Let's See How Many Book Yoyogod Reads in 2022

I managed 220 last year. Let's see what I can read in 2022.

1) He Who Fights With Monsters 4 by Shirtaloon

I was a bit wary of this one as it shifts the action from a secondary world to "our world but with secret magical societies." It was still fun, but I do wish they'd just get back to the other world.

Happy reading in 2022. Nathan!

Welcome back, Nathan!

Welcome back Nathan.

Hope your 2022 is filled with great reads!

Thanks everybody.

I managed to get number two already.

2) Wolf Children: Ame & Yuki by Mamoru Hosoda

This is the light novel adaptation of an anime film about a woman who falls in love with a wolf man. She has two children with him, and then he dies in an accident, leaving her to raise to wolf children by herself. It's a really sweet story, and I'll have to get a copy of the movie at some point.

3) Spice & Wolf, Vol. 6 by Isuna Hasekura

I like the development of the relationship between Holo and Lawrence in the series.

4) War Core, book 2: Expeditionary Force by Dean Henegar

In the second volume of a series that turns RTS games into fiction, we se Earth's battle cores sent to try and defend an alien planet from an invasion of robotic dinosaurs. I like it, but not quite as much as the author's other series.

5) Monster Tamer: Volume 7 by Minto Higure

This was a rather nice change of pace for the series. There's very little fighting, and most of the story deals with the developing relationships between the protagonist and his various monster girls.

6) Reborn: Apocalypse (Volume 3) by L. M. Kerr

I don't have much to say about this one, except that I liked it a bit better than volume 2, but not as much as volume 1.

7) Radiant Apples by Joe R. Lansdale

This is the second novella (and third book overall) that Lansdale has written about real-life African American gunslinger Nat Love. This story is about an elderly love, who has retired to a more peaceful life as a Pullman porter. At least it's peaceful until the train he's on gets robbed by the Radian Apple Gang, and he recognizes his wayward son as part of the gang. It's a great story.

8) Lord January by Dakota Krout

Normally, Krout is one of my favorite LitRPG authors, but this one is a definite miss. For starters, this is an attempt to combine LitRPG and cultivation fantasy, and as is so often the case, combining the two progression systems just leads to a boring watered down system. Then comes the main character, who is frankly a moron who only seems to suceed at anything by a combination of dumb luck, the fact that almost everyone else around him is dumber than he is, and everybody else in the setting is really fat. Which brings me to the final problem, the book is full of "durr hurr, fat people are stupid and lazy and spend all day sitting around stuffing their faces" BS. It's a shame this sucked so bad, because Krout is going to be churning out one of these a month for the rest of the year, and that's time that would be much better spent on any of the half dozen other ongoing series he has.

9) Monster Girl Doctor, Vol. 3 by Yoshino Origuchi

In this volume, Lindworm's city council representative, Skadi the dragon girl, has developed a strange tumor that works like a second heart and it's up to Dr. Glenn to try and convince her to have surgery. There's also some stuff about a self-conscious cyclops and a kleptomaniac arachne.

10) Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, So I'll Max Out My Defense, Vol. 4 by Yuumikan

This volume sees the Maple Tree guild taking part in its first event. It's also the final volume of the series that was used in the anime adaptation, so when volume 5 comes out, it'll be story that I'm unfamiliar with, which will be nice.

11) Chasmfall by Sarah Lin

This book four The Weirkey Chronicles, a progression fantasy in which people get stronger by building multistory buildings inside their souls. In this one, our heroes take part in a dangerous quest to gather materials in another dimension and an old enemy shows up.

12) Bad Bunny by Richard J. Hansen

This is the sequel to Dungeon Bunny, which I read last year. It's a bout a bunny that somehow gained sapience and magical powers and took up adventuring by hiding inside a magical suit of armor. It's not bad, but it spends too much time with the bunny's philosophizing.

13) By the Grace of the Gods: Volume 10 by Roy

This volume is largely about fighting a crime wave engineered by a group of noblemen as a power play.

14) Cress Watercress by Gregory Maguire

This is my first early reviewer book of the year. It's okay. It's written for little children, and I am obviously not one, but I did think it was pretty good once it got going. The main problem is that I thought it took almost half the book for anything interesting to happen.

It's one of those children's books featuring a cast of sapient animals who wear clothes, talk, and use tools, but still live in the woods and occasionally eat each other for some reason. In this story we follow the adventures of Cress Watercress, a young rabbit whose father has disappeared. She and her family have to move from their comfy warren into a cramped apartment at the base of a tree, and Cress isn't happy about it. Then we spend about half the book watching her sulk before things start to happen, and that would be things of the "coping with the loss of a parent, making new friends, and accepting your new situation" variety, not the "finding out what happened to/rescuing your father variety," which as an adult, I would have found more interesting.

All in all, this is probably a good book for kids, especially ones who have to cope with the loss of a parent, but as an adult, it was a bit dull.

