Read in 2020 (Part 2)

 

Ligotti's My Work is not yet done is another slim volume,  this time one comprising three shorter stories. Ligotti is always interesting, though he does tend to feel repetitive after a while. That said, despite some niggles that approach that feeling, I did have an unwholesomely fun time.

     The titular first story, comfortably the longest, is the most familiar one and readily the easiest to entice a reader with: a disgruntled employee is aided by a dark supernatural force and takes vengeance on his employer and co-workers. It's an alright story, and other than the really quite satisfying vicarious thrill one gets when reading the parts where vengeance gets enacted, there's not much that is memorable here. It's part and parcel of Ligotti's style for me. For some reason alot of his writing slides right off of me.

     The other two stories 'I Have a Special Plan for this World' and 'The Nightmare Network' are both of a different caliber, and though regrettably short, they do stick in the mind a bit longer, even though the stories' ideas are abstract, and the execution, of 'The Nightmare Network' in particular, unconventional. I you like dark and weird fiction this novel is one to pick up.

This book is a short collection of the stories comprising the 'King in Yellow' canon, as written by Robert W. Chambers, together with about 6 other of his stories of a more romantic nature. Those were actually  surprisingly good, and quite beautiful, 'The Street of the First Shell' in particular.

I've long wanted to read everything concerning the King in Yellow ever since I saw season 1 of True Detective, and so then imagine my disappointment that there's only 4 original stories, all depressingly short, and all rather more circumspect and vague about the whole 'Carcosa and the Yellow King' -thing than I would've wanted. There's hardly any lore to speak of, really. There's very little information on 'the play that drives men mad', the city of Carcosa or even of the eponymous king. It seems Chambers' Yellow King fame is mostly due to Lovecraft's borrowing of some of the names referenced here for his own mythos, most of which was then yet to be written, and which; those references, then was made into a kind of extended universe by gaming hobbyists and lore-scribes years and years later. They're not bad stories, mind, I was just expecting so much more, and so I couldn't be anything else but disappointed.

     The next one then I was warned about before going in; repetitive, formulaic and inconsequential, 'read one, you've read 'em all', volume 1 of the Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin.

And of course, surprise surprise, I hugely enjoyed it. Expectation, or lack of it, changes everything.

I mostly picked the 5 volumes up because of the cover art, and because I love publisher Night Shade's collected editions in general. For Seabury Quinn Nightshade collected his 93 stories of the occult detective Jules de Grandin over 5 volumes. One introduction later and I had doubts about the whole thing, because the introduction advises that any new reader of these tales would do well by spacing out the stories over the course of two years, a short story a week or so. Which advice naturally does nothing less than dispirit one about quality of what one is about to read. And so, suitably having my anticipation for any further reading crushed, I couldn't end up anything other than just being thoroughly entertained.

They are repetitive indeed, but it's a comfortable repetitiveness, kinda like watching Midsomer Murders, or some other old, venerable show, where relaxation, if not actual joy, is derived from familiarity. Weekly meetings with people you've come to know, and enjoy the company of. Poirot mixed with Sherlock Holmes, with a 'monster of the week' premise. Occasionally supernatural, sometimes mere human devilry. Every time I picked volume 1 up I was looking forward to what was in stor for me.

My favourite in volume 1 is probably 'The White Lady of the Orphanage' which was one of the human culprit stories, but which was so nasty and gruesome that it managed to stick out from the rest.

     Here then, is another form of comfort food, the good old Warhammer fiction. Again I didn't read as much as I'd have liked, and I still don't have an individual copy of Wulfrik (so I can't show that one), but I did read some interesting stuff nonetheless.

These three are connected in interesting ways. And though I've already talked about Luthor huss around here, and it doesn't merit much more attention, the other two do.

  After finishing the Luthor Huss book I remembered that I still had a book lying around that also had him as a major character. And since his own book didn't delve into what I really wanted to see from him; his role in the bringing of the reincarnation of Sigmar to the Empire, I was hoping that the Marks of Chaos omnibus would end up more satisfying (, at least in this particular regard, as Luthor Huss was a damn fine book all on its own.) And though yes, we indeed end up in the company of Huss and the man called Valten during the course of Marks of Chaos, it doesn't really end up being the main event.

Marks of Chaos is also what you call a Heretic Tome, one of those novels of the Old World's middle period, where the Black library still allowed their writers to go for whatever they wanted, provided they crafted their stories around by the existing lore. And that's why the Witch Hunter's Handbook is here, courtesy of the Ink-Stained Beard, who managed to track down a rare copy just to gift it to me.

