Month 26 of 260 (10 percent)
Size of list: 85,470 pages (9.8 percent above start)
Pages read: 13,244 (15.50 percent)
H-list: 3,729/23,114 (16.13 percent)
N-list: 5,482/36,694 (14.94 percent)
O-list: 4,033/25,662 (15.72 percent)
Finished: The Shadow Rising, The Transition of H.P. Lovecraft
Starting: Foundation and Empire, Life Debt
I'm ahead of pace, but not enough ahead, and certainly less than I was a year ago. This was a year of spending too much time on video games; with the World Cup coming, I'll have to cut back on that if I want to keep up. I'm also starting the year with a pair of books that are relatively easy, per page, to pad my numbers early.
The second of three volumes of the complete Lovecraft is marked by At the Mountains of Madness, but what really stood out for me was The Street, a very short story that was just dripping with racism. The other short stories were generally all the same; only The Horror at Red Hook, taking place in New York City, really stood out from the rest. At the Mountains of Madness was good for the first half -- it felt like the long exposition had a purpose for once, and the mystery was slowly revealed. But halfway through it strained credibility with a detailed description of the history of the Old Ones, based on viewing a few galleries of sculptures, and then the last third didn't advance the story any further.
The Shadow Rising, the fourth volume of the Wheel of Time, continued the pattern of being interesting as long as it wasn't about the main characters. Perrin returns home to defend it against both the fanatical humans and the evil beasts; Elayne and Nynaeve go hunting for the Black Sisters. Both those stories were interesting. Less so, of course, is Rand, although events at the very end hold promise for the next book. Jordan is terrible at writing relationships; Egwene basically passes her romantic interest in Rand to Elayne at the beginning, but there's never any feeling for why Elayne suddenly loves Rand.
Starting: Foundation and Empire, Life Debt
I'm ahead of pace, but not enough ahead, and certainly less than I was a year ago. This was a year of spending too much time on video games; with the World Cup coming, I'll have to cut back on that if I want to keep up. I'm also starting the year with a pair of books that are relatively easy, per page, to pad my numbers early.
The second of three volumes of the complete Lovecraft is marked by At the Mountains of Madness, but what really stood out for me was The Street, a very short story that was just dripping with racism. The other short stories were generally all the same; only The Horror at Red Hook, taking place in New York City, really stood out from the rest. At the Mountains of Madness was good for the first half -- it felt like the long exposition had a purpose for once, and the mystery was slowly revealed. But halfway through it strained credibility with a detailed description of the history of the Old Ones, based on viewing a few galleries of sculptures, and then the last third didn't advance the story any further.
The Shadow Rising, the fourth volume of the Wheel of Time, continued the pattern of being interesting as long as it wasn't about the main characters. Perrin returns home to defend it against both the fanatical humans and the evil beasts; Elayne and Nynaeve go hunting for the Black Sisters. Both those stories were interesting. Less so, of course, is Rand, although events at the very end hold promise for the next book. Jordan is terrible at writing relationships; Egwene basically passes her romantic interest in Rand to Elayne at the beginning, but there's never any feeling for why Elayne suddenly loves Rand.
