DisassemblyOfReason's 2018 TBR Challenge

(Alphabetical order - combined TBR and alternate list...)

1. The French Quarter by Herbert Asbury

2. The Elves and the Otterskin by Elizabeth Boyer - COMPLETED
Volume 2 of The World of the Alfar.
Begun 22 Feb/completed 14 Apr.

3. The Art of Concurrency by Clay Brashears

4. The Dreaming Tree by C.J. Cherryh -COMPLETED
This is an omnibus edition of The Dreamstone and The Tree of Swords and Jewels, but missing the prologue of the latter (which summarized the former).
- The Dreamstone - COMPLETED - begun 25 Feb/completed 8 Apr
- The Tree of Swords and Jewels - COMPLETED - begun 8 Apr/completed 21 Apr

5. Emergence by C.J. Cherryh - COMPLETED
Begun ebook 2 Jan, completed 6 Jan; begun audiobook 24 Mar/completed 1 Apr
Volume 19 of Cherryh's Foreigner series.

6. The Former King by Adam Corby - COMPLETED
Canto 1 of the Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn.
Begun 21 Apr/completed 22 Apr.

7. The Divine Queen by Adam Corby - COMPLETED
Canto 2 of the Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn.
Begun 10 Aug/completed 14 Oct.

8. Programming the Perl DBI by Alligator Descartes and Tim Bunce
Carried over from 2017.
Begun 9 Dec, completed preface+chapter 1

9. The Worm Ouroboros (annotated) by E.R. Eddison
Carried over from 2017.

10. Inside the Victorian home : a portrait of domestic life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders - COMPLETED
Begun 3 Jun/completed 5 Jun.

11. The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford

12. Ash: a secret history by Mary Gentle
This has also been published as 4 volumes, the Book of Ash 1 - 4: A Secret History, Carthage Ascendant, The Wild Machines, and Lost Burgundy.
Begun 1 Jan 2018
- A Secret History: The Book of Ash #1 - COMPLETED (begun 1 Jan/completed 16 Jan)
- Carthage Ascendant: The Book of Ash #2 - COMPLETED (begun 10 May/completed 13 May)

13. A sundial in a grave : 1610 by Mary Gentle

14. Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel by Frances Gies and Joseph Gies - COMPLETED
Begun 14 Jul, completed 5 Nov

15. Red Waters Rising by Laura Anne Gilman - COMPLETED
Volume 3 of The Devil's West.
Begun 26 Jun, completed 4 Jul

16. Paris in the Terror: June 1793-July 1794 by Stanley Loomis
Begun 15 Dec

17. The Nature of Alexander by Mary Renault - COMPLETED
Begun 11 Jun, completed 30 Jun.

18. The tyrannicide brief : the story of the man who sent Charles I to the scaffold by Geoffrey Robertson - COMPLETED
Begun 15 Apr/completed 5 May.

19. World Without End by Sean Russell - COMPLETED
Volume 1 of Moontide and Magic Rise.
Begun 18 Jan/completed 27 Jan.

20. Sea Without a Shore by Sean Russell - COMPLETED
Volume 2 of Moontide and Magic Rise.
Begun 28 Jan/completed 4 Feb.

21. Learning Perl, 6th edition by Randal L. Schwartz et al - COMPLETED
Carried over from 2017. Begun 19 May, completed 30 Jun.

22. Karl Marx plays chess : and other reports on the world's oldest game by Andrew Soltis

23. The Tolkien Reader by J.R.R. Tolkien - COMPLETED
Begun 1 Jul/completed 3 Jul

24. The Silent Stars Go By by James White - COMPLETED
Begun 17 Nov, completed 14 Dec.

>1 DisassemblyOfReason: Shh... don't tell me about the twist in the sixth edition of Learning Pearl, I've only read the first five.... ;)

In all seriousness, your list definitely looks like a good one.

Interesting list. I look forward to reading your thoughts. Happy new year and happy reading!

Interesting list!

The 1200-page Ash: a secret history was my Big Doorstopper Book in 2014, and I loved it: Gentle does know how to apply the rule of cool. Telling you anything about it other than it's alternate history would spoil it (I see that's in your tags for the book), so I'd advise you to approach the book spoiler-free for an awesome reading experience.

Following along and looking forward to your thoughts on many of those titles.

I've read almost no Cherryh and can never decide what to sample, but was thiking about The Faded Sun Trilogy. Opinion? Sean Russell is another genre author I've been missing out on, and I might try The Initiate Brother.

Eddison is one of those genre classics authors I feel like I ought to read for the sake of being knowledgable but really don't feel too keen about doing so, so I'll see what your take on it is.

Love the ticker!

I recognize pretty much nothing on this list so look forward to being educated as you post about what you've read.

The Elves and the Otterskin is obviously based on the Fafnir legend, but it isn't a simple retelling of the legend, and there's a lot more going on besides the core of the Fafnir story.

A shapeshifter was killed while in the form of an otter, and indeed his skin was to be covered with gold as weregild. Instead of gods having killed him, however, it was one of a small team of misfit spies who aren't much respected and who squabble a lot. However, since the incident is being used by various people to try to stir up a war, the unlucky spies are being helped along in their quest to pay off the weregild.

Rather than the weregild leading to Fafnir becoming a dragon, Fafnir is already a dragon; the spies' goal is to take Fafnir's hoard - or rather, the hoard that he guards, ownership being debatable - and use it to pay the weregild.

The unlucky spies are the elves of the title....

Interesting. I like a good spy story.

Not really a spy story as such; we're told that they're spies (and not very skilled spies, at that), but we don't see them actually doing anything spy-like. They squabble a lot, and the phrase 'Keystone Kops' comes to mind a bit (that's exaggerated, but you get the idea).

One of them deeply regrets leaving his former career as a pastry chef.

Sneaky! Here I was looking back over folks we appeared to lose from this challenge over the course of the year, and voila, I discover you're been updating. Fourteen is a pretty good chunk.

Fifteen now. I'm just a bit slow...

Choosing a whopper like The Book of Ash or a complex book like any of E.R. Eddison's - well, that's why I hadn't read them before now...

I know what you mean. I have some really old books that need to make the list, but I seem to pass them by every year.

But 15 is a good number. The challenge is for 12.

I loved the hell out of Ash: A secret history when I read it a few years ago. But man, was it a long read (over 1100 pages). Wonderfully immersive, though.