What a great chap, isn't he?

The story of Marks of Chaos is the story of Karl Hoche, who is recruited into the ranks of the Untersuchung, which is then promptly dismantled and declared ex communicado and 'order heretical' by the Witch Hunters under control by Lord Protector Thaddeus Gamow. The same Gamow who, together with another crucial player, Karen Schiller, is mentioned in the introduction of the Handbook and referenced throughout. In this it's really cool to see how close these things work together.

Karl Hoche has to go on the run and works in isolation to untangle a web of deceit and subterfuge that is being played out around him.
I admit, throughout the story I was constantly lost as to what was really going on. There are so many elements at play, and Karl himself is so out of the loop that he frequently ends up in locations where crucial events have already just taken place. This does create an interesting atmosphere and a growing conviction that there is a massive conspiracy afoot, and that Karl might just be the only one able to stop it all from playing out, working as he does just at the fringes, hunted by both sides.

And that's only the first novel in the omnibus.

It's the second that delves into the matter of Luthor Huss, and it is here that we get what we're after; the depiction of a zealous cleric, a firebrand in opposition to a stagnant church, and the man granted a vision of Sigmar reborn. Like Mark of Damnation, Mark of Heresy sticks close to the lore as it wa set out at the time. It's a good story, but incompatible with what Old World fiction came to be. Sadly it also has but a smidgen of the power that Chris Wraight's Luthor Huss novel has. It's interesting to read, but sadly outpaced and outdated, and with an ending that promises more to come, but which promise sadly enough is reneged on. James Wallis didn't return to Karl Hoche's plight, his adventures left off the page and up only to the imagination.
It feels as if I'm giving the a wrong impression here, so here it goes; I enjoyed reading the Marks of Chaos omnibus, and if by some chance you get it (which is honestly very unlikely), it's a decent read.

Read in 2020 (part 1)

     I had some trouble reading this year, and I didn't get to read even close to as much as I would've liked.

But as you can see, it's not all a loss. By the end of the year I was back up to more normal reading speed and what you see above was mostly read then, and though there's a few of those that I'd still like to review, most of these books will just have to content themselves by just being given a quick run-down here. I've also decided to split this one up over several posts. Blogger is incredibly glitchy these days...

Though it was at the time still the most significant read yet ahead, hindsight has proven it a slightly underwhelming experience. But, Scott Bakker's Aspect Emperor cycle, despite my misgivings and minor quibbles, did manage to constantly surprise and engage.

     The story of Kellhus' march towards Golgotterath in order to liberate the world from the greatest evil it had ever seen ended up being one of the boldest stories ever told. And that's not hyperbole either, sure you might not like it, but damn me if that last book doesn't quite do the unthinkable. (well, I say unthinkable, but I swear to you that I saw it coming, even though it all didn't quite go down as I thought).

     It's really quite an impressive bit of drama. Exceedingly dark, stomach-turning, and ever more fucked-up the longer it went on. Was it satisfying? I still can't tell.

     I do however still feel that the last two books should be revisited and thoroughly edited by its author. The strained relationship between Bakker and Overlook has unquestionably left its mark, and it's a damn shame. Where the Judging Eye and The White-Luck Warrior fit together seamlessly, in themes, execution and style, both The Great Ordeal and The Unholy Consult give off different vibes, and are inconsistent in both execution and writing quality. But whatever one can say about it as a whole, the Aspect Emperor's ending is unrivaled. Unconscionable and ruthless, and still haunting, even ten months later.

And then of course, there is this one:

     My feelings on Gravity's Rainbow haven't changed, and my opinion on it is still the same. But I will always doubt those that say they unreservedly love it. Closet-pederast or just lying about having read it? Who can tell? I'm using harsh words, and though there are of course many ways that one can enjoy this novel, there's also just a few too many moments where it just straight-up crosses the line.

On these three I have not much to say right now, except that I've been working on some reviews for them. One of the main goals I have here on the blog is to give every Warhammer Horror story its own review, which in itself isn't too difficult.

     But, I'm worried I've left it all too long to do them any justice, and writing these days remains a daunting prospect.

I also finished off the next two issues of Vastarien, and am now only 1 issue behind, sadly, that issue isn't in stock right now, so I'll have to find a second hand copy somewhere.

