Shejidan / What have you been reading lately?

**Posted by Surtac** 10/24/2025 3:21 pm

Aja Jin wrote:
I'm a big fan of his Nightside books.

I'll check them out. I need something to counter-balance the bleakness in my current non-fiction reading (Catherine Nixey's The Darkening Age if you're wondering).

**Posted by Aja Jin** 10/25/2025 3:10 pm

I just ordered Halcyon Years from Blackwells. They claim it's scheduled for the end of October. Maybe delayed down under? Maybe they've gone back to sea freight for shipping.

**Posted by Surtac** 10/25/2025 4:06 pm

Ok. Checking again, it looks like it's just the US Orbit paper edition that's delayed and I've managed to source a UK Gollancz hardcover scheduled for release at October's end and due here on November 6. Amazon AU will not even offer me the Gollancz hardcover as a physical option, and would have me wait until February for a Gollancz trade paperback.

In other news, I'm a third of the way into the first Nightside book and thoroughly enjoying it so far. It reads a lot like the Deathstalker books both in style and tone iirc.

**Posted by Aja Jin** 10/27/2025 10:44 am

From the blurb for Deathstalker:

Owen Deathstalker, last of the infamous warrior Clan, always considered himself more of a writer than a fighter, preferring his history books to making any actual history with a sword.

Do I detect an homage to M. John Harrison ? From The Pastel City:

tegeus Cromis, sometime soldier and sophisticate of Viriconium, the Pastel City, who now dwelt quite alone in a tower by the sea and imagined himself a better poet than swordsman, stood at early morning on the sand-dunes that lay between his tall home and the grey line of the surf.

**Posted by Surtac** 10/27/2025 8:57 pm

Aja Jin wrote:
From the blurb for Deathstalker:

Owen Deathstalker, last of the infamous warrior Clan, always considered himself more of a writer than a fighter, preferring his history books to making any actual history with a sword.

Do I detect an homage to M. John Harrison ? From The Pastel City:

tegeus Cromis, sometime soldier and sophisticate of Viriconium, the Pastel City, who now dwelt quite alone in a tower by the sea and imagined himself a better poet than swordsman, stood at early morning on the sand-dunes that lay between his tall home and the grey line of the surf.

Could be, but it's a very long time since I've read any of the Viriconium stories. That particular image is actually giving me mental echoes of something from early on in the Culture series by Banks. I just can't recall exactly which book ...

**Posted by Aja Jin** 10/28/2025 12:15 pm

Surtac wrote:
Aja Jin wrote:
From the blurb for Deathstalker:

Owen Deathstalker, last of the infamous warrior Clan, always considered himself more of a writer than a fighter, preferring his history books to making any actual history with a sword.

Do I detect an homage to M. John Harrison ? From The Pastel City:

tegeus Cromis, sometime soldier and sophisticate of Viriconium, the Pastel City, who now dwelt quite alone in a tower by the sea and imagined himself a better poet than swordsman, stood at early morning on the sand-dunes that lay between his tall home and the grey line of the surf.
Could be, but it's a very long time since I've read any of the Viriconium stories. That particular image is actually giving me mental echoes of something from early on in the Culture series by Banks. I just can't recall exactly which book ...

There are mentions of the Pastel City later in the book. I'm about halfway in, pretty good, quite violent and not as funny as the Nightside books.

**Posted by Surtac** 10/28/2025 5:20 pm

I finished the first Nightside yesterday and have started the second. The first was very funny in places and I did LOL when I realised who some of the other customers in the Hawk's Wind cafe were.

Overall, it reads a lot like Deathstalker in terms of the depth and breadth of the implied wider story universe and worldbuilding. There's a lot of story material and history buried in the background of Nightside.

**Posted by Surtac** 11/04/2025 7:12 pm

I've been continuing with the Nightside series, but the postman has just delivered my copy of Reynolds' Halcyon Years. A day earlier than expected!

**Posted by Aja Jin** 11/05/2025 8:08 am

Surtac wrote:
I've been continuing with the Nightside series, but the postman has just delivered my copy of Reynolds' Halcyon Years. A day earlier than expected!

Mine is out for delivery today. I'm well into The Everlasting by Alix Harrow.

**Posted by starexplorer** 11/05/2025 1:20 pm

Please let us know how the Reynolds is!