15) So I'm a Spider, So What?, vol. 13 by Okina Baba

After having the last two novels mostly focus on the hero Julius, this one finally has the spider, White, back as the main focus, and it looks like the differing timelines between the spider and the humans in the first few books are finally going to converge in the next volume.

16) John Sinclair, Demon hunter: volume 3 by Gabriel Conroy

This volume once again has four novella length stories about John Sinclair, a member of Scotland yard's special division, which hunts demons and such. In this one he fights vampires for the third time, battles a Fu Manchu knockoff with a pet dragon (who for some reason seems more like a European dragon than a Chinese dragon) in a two part story, and then goes against a dead stage magician who's been possessed by a demon.

17) The Craghold Legacy by Michael Avallone

This is a bit of 70s era gothic horror about a Boston socialite who flees to a creepy hotel in Pennsylvania Dutch country after she discovers that her boyfriend wants to have sex with her. The hotel manager is apparently a vampire, and the bellhop seems to be invisible. The only other guests seem normal, but have dark secrets. The local scenery includes such quaint place names as the Goblin Woods and the Caves of Hex.
There's also a ghost and a group of Amish devil worshipers. This was kind of weird.

18) The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa

This is a collection of shorter stories in which the members of the SOS Brigade enter a baseball tournament, travel through time, find a missing person, and solve a murder mystery. It's not as good as the novel length adventures, but it was still fun.

19) Tamamo-chan's a Fox!, Vol. 4 by Yuuki Ray

This is just a really cute series about a kitsune who decides she wants to try and experience life as a typical Japanese high school girl.

20) Trick of the Night by Eric Ugland

This is the latest volume in The Bad Guys LitRPG series. This volume mostly sees Clyde Hatchet and his companions being chased around by angry slavers. It feels a lot like filler, but it's at least moderately interesting filler.

21) Spice & Wolf, Vol. 7: Side Colors by Isuna Hasekura

This is a bit of a diversion from the main story of the series as it contains three short stories that take place before the events of the last volume. I think my favorite was the final story, which was told from Holo's POV.

22) The NPCs in this Village sim Game Must Be Real!, Vol. 2 by Hirukuma

This was interesting. Besides caring for the definitely real characters of his favorite video game, our hero continues to grow as a person and has more interactions with the real world, including confronting his sister's stalker, reconnecting with an old flame, and fighting off a coworker driven a bit mad by an evil version of the game where players destroy villages with hordes of monsters. It also has an ending that really makes me want to read volume 3.

23) Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi

I have finally finished my r/fantasy 2021 hardcore bingo card. The final space was to find a first contact novel where war doesn't break out, which was kind of tricky for me, since I don't really read a lot of sci fi these days, and when I do, it's usually either comedic or space opera. Luckily, I remembered that Scalzi's first novel was a first contact book. It's about a race of aliens, that look like jello molds and smell like rotting fish, who hire a Hollywood agent to introduce them to humanity. It's a silly, and ultimately fun book, though I couldn't help but think that humanity would actually be creeped out by the idea of an alien jello mold taking over the body of a deceased actress even if it did win an Oscar.

>19 yoyogod: John Scalzi! Finally, Nathan, an author that I have heard of!

Have a great weekend.

>20 PaulCranswick: I've definitely been reading a lot of more obscure authors lately.

24) Interviews with Monster Girls vol. 1
25) Interviews with Monster Girls vol. 2
26) Interviews with Monster Girls vol. 3 by PETOS

I watched the anime version of this years ago, and decided to read the manga when I noticed they were free with Kindle Unlimited. It's a slice of life fantasy set in a world like ours, except that there are rare mutations called demi-humans, who are just like creatures from myths and legends, and were until recently a persecuted minority. It follows a high school biology teacher who has always wanted to learn about the lives of demis, but has never met one because they are extremely rare. Then one day three of them enroll in his school and another one joins the faculty. I really like it.

27) Chillin' in Another World with my Level 2 Super Cheat Powers: Volume 1 by Miya Kinojo

I'm a bit torn on this one. On the one hand, it's not very well written, though probably better than 90% of the LitRPGs I've been reading. On the other hand, I also found it so ridiculously over the top that I was laughing out loud at several points, and I'm really not sure if that was the author's intent or not. Really, if it wasn't for one thing, I'd probably be saying I love it and would have already started volume 2. The problem is the bonus chapter at the end of the book in which (trigger warning)after seeing how much sex her master and his wife are having, a genie who is holding the soul of an evil witch inside a magic gem decides to grow a penis and rape the witch's spirit with it. Even worse, based on the way it was written, I'm fairly certain this was supposed to be funny.

28) Gwendy's Magic Feather by Richard Chizmar

I got this when it was published back in 2019, and never got around to reading it because covid just made it a bit hard for me to do horror. I finally decided to pick it up because the third book in the series is out later this month. It's kind of a shame I put off reading this, because this really isn't horror, even with a serial killer being part of the story. It's really mostly a character study, showing a few weeks in the life of a thirty something Gwendy Peterson in December 1999 when she has to deal with her Button Box mysteriously returning, her photographer husband being away covering a dangerous story, her mother having cancer, the president trying start a war with North Korea, and a serial killer stalking the streets of Castle Rock.