     As usual these were a mixed bag, mostly good, but there was also some really pitiful stuff. Some of these, mostly the stories at the back of each volume, are unmitigated self-centered, self-pitying shite. But what do you want? You're reading stories about death ideation and suicide, with themes that are fundamentally selfish and individualistic, and you only come seek these stories out if you've already been taken over by your darkest thoughts.

     But, there's a marked shift in the subject matter nonetheless, the ideas concerning the world and our place in it, our identity or lack of it, death and all its attendent symptoms, seem to be slowly pushed aside by issues concerning gender identity. It fits of course, there's a natural correlation between gender dismorphia and self-hate, and so I don't begrudge it its inclusion here. But I can't help but have my hackles raised whenever I read about it. At any rate, there's still good enough stuff to be found to endeavour to seek out the next (magazine) issues whenever they arrive.

Speaking of...- well no, that would give it away wouldn't it? The Wasp Factory is my first encounter with Iain Banks, and it certainly won't be the last. I've been meaning to dig into his culture novels for ages now but there's always something else that demands my attention.

     I had actually given this book as a gift to a friend some years ago, who has a proclivity for disturbing fiction, and though I frequently have a hankering myself, for some reason I held off on buying it for myself.

     And now that I've finally read it for myself;... yeah, it is weird and quite disturbing. But it is also rather beautiful, written in a unique voice and way more thoughtful than I was expecting.

     The story follows an eccentric boy living together with his father on a small island just off the coast of Scotland. When he's not doing chores, young Frank spends his days hunting small animals, crafting totems and safeguards from their remains in order to protect his home from all who would do it harm.

When he begins getting phone calls from his hospitalized brother, with promises of that one's coming escape and a visit back to the island, Frank's reasons for preparing seem well-founded.

     It's of course definitely not as simple a story as I'm making it out to be here. I'm hiding and glossing over alot. Despite the slim page count there's a lot of surprises, a few of them quite grisly, and the read itself is a compulsive one. I've remarked on the author's voice already but it bears repeating. Iain Banks is one I should maybe have read more of already, but there's always something else. Either way, The Wasp Factory is a very interesting novel and one of the few on this list you could recommend to absolutely anyone. It's a special read. A blend of mystery, coming of age drama and thriller. Go pick it up.

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.

The 2019 Done and Dusted Pile, and a little update

Behold, the books that I read in 2019.

It's a more than respectable heap of books, given the dumpster fire of a year I've had. Much of my frame of mind of the past 12 months is reflected in the abundance of horror novels and works of a particularly nihilistic focus; The Vastarien Magazines in particular

but I've also actually managed to cross off a few books that I've been meaning to get to for a while. Titles that any reader and lover of fiction will undoubtedly have heard of; The old Man and the Sea, Beowulf, The Stars my Destination, The Turning of the Screw, Slaughterhouse 5, Roadside Picnic, The Art of War and The Crying of Lot 49.

Also, titles that have gotten used to staring at me in silent, unwinking judgment have also been dealt with; Exquisite Corpse, Lois the Witch, The Spook House, The Grimscribe's Puppets, The Haunted Doll's House, DarkWar and Winter's Dreams, Eldritch Tales, The Green Mile; these have been on my to-be-read shelves for literal years and I'm super happy that I can place them on the big shelves now, out of the dark into the light.

I've also read a bunch of short stories, and though in most cases I finished off the collections I began, there were a few that I didn't quite conclude with. They'll probably be read this year.

I won't do a top 5 of books of 2019 as the blogging is on a bit of a backburn for the moment, as I'm very much going through a season of gaming right now.

Before I began the blog I used to have these 'seasons' where I would obsessively devote all my free time to one specific hobby for a number of months before tiring of it abruptly and switching to another. From gaming to reading to Warhammer to Watching movies and so on. For the past few months I have been gaming more and more, starting from the Witcher 3, to Dead Rising 4, to rogue-lites, to Death Stranding, and now, for the moment Code Vein, which is kinda shit just FYI but nonetheless addictive, and so, reading has definitely become more and more sidelined in favour of obstinate escapism.

It also doesn't help that my book of choice at the moment just happens to be an unexpectedly difficult challenge. I knew The Dragon Waiting was going to be a tough nut to crack, but I didn't quite expect to have such a difficult time engaging with it.

