I’m going on record here that despite my slow start, I’ll finish reading 30 books this year. That’ll be the third straight year.
Over at my mother’s house, I found a box of old paperbacks, mainly my collection of fantasy novels gathered during my teen years. They’re in pretty good shape. The core looks to be Michael Moorcock, especially Elric, Robert E. Howard’s Conan, and Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.
I was struggling with stocking a supply of paperbacks to read during my commute. I don’t mind going to the library, but the handy branches don’t really carry a decent selection of paperbacks. Meanwhile, hardbacks are too bulky. And for whatever reason, used bookstores are few and far between. This newly discovered box neatly solves that problem.
I’ve already written about revisiting Conan and going back to Nehwon. For the former, I expect further books in the series to be about the same. Good stuff from Howard, pastiche from the other authors. Similarly, I expect Leiber to be consistently entertaining and well written.
Moorcock should be interesting. I probably wasn’t sophisticated enough to truly comprehend the anti-hero themes of Elric. Let’s see how it reads with time, maturity, and sophistication.