2020 Reading Goals

For 2020 I have another list of reading goals even though I wasn't able to cross off all the books I wanted to read in 2019. I don't consider that a failure as I did actually manage to finish off many of the smaller novels I had been planning to read and a whole bunch of others besides, and in fact, the only one on my list I didn't get around to finishing, the big one, ended up being, despite only barely having reached the halfway point, one of my favourite reads of the last few years.

You see, back in November I realized I very much enjoyed reading Infinite Jest and I felt I would be doing both it and myself a major disservice if I just forced myself to finish it within the set time frame, which is why I let it slip a bit, mostly in order to let the read settle. There were other complications too but those have been ... dealt with... *eyes the Death Stranding case meaningfully*.

With that in mind, I should say that even though Infinite Jest will remain the big reading project for 2020 it'll probably be done quite a bit before the end of the year, barring any major mishaps.

Other than that, there's a few other things I absolutely want done this year:

I want to keep up with the Warhammer Horror books as they come out, and I'm already behind a bit with those. Someone else still has a Horror Audio Drama of mine so I'm waiting 'till that returns to me to plunge into that. When I get it back, I'll continue reading/ listening and reviewing. Though I have a few thoughts still lying around on the Colonel's Monograph, so I'll be posting those soon.

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I'd like to continue, and finish, my Paradise Lost read + the accompanying posts.
I'm a bit scared of this one, because I'm not good at all with protracted projects, but this is one I should really finish off. Because, you know, as a lover of eschatological fiction and all, it's pretty bad that I still haven't finished off the granddaddy of all Devil tales.
I remember loving the work on the accompanying blog posts for each book, and it would be nice to have that continue.

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I'm also going to finish reading the Aspect Emperor cycle, as I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get spoiled if I leave it much longer. I'm not sure at all if I'm going to review these, as the blog's already full of my thoughts and observations on the series. But if something comes up that interests me I'll undoubtedly write about it. There's some interesting bits where the Judging Eye and The White Luck Warrior show some clear influences from Blood Meridian and I definitely had something I wanted to say about that (all positive of course).
I've read the first two, but have avoided all spoilers on The Great Ordeal and the Unholy Consult.
It's also way past time to plunge back into depravity.

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Begin reading and/or, depending on how engaged I am, finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, hopefully before the promotional material for the Television series starts appearing, but that's a foolish notion, I'm guessing.

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Read at least the first 4 novels of the Michael Moorcock collection, and begin posting my Moorcock Library posts, of which some have been done for years (and boy, will it be nice to get those out of the drafts-section), and review the 3d and 4th of these as Fantasy Masterworks.

Half of the Von Bek novel will be a re-read, but the rest is all new. I did also read 2 of the Elric novels at that time and there was a bunch that I then wrote for the blog, but for some reason I never actually posted that. I'll have to see where I'll post that, but it'll probably be my "Introduction to the MMC" first, then "Elric1", then "Elric 2" and then "Von Bek".

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Read C S Friedman's Coldfire trilogy. This one's been on my shelves way too long as it is.

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Also, because I was busy with it at the end of 2019: Finish reading the last book in the Terror 8 series,  The Tooth Fairy, and finish reading the Dragon Waiting and give it a Fantasy Masterwork review.

That last one had been taking a while because it's quite a dense book that requires one to have a lot of knowledge on things historical and a host of smaller elements besides. It's been quite a challenge to understand and interpret a lot of what the book is doing.
A few minutes ago I actually finished the story, and I feel myself not up to the task of even giving the thing a regular review. I'll just let it settle for a week or so, read the accompanying Draco Concordans to make as much sense of it as possible and then begin setting down my thoughts.

There's a lot more I want to do this year, but these are the ones that I feel have priority, either because they've been on my mind, or shelves, so long, or because they're about to be adapted into some form of media or other.
I find that if I plan too much, I tend to get disheartened, so by keeping my must-reads relatively few, I leave myself some room so I can toss in a random interesting book every once in a while.