Final month of the year for the reading challenge. I won't spoil the end of year review with the final results but I managed to beat the targets of reading every day and the book-a-week objective.
December is usually a good month for reading for me with the holiday period. I managed to work my way through thirteen books, and unusually, a chunk of them were roleplaying games. In total, the page count was 3,904 pages, which is significantly up because I read the second Lucifer Omnibus volume.
Digging in, I read one non-fiction book, five roleplaying books, a graphic novel and six fiction books.
The non-fiction book was via Audible again, Vertigo by Harald Jähner. This covers the Weimar Republic in Germany from creation to fall to the Nazis. It's a fascinating blend of history, culture and politics which sadly has echoes that are all too visible today.
The graphic novel was the second volume of the omnibus edition of Lucifer, set in the Sandman universe. I really enjoyed this. It's been a while since I've dived into a longer series in this format, and the story is adjacent to one that I've loved for a long time. Overall, I really enjoyed it and will check out some more of Mike Carey's work.
Roleplaying games included The Hooded Man RPG by Graham Rose, which I reviewed here. I do hope to actually run this one.
I also read The Lost Mountain Saga, written by Ellinor DiLorenzo. This a short campaign for the Vaesen roleplaying game. There was much to praise in the campaign, but some bits felt a little underwritten and the way the ending is presented in the text is underwhelming. However, I do think that this could be addressed pretty easily and I wouldn't mind running it at some point.
Grimwild is an abandoned property, as the designer has disappeared and the folks he worked with on the crowdfunding of the project can't get hold of him (or access any of the accounts associated with the project). Fortunately, the PDF version of the game was released, and it's promising. It's a very light narrative take on the kind of fantasy that Dungeons & Dragons does well, and I liked what I read. I do think it would need a couple of read-throughs as the examples in the text don't necessarily cover everything clearly, but there's potential there.
Adventures Book 1 - Tenebrous Cats and Forgotten Tombstones is the adventures compilation of the Edgar Allan Poe inspired roleplaying game,
Raven. I'd hoped that reading this would help to me come to a conclusion about the game as to whether it was one to sell or play, but it didn't provide that clarity for me. I'm more in the 'play' space now but I found the scenarios hard to work through. Like those for
Vaesen, they have a set structure. Unlike those in
Vaesen, they are stripped back so much that they feel like technical writting rather that something evocative. I'm pretty certain that they could be run really well and get the right vibe, but I haven't found the adventure within the collection that gives me the GM tingles and makes me want to crack on and get this to the table. At the moment,
Vaesen, Candela Obscura and
Old Gods of Appalachia would all come before this in my play preference. Maybe that's the answer for me.
Mark Meredith's
Song of the River Prince is delightful. It's set in what appears to be an idyllic setting beside a great river and its tributaries. You take the part of travellers along the river, encountering adventures and carry out missions. The land is touched by the fey and has great beauty, but there are some perils that threaten the cosy, idyllic nature of the river lands. The rules are simple and there are mechanics that make the journey more important. I recommend this - you can get it
on Lulu here, and
DriveThruRPG here.Now on to the fiction, which was dominated by thrillers.
The Shadow of the Northern Lights by Satu Rämö is the third part of an Icelandic noir detective series, Hildur. Hildur is an Icelandic police officer in a remote part of the island, and the investigations that she gets involved with link back to elements within her traumatic upbringing. She's assisted by a Finnish detective who is there as a paid intern. I'd really recommend starting at the beginning if you want to read this series as there are revelations throughout it that are relevant to the later stories. I enjoyed this, but I'm already invested in the series.
A Quiet Place by Seichō Matsumoto was an impulse purchase. The author was described as the Japanese Agatha Christie. In this tale, a government official's wife dies in somewhat suspicious circumstances and her husband starts to try and understand if she was having an affair. The story didn't go the way that I expected, and surprised me. It's steeped in Japanese culture so I found it quite alien to me in a way that the Icelandic noir isn't.
The Coworker by Freida McFadden was an impulse 99p purchase on my Kindle, and quite entertaining. I did find myself increasingly disliking the protagonist as I read the book, but it's a good twisty tale of what happens when a colleague that just doesn't quite fit in disappears and the repercussions on those around her.
The Hike by Lucy Clarke was a mistake. That's a mistake in the sense that I had another book of the same name saved in my wish list which I thought this so I bought the wrong novel! However, I only realised that when I saved it on my Storygraph account. This is a story of four childhood friends who have grown apart meeting up and hiking a four-day trail in Norway. They all have their own issues and challenges and events in the local area impinge upon them. I enjoyed this, especially as it avoided the obvious answers and twists.
Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds is a noir detective story set on a generation/sleep ship. Yuri Gagarin is hired to investigate two suspicious deaths, something that the authorities seem to by drawing a line under. The novel digs in and Gagarin follows a thread that reveal secrets from the mission's past. I enjoyed it; it's not the best Alastair Reynolds but it was very enjoyable. My book of the month certainly. It's interesting how Reynolds keeps returning to detective and noir themes, they seem to resonate with him.
Finally, I read Slaughterhouse-5, by Kurt Vonnegut. It was the SF Book club choice for the month and I found it strangely compelling and quite dark. It drew me in and along despite my not-quite liking it. Part of the reason I joined the bookclub was to try and read books that I may not have otherwise explored, and that's certainly working.
1 January 2026
