Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Epic/high fantasy re-reads

Although in many ways I was enjoying the Malloreon better than I expected, and even better than the Belgariad, I was smack in the middle of it, from Interlibrary Loan, when I got to the point where I was too busy to continue. With the travel plans I was having, and other things distracting me, I got pulled away, didn't read anything for over two weeks, and decided that it just wasn't the right time to try re-reading that. So I quit, took the books back to the library, and I'll (probably) get on to that some time later, when things are calmer and different as opposed to now. 

Now that I'm home from vacation, I've got a lot to do at home. I'm behind on work, I've got a number of house projects of things that need to be fixed or replaced, I've got a lot going on with my sons to work on, etc. So I'm a little unsure about diving into another reading project. But I do have a few options, and I want to do all of them at some point:

  • I've got Lord of the Rings (including The Hobbit) in print and audiobook as mp3 files. It's been a few years since I've read this. Many years, actually. I'm overdue for a re-read.
  • I've got all of the original 80s version paperbacks of the Riftwar Saga again, and since I lost the first three books of that several years ago, I've re-read the "director's cut" version from the library and believe it or not, been kind of disappointed in them. Now that I have copies of all of the versions that I actually want (and used to have) I've been jonesing to re-read them again. It's been quite a while.
  • I have the original Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy in both print and audiobook. It's been a long time since I've read those either, and I've never read the highly regarded Legends trilogy which follows it. I'd like to read Chronicles and then Legends.
  • I haven't read the Chronicles of Prydain in a long time. I have the first and last of the five books in print, although my copy of The High King is falling apart. But I do have all of them on audiobook.
  • I've got several things to read that I've had for quite a long time but haven't gotten around to reading. I've read the first two books, for instance of the Nagash Trilogy by Mike Lee from Black Library, but I've had two abortive attempts to start the third book and it ended up being too busy of a time for me to read it. I'd like to finish that. I've also got the von Carstein vampire trilogy in omnibus format that I've had for years and not read.
  • If you get beyond that, I've got a lot of single volume fantasy that I haven't read yet but which have owned for a long time. And if you look at my Kindle library, holy crap, I've got a lot to read.
I also have another trip, this time by myself, coming up in either August or September, or possibly a little later, to go hiking. In fact, I'd like to see if I can squeeze two trips out of that; maybe an earlier one to the one of my Rockies destinations before it starts getting colder, and one way out in the west Texas desert after it's not too hot anymore. Maybe if I do that, I can figure out how to get some of those audiobooks loaded on my phone or something so I can listen to them while driving.

(I don't mean that literally. Obviously I know how to load them. But they will take up a lot of memory, so I'm thinking of alternatives, like having an alternate SD card I can play or something. I'm not sure what car I'll be taking on these trips yet, so I don't know yet what my options are going to be.)

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