The story requires one to be quite familiar with history, for one, which I really am not but which isn't a problem, but which secondly, and more importantly, requires one to be amazingly intuitive pretty much all of the time. Logically, politically, emotionally, and for the time being this seems to be a little out of my reach, even though it hasn't been like this for me before. I'm honestly wondering if I've been struck stupid in the past year.

Anyway, I'll post more regularly from now on, even if it's occasionally just going to have to be some incoherent trivial nonsense. We'll see how it goes, but for now I'll leave you with a reasonably blurry picture of my bookshelves, where I put all the regular non-Warhammer books that I have read and still own.

It's a bit of a dick move finally posting a picture of my main bookshelves with a less than stellar camera. At this point, I should just buy a new phone, but I'd honestly rather spend the money on some more books :p

Belated Birthday Book Batch

   

Behold The Pile of Pleasure, which I got for my birthday, which was the third of november.
Yes I'm very late this one.

From the top:

After finishing Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's seminal masterpiece From Hell I decided that Moore had really by now become one of my favourite authors, and that I really should begin gathering more of his stuff. So, quite a few of the things I asked for had Moore's name on them, but, as it turns out, there happen to be more Moores than expected; to whit:

You can forgive me for thinking that Alan Moore is ubiquitous enough that the man has earned the monopoly on the name but apparently there's others going about calling themselves Alan and/or Moore. The From Hell Moore started out writing poetry so I assumed that there had to be a volume collecting those efforts and I thought that Opia was it, as it was under 'similar suggestions' on the Book Depository (good prices, yes, but pretty much everything else about it sucks.)
Obviously Opia wasn't that volume, but that doesn't mean that it was a bad gift.

 I've read over half of the poems in here by now, and though they haven't swayed me towards making poetry a more frequent go-to, reading-habits-wise, I did end up enjoying some of them.
Most touching of these (so far) I found The Taxman poem.

I can't profess to completely understand what it all means, but I found I was quite touched by the sentiments here; the yearning to reacquire something lost.

Alan Moore (not that one) frequently imbues his poetry with a disarming directness bordering on the crass, which can be quite charming.

 If you love poetry, you can do a lot worse than picking this one up.

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I gave a list of the Warhammer Chronicles Omnibi I still needed and it's Warlords of Karak Eight-Peaks that I got.

     Before anyone says or asks anything: Yes, I have heard the news concerning the Old World, and all I can say is that despite having pined for it ever since it got destroyed, its return (in a few years) leaves me cold. Though I was excited at first, that excitement swiftly turned to annoyance. There is nothing sacred to Games Workshop, and I don't have much interest in whatever they're going to present us with.

     I was only ever here for the novels, in any case; and unless they do away with the End Times novels entirely, or re-write them to something way less rushed, I won't... hmm. No, I can't say I won't pick anything up, but right now I'm still a little ambivalent about the whole thing.

     In any case, this nonsense is going to involve a whole lot of retconning, and I loathe that type of stuff. Retconning is something that only comes about because of franchise considerations; it's something that is dependent on an audience, and as such, it puts into question the artistic merit of that property. If art is dependent on an audience, and when it is changed to suit that audience's reception, then it's not art any more. In some form or other it will become homogenized, it has to be suited, after all, for mass consumption. Bah, I'm talking bollocks. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Anyway, Warlords of Karak Eight-Peaks collects the Skaven heroes novels Skarsnik and Headtaker, and the Dwarven novella Thorgrim plus a few short stories. 

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Here are some different editions of novels I've already read in some form or other. They were both on my 'Slow Collecting' Page on the side there *points*, and it was quite a surprise when they came in through the mail.

Someone's been keeping up with the blog. Thanks, mate :)

IDW's Dracula was on the list because it came with Ben Templesmith's art, and it didn't disappoint, at least Art-wise, because IDW has a weird lay-out to their text that dor some reason easily makes me lose track of where I'm at. It's okay though, as this one's not for reading and instead is simply for looking pretty on the shelf.

The Warhound and the World's Pain is here because I simply love the novel, and I wanted to have the edition with Rowena Morril's devil on the cover. I'll be giving the novel a re-read next year, and am looking forward to it.

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To Rouse Leviathan is Matt Cardin's second collection of religious horror stories, which in fact also collects all of the fiction from his first collection Dark Awakenings. It doesn't collect Dark Awakenings' essays concerning Isiah, zombies and demonic and angelic history in fiction, so if you want to read those you'll still have to pick that one up.

