Recent Reading

I finished reading the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman with my daughters a few days ago. It is one of the earliest fantasy series I read as a kid and I have read it a few times since. Reading it again this time, it is obvious that these books were their first published works. Some of the prose is awkward and many events feel quite cliched.

Still, I recommend the books to any aficionado of fantasy fiction. The characters are fantastic and the books have a lot of...heart, for lack of a better term. Best of all this trilogy sets up events for the sophomore effort, the Legends trilogy. Vastly superior to Chronicles in plotting and prose, it is one of the best epic fantasy stories I have read. The girls clamored for this to be next up in our group reading so we started reading it yesterday.



I've been reading some Harlan Ellison for myself. I read Angry Candy which contains his award winning story "Paladin of the Lost Hour." I'm almost finished reading Shatterday which contains another award-winning story, "Jeffty is Five," one of the most heart-wrenching tales I have ever read. The story, especially the last images, have stuck with me like a bad dream. Ellison is one of the greatest authors around and if you haven't read any of his work, you really owe it to yourself to check 'em out.