Art Garfunkel famously keeps track of the books he has read since 1968. As of writing this, the count is 1327 (he does not add a review). I thought I could do something similar but I am adding short reviews of books as I read them, and I rake my brain over what I read over the last decades. This is, evidently, a work-in-progress: there are 584 reviews so far. Titles marked with a * are particular favorites.
Richard Kadrey: The Grand Dark *
Not otherwise reading Kadrey as his normal genre is outside my circle of interest, this, however, is something else: a nightmarish alternate history/fantasy set in a Mitteleuropa drenched in fog and darkness and drugs and secret police and treason — all of this, and then some. Sort-of a territory that is occupied by Mieville’s Perdido Street Station, but much more restrained, and a happy-sad ending that resolves nothing but gives the protagonists a flick of hope. One senses that it is not going to last. Oh, also: a rather effective demonstration of the power of the Hero’s Journey pattern.