Started this almost by accident when sheer indecision about what to listen to next caused me to pick the one to which lowest down my list of to be read, and what an unexpectedly entertaining listen it turned out to be. Norwich examines the first half of the century through the lives of the four rulers who shaped and influenced it, their friendships, rivalries and bitter enmities. It's so packed with historical incident - sieges, diplomacy, schisms, reformations, dynastic marriages, invasions, assasinations, executions, pagaentry - that it flies along, and the personalities of all involved are outsized and utterly fascinating.

Older rounds out her trilogy exploring the future of democracy in typically thoughtful and thrilling fashion, as even the very people who worked so hard to keep micro-democracy and Information alive began to have doubts about the system, while a more insidious plot to destroy it all coming from former defectors allied with big governments and hiding in Null States unfolds.

The stalwart Surendrenath gets a voice in this volume of the mystery series, talking over half the narration with a decidedly different viewpoint to that of his good friend Sam. With tensions between Muslim and Hindu running high, Surendernath finds himself under suspicion of a murder that is tearing the city apart - with the help of Sam, he goes on the run to clear his name, solve the murder and uncover a dagerous plot. An exciting adventure thriller.

Praag gets sieged by Chaos, Gotrek and Felix are inside, unfortunately for Chaos

Slightly cheating here because I listened to the rather good audiobook, but I did get this edition for my birthday and I'm saving the story at the end for Christmas Day, when it is customary to enjoy a Kim Newman read. It's been a while since I revisitied this volume, but the thrill of the elegant construction of a shared world using encyclopedic knowledge of vampire fictions while the subtle plot tightens and the wonderful characters develop. The hunt for Jack The Ripper, murdering newborn vampires with his silver knife, is merely one level on which this works, there are many others, and this is always fun to return to.

Night Vale's unique brand of surreal comedy, romance and tragedy and cosmic horror translates smoothly to nevl form and easier still to audiobook, as narrated by the Voice Of Night Vale. An eternally nineteen-year-old pawn shop owner and a PTA mother of a shape-changing son have their lives disrupted by a weirdly forgettable man in a tan suit handing out pices of paper and the sudden appearance of mutliple copies of a man called Troy. In pursuit of answers they band together for a terrifying trip in the darkest heart of the local libarary, and beyond. 

Yeah if you like Night Vale, you'll like this, it's exactly similar in tone, style and content, by turns funny, horrible and moving, somehow navigating its own seemingly random, shifting absurdity to tell a good story, too. 

Oh God I am smitten by covid booster lurgi - this was fine even for a 'secret quasi law-enforcement/espionageorganisationorganisation whose job it is to keep the world safe from the supernatural while also inexplicably keeping it completely secret' type book. Funny in parts, horrifying on others, likable narrator. 

You know, my aim is to read LESS books this year, and here I am four days in and two books finished already. Gotrek and Felix versus vampire - the opening, where Felix laments the horrible trials he has undergone in the previous volume then promising that things then immediately got worse are becoming funnier and funnier. 

Good job. Really reining in the out-of-control reading there, Nige. Are audio books crack? I think they may be crack. Anyway, the lads finally meet an Elf and go to Albion which is obviously some version of England, drenched in rain and fog, and the source of terrible threats to the entire world. Don't want to give too much away, but there might even be a giant. Gotrek may run his thumb along the edge of his axe until a drop of blood shows a few times. Felix may ponder the many strange turns his life has taken since he met the dwarf. There may even be some slaying. *Wink.*

Yeah, the new year's resolution to READ FEWER BOOKS is going great, thanks for asking. Still, early days yet, with a bit of real effort I might get it down to only two or three a week. Robert Hoon swears and insults and does bloody violence in his ongoing search for the missing daughter of a friend, In a not at all unlikely turn of events he's sort of recruited by MI5 to help inflitrate criminal oraganisation known as The Loop, look, go with it, this left over the top behind in the first volume and is still climbing. With a mixture of brutish charm and shamelss bluff he infiltrates an underground cage-fighting racket, which, if I'm going to be honest, seems indistinguishable from the bits of MMA I've glimpsed except for the posh people wearing masks. That's in the book, not MMA. So far as I know. Anyway, there follows lots and lots of mayhem. Kirk gets a bit better at not handing the idiot stick to whoever happens to be Hoon's foil in any given interaction, but it still happens a lot. Very nasty and a lot of fun.