29) Book Girl and the Corrupted Angel by Mizuki Nomura

This is the 4th book in the Book Girl series of literary inspired light novel mysteries. This one is about missing girl and is inspired by The Phantom of the Opera. It's pretty good, but seems likely to be the last one in the series I'll read since the series is out of print, there aren't even any used copies of book 5 available, and I refuse to buy the ebook version when I have print editions of the first 4.

30) Interviews with Monster Girls, Vol. 4 by PETOS

I actually read this a while ago and forgot to list it here. It's good, but sadly this is the last volume that's available on KU, so I probably won't read the rest at this time.

31) Strange Reflections by Dennis L. McKiernan

This is a collection of fantasy short stories. It's pretty good, but I generally prefer McKiernan's longer works.

32) The Houndsman 2 by J Pal

I rather enjoy this series even if I don't quite understand how the magic system works. I think I probably like it because of all the dogs.

33) John Sinclair: Demon Hunter Volume 4 by Jason Dark

We are now into the first of the J-Novel versions of the John Sinclair books that are translations of the original novels, which explains why the previous book ended with John Sinclair dying and waking up in an alternate reality as the characters' behaviors and histories are markedly different in these stories. As much as I enjoyed the reboot version of the characters from the previous books, I kind of wish they'd just started with translations of the originals because I enjoy this version a lot more. In this volume we see Sinclair fight against vampires who run a night club, prostitutes who work for a demon known as The Black Death (who is a recurring villain), an undead headsman seeking vengeance against the decedents of his killers, and more minions of The Black Death who are attempting to bring back Atlantis this time.

34) All Knowing Novice by Kenneth Arrant

This is a fairly mediocre cultivation fantasy about an annoyingly smart mouthed teenager with a mysterious and tragic backstory who is also an outcast (and not because of his personality). He is never taught to cultivate due to the outcast thing, until he finds the journal of a really powerful cultivator that contains all of the guy's memories. Then there's more nonsense about a dragon's core, some mysterious villains, and a love interest who's in love with a guy who's an even more annoying jerk than the protagonist. It's not terrible, but not really worth keeping an eye out for the sequels either.

35) Spice & Wolf, vol. 8: The Town of Strife I by Isuna Hasekura

I've decided one of my reading goals this year is to finish this series. As it's 22 volumes, I don't know if I'll manage it. This was one of the weaker volumes of the series, largely because it's only half the story.

36) Brambles and Thorns by J. T. Wright

This book would have been improved by removing the first few chapters, since they deal which characters we've never seen before and never see again and that have nothing at all to do with the rest of the book. It also ended a bit too abruptly and could have used another chapter or two.

I've been forgetting to update this again.

37) The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound 2 by Noret Flood

Much like the first volume of this series, I thought this was okay, but not as good as LitRPG fans say it is.

38) Holmes of Kyoto: Volume 8 by Mai Mochizuki

The light novel mystery/romance-ish series about a Kyoto antiques appraiser who has a mind like Sherlock Holmes continues. In this volume, Holmes has been sent out to work at a variety of jobs for other people by his grandfather as training before he can inherit the family antique shop. In this one he solves a mystery about a missing nail and another about a statue of the Virgin Mary that weeps tears of blood, and there's a story about one of his childhood adventures.

39) Defiance of the Fall 4 by Thefirstdefier

I definitely like this series more than Randidly Ghosthound, though I do have a complaint that the ending seems to just be an arbitrary, "there's enough pages, so I'll stop here" sort of ending.

40) Spice & Wolf, Vol. 9: Town of Strife 2 by Isuna Hasekura

I liked this one better than part one of the Town of Strife.

41) Chillin’ in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers: Volume 2 by Miya Kinojo

The problematic elements from volume 1 are missing from 2, which is a good thing, and it's at least slightly better written.

42) The German by Lee Thomas

This is an LGBT horror novel about a serial killer stalking a small Texas town during World War 2. Most interestingly, one of the characters may (or may not) be an immortal (or undead) Ernst Rohm, who was an early ally and friend of Hitler's until his "friend" had him killed.

43) So You Want to Live the Slow Life? A Guide to Life in the Beastly Wilds, Vol. 1 by fuurou

This was delightful. It's a slice of life fantasy light novel about a young man who inherits his great grandfather's orchard located in the Beastly Wilds, an autonomous zone located in Japan that is inhabited exclusively by Beastfolk (other than the MC). There he gets to know the chipmunk people who work his family orchard, and spends a lot of time talking about methods of food preservation, with several recipes included. It's a very soothing and fun book, which is just what I needed right about now.

