Hartwell did publish this one in part to spur on conversations, and I guess he succeeded? It is a decent collection of classics though, and I'm glad I finally got around to read some of them like Chambers and Blackwood.

28. Orbital 2: Nomader - Sylvain Ruberg/Serge Pellé

Now it's getting interesting. It's becoming more different from Valerian both because the backstories of the main characers develop, but also because there are people getting killed, and there are consequences to every action. A more adult space adventure, even if the word feels insufficient. More weird creatures in the universe are introduced, and new and old conflicts arise. I think the broadening and deepening of the main characters was the thing I liked most, but these books are getting better and better.

29. Liquid Intelligence - Dave Arnold

I was told by Ann VandeMeer that this book was a great read for anyone interested in the craft of cocktail making. She was so enthusiastic about the fact that it had two chapters on ice! Just imagine!? I found it at my local library and decided to check it out. The author is really extremely detail oriented. He analyzes how ice is formed, how the physics of ice melting works in a drink and so on. The level of detail is staggering. I don't think I'm really interested on this level! But, while I wont be doing any vaccuum distillations, or using a centrifuge to clarify juices anytime soon, I did learn a few things and it was entertaining, even if it was a bit more excessive than I'd prefer.

30. Hot Water - Christopher Fowler

A girl disappears, and an unfaithful man is suspected. All told from the viewpoint of a woman who works as a maid at the hired villa where this drama unfolds. She meets the girl before the man who is supposed to met up with her, talks to her and falls in love. She then observes them and their crackling marriages and terrible relationships, and tries to make them notice that something's wrong. In the end it turns out the girl dies because of an accident, after toying with the idea of framing the man. Nobody ever finds out the truth but us readers, in an epilogue like chapter. But the marriages fall apart and everyone hurts. I can see why mysteries are easy reads, as there is something to unfold in the next chapter. A bit of a switcheroo as there's actually never a chrime comitted, and it's just some people's life falling apart as they stay in this pressure cooker of an environment during this vacation week. Well done, but in the end I felt a bit, dirty, reading about it.

31. Orbital 3: Motstånd - Sylvain Ruberg/Serge Pellé

This story is getting bigger, and grimmer. There are more weird aliens out there, and there are more wars and rising fascism at home. I think it's good, but also a bit of a hard read. I try to stay away from daily news, and this was a bit too close to home. But, it was good drama and I found it interesting with Caleb and his sister, and their differences about how to fight. He is still some kind of idealist, when compared to her totally amoral revenge. It became extra clear when he was possessed by the alien. What's still not that well developed is his relationship to his diplomat collegue. What's he/she about?

32. Orbital : Ultimatum - Sylvain Ruberg/Serge Pellé

The end is appropriately epic. This is where this series feel a bit like The Metabarons. A life form who transformed their minds into biological tarships, and who hides their power source in another quantum state. Quite something. In the end I did feel for the characters. You never really get to understand the two main charactersn and yet they are what the story circulate around. The visuals where stunning and I liked the story. You really had to read all the volumes, as it was multiple threads of one long tale. I might want to revisit this one.

33. Needle in the groove - Jeff Noon

How do you even read this book? There's no punctuation, only slashes and line breaks. I felt after a while it had some kind of flow, but it only kind of made sense when you found the groove. This is a book about music, and written as music. It was weird, but when I read it pretty fast, and experienced the book it clicked for me. It had goove. Also, it was a book about how to work creatively in the shadow of the greats, how to relate to fame and your co-creators. It was definitely a book about love. It was also a book about how to relate to the crutches we depend on, creatively or not. I liked it a lot. I wanted to make music when I read it, that tells you something, doesn't it? It had groove.