I still haven't gotten around to finishing off Dark Awakenings, even though I've felt a hankering lately to read some more religion-based fantasy and horror. Reading as a whole has been a really difficult thing to do lately. Been having some problems is all.

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Then we arrive at the comic books.

The Battle Chasers anthology I asked for mainly because it is Joe Madureira's stab at Swords and Fantasy comics.

     Though you might not recognize the name, the unique art style might be a little more familiar.

Joe Madureira's the artist responsible for the design of the Darksiders franchise, which I used to love. The story of Darksiders is basically that the apocalypse has happened, even though it shouldn't have.

Humanity is now dead and gone, and one of the four Horsemen, War, has been found guilty of bringing this about. Of course, there's more going on here, and we follow around War as he tries to clear his name. It's quite a rocky series, the first game being a bit hit and miss, the second one being basically unfinished, the third one (continued after the publisher went belly-up) being remarkably uninspired, and the latest game going on to become a top-down affair. There's a few books too, though I only read the first Death one.

So, based off of nothing but the art I went and asked for this one.

And. It was pretty crap.

Phenomenal art, as was expected, And almost 2000 Ad style of storytelling, but that could've been forgiven if, it just had been finished. Jep, this one is basically not complete.

I felt a lot of annoyance reading this one.

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Next up, extremely pretentious, is Alan Moore's Hypothetical Lizard.

I have no idea what this is going to be about.

All I know is that this one was adapted from one of Moore's short stories and that it is also included in this volume.

Though There's usually too much packed into Moore's work to be able to give a quick opinion on any of it, I'll try to write a little bit when I finish any of his comics. I tend to stall blogging whenever I feel that the book or comic I'm writing about deserves more, and so, nothing gets done. I really need to start remedying this.

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Here's the only Bear on the CIA's hitlist:

Shako.

Absolutely ridiculous.

I asked for this one mostly as a joke, trying to upset someone's delicate sensibilities, but the joke was on me as I received this one without a moment's hesitation.

It's not a great, or even is it anything close to being a, good comic book. It's 2000 AD at its most juvenile and silly.

But. I have a thing about bears.

They terrify me. And if there's something good to be said about the comic then it is that it genuinely unsettled me a few times. e.g. when the bear plays with someone before viciously mauling them to death; such an accurate portrayal of nature's most terrifying monsters. This comic would've been a genuine horror experience if they'd depicted Shako as having no fur... What am I talking about? Jesus, get back on track Levi.

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Another from the 2000 AD stable.

The Complete Future Shocks Volume 1.

This one I asked because I'm a collector and a 'Complete' edition of anything is immensely appealing, and because of the whole Alan Moore thing.

He started out writing for comics in 2000AD's Future Shocks so I thought it was a good idea to read these.

They're overall a bit hit and miss, but even the bad ones are short enough that you don't really mind them. There's at least always some sort of twist present that'll give you your euro's worth. I since then have picked up the second volume, which I keep on my nightstand so I can finish off a story or two before going to bed.

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Completing my Saga Hardcover collection, here's volume three.

I love this series.

That's all I'm gonna say right now.

You could probably subscribe to an online e-comic shop or something and get the first issue for free, that's how I got into it.

Do so. It's probably one of the most emotionally engaging stories in comics right now.

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And, lastly, another Alan Moore book, which has the dubious honour of being the first ever out-and-out superhero comic that I own. The Absolute Edition of Alan Moore's Killing Joke.

I had previously seen the cartoon movie of this one, and though it was ok, there's definitely was no need, or even desire, for the whole bat-girl has sex with batman, stuff. What were they thinking with that? 

It's quite a gorgeous edition, oversized, and apart from having the original comic release it also has artist Brian Bolland's preferred colouring, which he did himself for this edition.

He wasn't pleased with the original colouring, which, it must be said, is very very psychedelic, and which you can compare to his own preference below. It's quite a massive difference.

The original script is also included as are afterwords by the artist, some notes on the Joker's original origins, an art gallery, a retrospective by John Higgins, an introduction by Tim Sale, but oddly, nowhere is there an actual answer to the last panels of the story, nor is there any commentary from Moore himself to be found.

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There were a few more gifts, non-books and such, but as you probably have noticed it appears impossible for me to continue writing right now. Over the past month and more I have seemed to be heading back into depression or something, and I'm having the hardest time to write anything at length.

Either way. Thanks for all the support, the presents and the love.

Take care. I'll be back to writing regularly soon.