It's been a while since I updated this:

44) Spice & Wolf, Vol.10
45) Spice & Wolf, Vol. 11: Side Colors II by Isuna Hasekura

I enjoyed these, though the second Side Colors wasn't as good as the first as its longest story was all about a side character that I don't particularly like or care about.

46) Tom the Dancing bug, Without the Bad Ones
47) Tom the Dancing Bug Awakens by Ruben Bolling

These are the two most recent collections of one of my favorite comics.

48) OutRanked by J.J. Thorn

This is the latest volume of The Weight of It All, a LitRPG series that I enjoy.

49) Christmas Core
50) Valentine Core by Jonathan Brooks

These are the first two volumes of a new DungeonCore series about an elderly man who dies, gets reincarnated as a dungeon core, and decides to make his dungeon holiday themed. It's not bad, but it's not super great, either.

51) The Primal Hunter by Zogarth

A litRPG that's transferring to Kindle from Royal Road. It's entertaining.

52) Eldritch Night by J.M. Hamm

This is a horror themed LitRPG from 2019 that despite seeming to be a setup for a series hasn't had a sequel. It's not the worst I've read, but it's not great either.

Oh yeah, I realized I forgot one:

53) Jessica Bannister and the Midnight Séance by Janet Farell

Much like the John Sinclair series that I've been reading, this book is a translation of a German horror pulp fiction series presented in a series of omnibus editions by light novel publisher J-Novel. This series follows Jessica Bannister, a reporter for the London City Observer who has psychic abilities (that she doesn't believe in) and tends to have encounters with crimes that have vaguely supernatural elements. In this book she goes to the seance of a reclusive writer who wants to know who murdered her daughter, interviews a country music singer who's being hunted by a Native American hitman who may have shamanic abilities, investigates a series of strange robberies committed by a stage magician, and looks into the death of a Welsh lord who was supposedly killed by a pack of wolves. It's a pretty fun series, and I'll probably read more of it at some point.

54) This Plot is Bananas! by J. P. Valentine
This is the final volume of the This Trilogy Is Broken LitRPG series. I didn't find it as funny as the previous volumes, but it did surprisingly manage to wrap up all the plot lines from the previous volumes and was a good read.

55) Villain Core by John Stovall

This is a dungeon core story with a super hero setting. The premise is that there are two warring alien empires who solve their problems by seeding planets with devices that give people super powers, and later on with dungeon cores. The super heroes and villains fight it out and whichever one wins determines whether or not the planet joins what is essentially the Federation or the evil empire. The story follows a newbie superhero who accidentally gets turned into a dungeon core when Earth's villains cheat and get word of cores' existences early and try to steal all of them. He ends up being the only dungeon available to train heroes. It's pretty good.

56) The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot

A Youtuber I follow kept recommending this book, so I decided to get a copy. As it's from 1991, I have no idea how dated the science of it is, but it's certainly an interesting take on the nature of reality.

57) She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man, vol. 2, by Ryusen Hirotsugu

I didn't like this quite as much as the first one.

58) Fall of a Dungeon House
59) Rise of a Dungeon House by John Stovall

These are the first two volumes of a fairly dark LitRPG series. It's pretty good though.

60) Edda Gaia and the Origins of Ragnarok by Ryan DeBruyn

Despite this being by an author I follow, I somehow missed that this book came out back in November. It's pretty good, and kind of interesting to see a LitRPG where the protagonist is pretty much a villain, even if most people don't seem to notice it in the book.

61) Tower Climber Terry by Deck Davis

This one just wasn't very good.

62) In Re: Sherlock Holmes by August Derleth

This is the first volume of a series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches featuring a knockoff detective called Solar Pons written by an author best known for being the main reason H. P. Lovecraft is still remembered today. They're okay. Not as good as the original conan Doyle stories, but not as bad as Derleth's Lovecraft pastiches.

63) Suburban Gothic by Brian Keene & Bryan Smith

This is a sequel to both Keene's Urban Gothic and Smith's The Freakshow in which the surviving freaks from both books have holed up inside an abandoned shopping mall and gruesomely murder a bunch of random people who stumble across them.

64) The Wolf in the Attic by Paul Kearney

This was the first book I decided on for the 2022 r/Fantasy book bingo. I read it for their Historical SFF square, but it also works for shapeshifters, urban fantasy, standalone, and family matters.

It's about a young girl who is a Greek refugee living in Oxford in the late 1920s. She leads a rather solitary life until one night she sneaks out of her house and goes walking around the countryside where she sees a young man knife a guy in self defense. It eventually turns out that he's a shapeshifter who lives in the wilds with his family who appear Romani, but are really something different. It's a rather well written story with the only disappointing thing in my opinion being the rather abrupt ending.

Number 64 sounds really good. I think you got me with that one!

65) Trojan Nightmare by Blaise Corvin

I read this one not planning to use it for my r/Fantasy bingo, only to discover that it would fit nicely in their Wibbly Wobbly timey Wimey Square (along with sever others) so I decided to use it.