34. A Long Strange Trip - Dennis McNally

The sixties. The counterculture movement and the hippes. Beatniks. There are so many significant cultural events and phenomena that I really have had a very vague idea about. One thing I knew, and that was the importance of music, and the psychedelic drugs. When I started listenting for real to the Dead, I wanted to learn where it came from. This is the story of the band, and its members. Some are described in more detail than others. It was a very good book, and it gave me some idea of what is was that happened back in the days, what made the Dead special, and why so many people think so highly of Jerry Garcia. I think that in the end I kind of do as well. There are lots of drama, drugs and wonderous stories about weird happenings like what happens to all rock bands. The extra interesting part is that since their history is so well documented, you can actually listen to not only the records, but also those nights when it happened. Very entertaining read.

35. Silver Hook Casino - Gu Long

The fourth book about Lu Xiaofeng, and yet more mysteries. This time it was more convoluted than ever. So many people who are not whom they appear and murders comitted by yet more and more people for more and more obscure reasons. Actually, this is not one of Gu Long's better stories. It's actually a bit tiresome in its confusion. The biggest reason is it gets repetitive, like in the last chapter where there are two duels that feel a bit samey and two characters that are both described as coming out of the mists. It's a bit like Gu Long was repeating himself while franticly thinking of a new twist. That being said, there are some quite interesting characters and scenes, like the guy who lives inside a huge barrel! Those scenes in the village on the ice, built every winter as it freezes are all quite interesting as the setting is described. I think I was a bit sloppy as I prepared this one for print as well, with quite a few annoying errors in formatting.

36. Stone Junction - Jim Dodge

"An alchemical potboiler" according to the author. What does that mean? When it's an counterculture bildungsroman I got it and felt it was entertaining and wild. When the heist part of it happened I got lost a bit. It's either totally fantastic, or it's symbolical and chose the latter. In that interpretation, it's kind of sad. The "outlaws" gets eaten by their own lofty self, by basically turning inward and disappear. On the other hand, they remain true to themselves in some way, by Daniel accepting the madness and the alternative take on reality. Is it the ultimate alchemical transformation? In any case, it was an engaging read with lot of wild characters. It makes me ask myself the question of today. This novel was written in 1990, before 9/11 and before the rise of totalitarianism everywhere. Can you leave? Can you transcend by going outside? Can there be alchemical outlaws today?

37. Tsalmoth - Steven Brust

Is this, a bundle of aborted and thwarted plans, the final ironic twist on Brust's sometimes very involved plots with capers and twists? It was in a way fun to see Vlad when he was in his pompt as a crime lord, and in love. At the same time, it was interesting to see how he really was not a very nice person, and you can see some of the cracks that would later cause the split with Cawti. Sometimes the dragaerans also come across as less human than they do in some other books. Maybe it's because the story is told very much from within Vlad's head. Interestingly enough we get to learn why he has been missing memories! Sethra was behind it, and it was at his own request! Intersting indeed.

38. Hawk - Steven Brust

I wanted to read Lyorn, so I decided to re-read this one, as it comes just before it chronologically. It is a pretty decent caper, but i fit does suffer from something is it the fact that so many of the persons that aren't Vlad are just passing through. They feel bit too much like silent extras in the film we're viewing. I think I could have enjoyed some of the interactions a bit more. The times Daymar shows up on stage are hilarious for example, and when Vlad and Kragar are just sitting around talking are great. Now, I'm really ready for Lyorn!

39. Makaber - ed. Älgebrink/Gustafsson

I like to support small press efforts, and horror in my opinion works best in the short format, so I bought a few issues of Makaber. For amateur authors, it wasn't bad. Some body horror, some attempts at cosmic horrors. I think the worst I could say is it was somewhat derivative, and nothing really made me sit up and take notice.

40. The Sinful Stars vol. 2 - various

Back in the day, Fading Suns used to have a very lively fan community, and people posted lot of their own rules and lore online. In setting fiction was another such thing, and I remember some of it being quite well regarded. I even printed a hard copy of one of those stories, Inshallah Burning. I collected what I could find of those fan stories, now very few and far spread out, and produced a POD book. There are some stories that doesn't amount to much, and some that doesn't feel like the do much with the setting. But, it satisfied the craving somewhat. The last story might have been of the better ones, actually.