2024 in Review

Another year has been and gone - we are now four years past 2020 and I'm still waiting for Arasaka Corp to even be founded! - and another 12 months of Monsters & Manuals posts has accumulated.

It has been an odd year here at the blog. On the one hand, I reached a major milestone, which I know was widely celebrated throughout the continents of the world - my 2,000th published post. On the other, I have been distracted and sidetracked by other commitments (some RPG-related, but mostly to do with 'real life') and this has produced a regrettable slowdown. Yes, yes, I know, like Billy Holiday often reminds me, it's important not to explain, but I am in the sad and unfortunate position of not having independent wealth to support me and must - this is an outrage - work for a living. 

With all of that said, I had some fun with a lot of entries this year, for all that I think there was no particular structure or theme to much of my output. Here, are my favourite five, in no particular order:

1. Nostalgia, Hope, Wonder: The World of TSRan, and Feels like my soul is beginning to expand, look into my heart and you will sort of understand (okay, these are two entries together - I cheated)

2. Favourite Giant Poll and Forget Trump v Biden (okay - I cheated again) 

3. 17 Times the Incidental Illustrations in the 2nd Edition DMG Rocked

4. Gimme Shelter: Tolkien, Wodehouse, Gygax, and D&D

5. Thoughts on the Theory and Doctrine of Golems

In reviewing the list of entries, I was pleased to observe that there were fewer rants and broadsides, which is perhaps in a sense a byproduct of there being less intensity of focus. But then again it could just be because I am old now, and will soon diminish and go into the West.

As far as reading goes, I did manage to do a lot of that this year, and my favourite five things I read are probably (again, in no particular order):

1. Ricardo Pinto's The Masters (in the new, 'director's cut' version of the Stone Dance of the Chameleon series) - truly superior high fantasy fare in a fully-realised setting and with a taut, character-driven plot. From my Goodreads review: This is that rarest of treats: an original-feeling fantasy setting and series (though the debts owed to Gene Wolfe, Frank Herbert, and JRR Tolkien are obvious). I was impressed by the compactness of the prose, the viciousness of the brutality, the breadth of vision, and the way the volume gets gradually turned up to 11 as the action moves closer toward the city of the eponymous Masters. I look forward to the sequels - and hope Tain survives. 

2. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Simon Armitage (and wonderfully read by him on Audible). What can one add?

3. CS Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which I read to my eldest after not having picked it up for many years. The other Chronicles are hit-and-miss, but this is the real deal. From my Goodreads review: It is far from the first time I have read this book, but reading it to my 7 year old daughter (after perhaps 15 years since my last reading) allowed me to see it in an entirely fresh light. CS Lewis does not get enough credit for the perfect pacing of plot here, for the genius of his characterisation, and for the beautiful minimalism of his prose; as unfashionable as it may be to say, he was a writer of rare gifts. He was also deeply humane - a man who understood the meaning of redemption. Not many children's writers could pull off anything remotely as nuanced or complicated as the character arc of Edmund, but Lewis makes it look effortless. An almost perfect book.

4. Roger Zelazny's The Guns of Avalon. I re-read the entire Amber series over summer and liked it a little less than I can remember, but the second book is genuinely excellent. From my Goodreads review: This is a miracle of plotting: a powerfully condensed elixir of story injected into the mind on a narrative syringe. Zelazny's sheer verve papers over all the seams, so that one is simply carried along without bothering to ask questions - the result is not deep, but it is exceedingly enjoyable.

5. CJ Cherryh's Ealdwood omnibus. From my Goodreads review: CJ Cherryh is a brilliant prose stylist - there is neither a badly composed or placed sentence in the entire 420 pages of this omnibus - and a teller of riveting stories. And here she does something unique and profound with the fantasy concept of the 'elf' which truly builds on Tolkien's initial vision and puts the other, blandified versions of lesser authors to shame. The big flaw, such as it is, is the fast-and-loose way in which the plot moves along, such that at times the speed with which events unfold, and the way in which they do so, is simply too implausible to believe or too confusing to follow. It is a rung below the greats. But it is superior in every respect to run of the mill high fantasy fiction. 

I wish you a happy new year and a peaceful and productive 2025 - go wassailing and don't stint on the whisky.