This is book bills itself as a LitRPG/Cultivation hybrid novel, though there's really not anything I would identify as LitRPG in it. It is set in a world where something much like a system apocalypse has happened, where monsters suddenly appear and some people get powers that work much like RPG classes, but there's no actual system, no leveling up, no quests, etc. The story follows a guy who gained the ability to cultivate, and is the only survivor of an ambush that leaves him stranded on a demon world where a series of events leads to time being reset with him reappearing just as the apocalypse begins. Unfortunately, he gets caught in what's called the Purple Rain and turns into a zombie, but he keeps his soul somehow and learns to cultivate monster energy, so he can use his new powers to save the world. It's nothing great, but it is a decently fun adventure.

66) He Who Fights With Monsters 5 by Shirtaloon

As with the previous volume the action still takes place in "our world but with secret magical societies and monsters" instead of the fantasy world the first three volumes were set in. In this one, the secret societies and monsters are less secret as the apocalypse has started and magic is out in the open. There's still no sign of exactly when the action will shift back to the fantasy world, which is annoying because that was way more fun. Still, this isn't bad.

67) Flex in the City by Eric Ugland

This is the 13th volume of The Good Guys, and in this one, Montana, the main character, has been called to the city of Glaton to vote on the next emperor. Of course, most of the book is more about him ripping monsters apart with his bare hands and being stupid, which is just as well, because the parts that are about imperial politics are incredibly dull.

68) The NPCs in This Village Sim Must Be Real! Vol. 3 by Hirukuma

This volume brings this light novel series about a thirty year old who goes from being a NEET (essentially an unemployed shut-in) to a functioning member of society because he starts playing a video game whose characters turn out to be real. In this volume a young girl from the game world has ended up in his world and he has to try and get her back home while avoiding evil rival players. Luckily, he has the help of the game's developers, who it turns out are gods. All in all, it was a good end to a good series.

69) The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories, Volume 2 ed. bye James D. Jenkins & Ryan Cagle

I don't think I enjoyed volume 2 quite as much as I did volume one, but this is still a fine collection of horror stories from around the world, most of which appear in English for the first time here.

70) Pendulum of Fate - Part 1 by Patrick Laplante

This is volume 14 of the cultivation fantasy series Painting the Mists. When you're 14 books into a series like this, it's hard to write even a mini review of it, so I'm not going to.

71) Chimera Summoner by Tracy Gregory

This is volume 4 of the deck based LitRPG series Goblin summoner. This one has the characters discover a new kind of card, which is essentially a fusion card from Yugioh, and then enter a tournament run by a bunch of animated Egyptian statues. It's a fun adventure, though the author really should have hired a proof reader or copy editor as it's completely riddled with spelling errors.

72) Equatorial by Ryan DeBruyn

After taking a long break and starting two other series in the meantime, DeBruyn has finally published the 4th volume of his Ether Collapse LitRPG series. I had some problems with the previous volume as I thought the main character has being annoyingly stupid and mopey. This time around, he gets over his mopeyness pretty quickly, but he's still kind of stupid at times. Still, it was a fun enough adventure, and it's good to have the series finally continue.

73) Veiled Empire by Nathan Garrison

This is one that I bought for the Kindle years ago, read a couple of chapters, then for some reason put it aside and never finished reading it. I suspect I stopped because it's a bit darker than what I normally like. It's not quite to grimdark levels, but not too far off either. I mainly picked it up again because one of this year's r/fantasy bingo squares is "Revolutions and Rebellions," which is the subject of this book. It's set in an evil empire that's sealed off from the rest of the world by a veil and is ruled by a group of immortal magic users. It's one of those stories where most of the characters have an ulterior motive and half of them seem to be a bit psycho. It's not a bad book, but it's also not really my sort of thing.

74) The Neville Collection by Neville Goddard

One of the Reddit groups I follow recommends Neville a lot, so I thought I would give this a shot. Now to see if I can manifest anything.

75) First Fist by T. J. Reynolds

This is a cultivation fantasy novel. It's interesting in that instead of using the vaguely like ancient China setting most of these books use, this has more of a vaguely medieval Europe setting. It's not bad.

Congrats on hitting 75!

>45 yoyogod: Congratulations on reaching 75, Nathan!

>46 drneutron: & >47 FAMeulstee: Thanks!

76) Countdown by Michael Atamanov

This is another LitRPG, but from Russia this time. It has an interesting premise, but as with so many of the Russian LitRPGs I've read, it comes across as a bit too cringey and sexist.

77) Raiders: The Secret War by Simon Haynes

This is one that I bought for the Kindle a long time ago due to being a big fan of the author's Hal Spacejock sci-fi/comedy series, but never got around to reading. This is more of a militar sci-fi than a comic one, though it does have some humerous moments mostly caused by the main character's behavior reminding me of the main character from Haynes's YA series Hal Junior. It involves a young cadet who's training for TechOps (directing fighter pilots) but really wants to be a pilot herself. After the ship transporting her to her brother's funeral comes under attack, she gets her chance to be a fighter pilot and proves to be very good at it. It's a fun enough book.

