Life Is A Highway

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For some reason, the extremely bizarre premise of this book amused me greatly! I especially love how it ended...To me, the phrase "life is a highway" is apt for this book.

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Here I Am In Prison

Dominion of Blades by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Altogether a solid book. Admittedly, I came across this post DCC, so I'll be interested in how the 3rd book reads. After he is done with DCC.

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Treachery And Treason, There's Always An Excuse For It

Review: The Mystery of the Moaning Cave 

The Mystery of the Moaning Cave by William Arden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This one was one of my favorite Three Investigators books when I was younger. According to the Nook, the copy I have is only 99 pages, so it should go pretty quickly.

I'm going to read this one all the way through on the Teal Nook GlowLight 4. Which, honestly, I kind of hate so far. The device, not the book. I'll write about that elsewhere.

As for the story, it is enjoyable and pretty fast paced. If you pay attention to the details, it's pretty easy to figure out who the villain of the piece is pretty early on, but for a kid-aimed mystery, I enjoyed it again...Thirty years later.

I'm pretty sure I read this one in one sitting when I was about ten, and I read it again in ~2 hours this evening.

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I Can Feel It Coming In The Air Tonight

 Review: A Parade of Horribles

A Parade of Horribles by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I figured that topping Faction Wars wouldn't be easy. I feel like each book in this series so far very much overshadows the previous book, and this one is no different. The racing was handled...Very chaotically. Anything else would have probably been the wrong way to go, and it was definitely the way to go. I love how this time around almost all of the NPCs got to shine. Not just for a page or two here or a page or two there, nope. When it was their turn, they took it.

The audiobook version of Chapter 57? Needs to be a standalone download for all to experience. No doubt about that.

The AI near the end? Perfection.

The ending? I must say...I didn't see that ending coming. But could anyone have predicted that?

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To My Amazement, There Stood A Raven

It’s been so long since I’ve sat down and read a damn book. So in the last four months, I have read forty-three books. So I’ve read the fifty listed below:

My “Currently reading” list is going to be where I start 2025:

I’m actively reading The Horns of Ruin (Not pictured. I forgot to mark it as in progress), Storm Front, Midnight in Chernobyl, Reed of God and Wrath of Poseidon. I need to finish The Shadow, Mike Nelson’s Mind Over Matters, Church of Cowards and The Citadel of Forgotten Myths. I’m going to treat those as stand alone books. After that, I’ll finish Prelude to Foundation.

Once I get through Wizard and Glass, I may switch over to audio for the last five Dark Tower books. The Fargo series by Clive Cussler is something I will be done with, after Wrath of Poseidon, so that clears those up.

The Horns of Ruin is a book I snagged once because the cover looked cool. I did the same thing with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Which I actually enjoyed. This one, however, I’ve started a couple of times but still haven’t been able to get it. I just moved it to my Kobo, so now that Storm Front is done, I guess I’ll get through it.

Upcoming for 2025, I would like to get through the following 30-ish books:

• Finish the Dark Tower – Stephen King
• Garrrett, PI – Glenn Cook
• The Martian – Andy Weir
• The Warrior of Mars trilogy – Michael Moorcock
• Relic – Alan Dean Foster
• The rest of the Derrick Storm/Nikki Heat books by Richard Castle
• Make Room Make Room – Harry Harrison

Those are what I want to read, There will be plenty more random, spur of the moment books. As much as I didn’t like the Havana Mysteries books, I might go ahead and read the last few of them. Wheel of time? Eh. I lost interest about halfway through the sixth book a few years ago. That series might be relegated to Audio for the next year.

I don’t know about Foundation. I have eyed the series off and on over the last thirty years, but…Man. I don’t know. I understand that it is supposed to be some sort of sci-fi masterpiece, but do I have that kind of dedication? Meh. Seems unlikely.

I’m tempted to write an elementary school level book report for each book I read in 2025, but I don’t know. That seems like more work than I want to put into this project. I think I’ll give it a go for Midnight in Chernobyl. That sounds like an interesting challenge.