78) Dragon by Saladin Ahmed & Dave Acosta

This is a horror graphic novel that I backed on Kickstarter. It's about Dracula just after he became a vampire. It tells the story of a Janissary, a nun, and Dracula's brother who have to team up to prevent the undead from laying waste to Wallachia and Turkey. It was a very nice story.

79) Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson

This is another book that's been on my shelf for a while that I finally decided to read because of this year's r/fantasy book bingo. It's an old school fantasy from the 1960s about a guy from World War II who gets transported to a world that's like a medieval romance where people seem to think he's actually a legendary figure from the time of Charlemagne. It was a really good book.

Not only has it been a while since I updated this, but I haven't gotten much reading done lately:

80) Portal to Nova Roma by J. R. Matthews

This is a LitRPG in which a sentient AI, in a world where other AIs have wiped out humanity, decides to make a humanoid bio android body to inhabit and travels to an alternate reality where magic exists. That world is an alternate reality version of the Byzantine Empire that collapsed when the gods sacrificed themselves to make the world operate more like an RPG. It's an interesting variation.

81) Greed by Alex Raizman

This is volume 3 of the Dinosaur Dungeon series, which contains a crossover with the author's other series Factory of the Gods. It's pretty much what I would expect from the series with the dungeon getting stronger, new enemies showing up to be defeated, and new varieties of dinosaurs becoming available to be used as monsters. It's a fun story.

For some reason, I keep forgetting to update this list.

82) Casual Farming: A Slow Living LitRPG by Wolfe Locke & Mike Caliban

This is a slice of life LitRPG based on games like My Time in Portia where it's about fantasy farm management and interacting with odd locals. It was a nice change of pace.

83) Defiance of the Fall 5 by Thefirstdefier

This volume sees the main character finish climbing a tower for prizes and then finish off the undead invaders who are threatening the Earth. I like the series.

84) Reincarnated As a Sword, vol. 10 by Yuu Tanaka

This volume sees Fran and Teacher finishing their time in the Beastman Kingdom. We see Teacher getting repaired from the damage he suffered in the previous volume and find out a bit about his mysterious origins.

85) Limitless Seas, book 2 by Dean Henegar

This is the second volume of the series that's a follow up to Limitless Lands, which is one of my favorite completed LitRPG series. While I like this one, I don't like it as much as the previous series largely because the main character is a very unlikable person.

86) The Houndsman 3 by J. Pal

This took an interesting turn.

87) The Forgotten Core by John Stovall

I found this one a bit dull.

88) Vacationland by John Hodgman

I listened to the audiobook version of this, which is narrated by Hodgman himself. It's a drolly humorous book about his two vacation homes.

89) Operation: Patagonia by William Meikle

The fourteenth volume of the S-Squad series sees the squad going to South America where they encounter the legendary Patagonian giants, who are naturally cannibals. Like the rest of the series, it's fun, pulpy adventure.

90) Of Mice and Minestrone by Joe R. Lansdale

This is a collection of four short stories (and some recipes) featuring young Hap and Leonard. It's a nice collection.

91) Wizard's Tower by Gregory Allanther

This is a LitRPG about a half-elf wizard who gets tired of seeing all his friends die,as he lives in a human kingdom and half-elves live much longer lives than humans, so he attempts to retire to a solitary life of research in an isolated wizard's tower. It's a nice story that's a good change of pace from the standard LitRPG.

92) The Primal Hunter 2 by Zogarth

This is another action packed episode in an apocalyptic LitRPG featuring a socially awkward, borderline psychopathic character. In this one he finally finishes the tutorial and then spends some time messing around.

93) Pendulum of Fate - Part 2 by Patrick Laplante

This is volume 15 of the Painting the Mists cultivation fantasy series. In this one, the protagonist Cha Ming gets caught up in a war when a rival country attacks his friends. It's a good story, though it does end on a sad note.

94) A Late-Start Tamer’s Laid-Back Life: Volume 1 by Yuu Tanaka

This volume one in another light novel series by the author of Reincarnated as a Sword. This one follows a salaryman who starts playing a new VR MMORPG as a monster tamer. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Bofuri in that it's a relaxed story about someone playing a VR MMO in an unusual way that seems weak but isn't while having fun and somehow becoming a notable player. It's a lot of fun, and I've already started book 2.

95) True Indie by Don Coscarelli

I love the Phantasm movies and Bubba Ho Tep, so it's not to surprising that I loved the memoir by the director who brought them, and a lot of other movies, to life. It was interesting to hear about the struggles he went through to get those movies, which are now considered horror classics, made. It was also interesting to hear about the tribulations he went through making Beastmaster, and I especially liked hearing about the really cool sounding movies that never quite got made like Phantasm 1999 and Bubba Nosferatu.

96) Moonlight Relic by David North

This is volume 3 of Guardian of Aster Fall.

97) Portal to Nova Roma: Venice by J. R. Mathews

In the second volume of this LitRPG series, which features an AI who built himself a bio-android body and went through a portal to another universe that's an alternate version of medieval Europe where magic exists so he could have adventures, our hero Alexander travels to Venice, which is under attack by pirates. While fighting the pirates, he ends up a castaway on the shores of northern Africa, which has become infested with demons. It's fun.

98) The Tao of Igor by John Kovalik

This is the much delayed 10th volume of the collected Dork Tower comic books. It was left on a cliffhanger for ten years or so when the Kickstarter was announced four years ago. I backed it despite not having read volumes 1-9, because I have been reading the webcomic version. It's very funny, though obviously also somewhat dated as the comics collected in it were original published over 15 years ago, other than the stuff that was written to resolve the cliffhanger the series ended on. Even so, it's still funny.

99) He Who fights with Monsters 6 by shirtaloon

This volume finally brings an end to the Earth arc of the series, which is good. what is less good is the turn personality of the MC, Jason, takes towards villaindom when promises to spare the lives of various enemies if they agree to work with him and then cold-bloodedly murders the lot of them.

100) Darktown Funk by Eric Ugland

This is the9th book in the LitRPG series The Bad Guys. This has the protagonist visiting a place nicknamed the City of Darkness where we discover that he has apparently never read A Midsummer Night's Dream.

101) Emyrean's Rise by Rohan M. Vider

This is a novella set in the world of The Grand Game, but written by another author than the main series and featuring different characters. This one is about a young woman who has to become a player in the game to save her brother's life.

102) Holmes of Kyoto: Volume 9

This is more mystery and romance featuring the art appraiser nicknamed Holmes of Kyoto. It was pretty good.

103) Dreadgod by Will Wight

This is the penultimate book in the Cradle series. It's very exciting.

104) Way of the Wolf by Tom Elliot

This is the sequel to The Grand Game LitRPG, which I read last year. This involves the protagonist sorting out the problems in a valley while discovering that he can become the scion of an ancient god called Wolf.

105) The Memoirs of Solar Pons by August Derleth

This is the second volume of the series of mystery stories about a Sherlock Holmes pastiche called Solar Pons. It's pretty good.

106) Cinnamon Bun by Ravensdagger

This is a LitRPG about a teenage girl who gets isekai-ed into a fantasy world and ends up with a weird non-combat class called Cinnamon bun that seems to center around cleaning, gardening, being cute, and jumping. This isn't a bad thing for her as she doesn't like fighting and her main goal is to make friends with everybody. It's funny and cute with the only downside being that the protagonist, who is improbably named Broccoli Bunch, can be a little annoying at times.

107) Spellbreaker by Charlie N. Holmberg

This is a book that I acquired years ago because it was a fantasy novel and part of Amazon's First Reads program, so I got it for free, but I never read it, because it didn't seem like my sort of fantasy. However, this year Amazon is doing a Summer Kindle Reading Challenge where I can earn badges, one of which was for reading a book from a summer reading list that included this book, so I finally read it. It's set in an alternate version of Victorian England where certain people, mostly nobles, have the ability to cast spells or to break them. The story follows two characters: a young woman, who is an unlicensed spellbreaker, who works for a secret organization that she believes fights for social justice; and a young man who is a half English/half Portuguese plantation owner from Barbados who has come to England to attain mastership in his physical aspecting (that's what they call magic). Overall, it was a bit more romancy than I generally like, but wasn't bad.

108) Top Hat Express
109) Black tie Villainy by Alex Wolf

These are the first 2 volumes of a LitRPG series called Vaudevillain about a guy playing a superhero themed RPG as a villain styled after the over-the-top, Saturday morning kids cartoon type of villain. He has a lot of fun doing it, and when the story is focused on him, I really like it. Unfortunately, the second volume spent way too much time following other character's exploits, which made it less fun than the first. Still, I plan to read volume 3 when it drops next month.

110) The Arnite Empire by Gary Spechko

This is volume 3 of the LitRPG series The Hero of the Valley. It's been quite a while since the last volume of the series, so I can't remember my thoughts on it, but this one was a bit dull. For starters, it took way too long for the main plot of the book, about an evil highlander clan and their pseudo-viking mercenaries causing trouble, and even when that started up the hero felt way too overpowered for it and pretty much just stomped through all his opposition. Still, it wasn't bad, and I'll probably read the next volume when it comes out.

111) Purge of a Dungeon House by John Stovall

This is the third book in the City of Masks LitRPG series. Frankly, I thought the author's obsession with menage a trois was starting to get a bit creepy in this one.

112) The Raven Spell by Luanne G. Smith

This is another book that I read solely to get a badge in Amazon's summer Kindle reading challenge thing. This is a historical fantasy mystery set in late Victorian London. It features a pair of witch sisters who scavenge the banks of the Thames for things to sell in their shop, and one of them also likes to steal the memories of the dying and recently deceased, but this time she steals the memory of a private detective who doesn't actually die and is investigating a missing persons case and is tied up in a serial killer investigation. It was a pretty decent book.

113) Chrysalis: The Antventure Begins by RinoZ

This is the first volume of a LitRPG series that's pretty much a knockoff of So I'm a Spider, So What?, only with the main character being an ant instead of a spider. It's not as good as the original, but still isn't really bad.

114) Bondsfungi by Sarah Lin

This is the fifth book in The Weirkey Chronicles series, in which people build houses inside their souls to get stronger. Oddly enough, this book is also mostly about ants, or insect people that are modeled after ants anyway. It's pretty good.

115) Casual Farming 2 by Wolfe Locke & Mike Caliban

This book features villains who try to destroy a small town by bringing in the fantasy equivalent of Walmart. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the first Casual farming, but it was still okay.

116) Invent by Dakota Krout

This is the latest book in The Completionist Chronicles. Frankly I just felt this one was a bit mediocre. I'll still pick up the next volume when it comes out, but I hope it's better than this one.

Seems like I've been forgetting to update again. I hope I can remember everything I've read in the past couple of weeks.

117) The Nothing Mage
118) Untolled
119) Syzygy by J. P. Valentine

This is a fairly dark fantasy series written by the author of the comic litRPG series This Trilogy is Broken. It's set in a world where magic exists on a spectrum akin to the electromagnetic spectrum. Most people's magic exists in the range equivalent to that of visible light. The protagonist is an unheard of exception with magic in the deadly radiation end of the spectrum. He discovers this when he accidentally kills a former friend turned bully and cripples two other former friends. From there, he becomes one of the most powerful mages in the world, gets manipulated by fairies, discovers he's the subject of a "save the world" prophecy, commits some war crimes, commits regicide (with a lot of innocent victims caught in the crossfire), commits genocide, and murders a friend. It was an interesting book.

120) The Hedge Wizard by Alex Maher

This is a fantasy that bills itself as a LitRPG, but isn't. It's not bad, but not all that great either.

121) Gilded Ghost by Kyle Kirrin

This is the third book in The Ripple System LitRPG series. It was enjoyable enough.

122) Defiance of the Fall 6 by TheFirstDefier

This is another continuation of a LitRPG that I enjoy.

Once again, I've been forgetting to update this:

123) Monsters and Legends
124 The Price of Power
125) The Centennial Tournament
126) The Empire by Ivan Kal

These are the currently released volumes of a LitRPG/Cultivation fantasy hybrid series called Infinite Realm. It's one of the few attempts to combine the two that actually works fairly well. It's a post-apocalyptic story set in a world where humanity was given a system that forced people to gain power through a choice of an RPG style class, a cultivation style Path, or by gaining Skills. After ten years of this, the ten thousand strongest members of humanity were supposed to move on to the Infinite Realm, but one member of humanity went a bit insane, turned genocidal, and wiped out all but one other human, who has sworn to get revenge on the monster who used to be his best friend. The series follows these two, and a few side characters, in the Infinite Realm. It's entertaining enough.

127) Cane Whirling Lunacy by Alex Wolf

This is the third and I believe final volume of the Vaudevillain LitRPG series. This one largely revolves around attempting to blow up the moon.

128) Irrelevant Jack 6 by Prax Venter

Not much to say about this one really.

129) The Primal Hunter 3 by Zogarth

This is the continuing story of Jake (not to be confused with Jacob who is also a character in the series since book one who was so named because the author didn't realize Jake was a shortened version of Jacob and never heard the advise against giving characters really similar names) who spends most of hist time hunting the local fauna (and occasionally flora) to gain levels.

130) Cat Core, book 3: Road Trip by Dean Henegar

This is the continuing story of an elderly cat lady (of the owns too many cat variety not the is a cat variety) who dies, came back as a cat themed dungeon, died again, came back as an old woman again, died again, came back as a dungeon again, died another time, and came back as an old woman who is also a dungeon and was given a quest to hunt down a lich.

Once again I somehow kept forgetting to update my list for nearly two weeks.

131) Chrysalis 2: Upping the Ante by RinoZ

This is the second volume of a series that's highly derivative of So I'm a Spider, So What?. This is about the ant colony escaping from the dungeon and having adventures on the surface world. It's pretty good.

132) He Who Fights with Monsters 7 by Shirtaloon

This is volume seven of the LitRPG series with my second least favorite main character, despite which I actually really like the series. This volume has the boring Earth saga end and has the action move back to its fantasy world setting, which is good. The bad is that the main character spends the book acting like a whiny, emo teenager who lashes out at any authority figure he encounters when he isn't busy moping. It still manages to be decent.

133) Ascension Core by John Stovall

This is the second volume of a dungeon core series set in a world where aliens have created dungeons on Earth to train superheroes and villains to fight each other as part of the aliens' war effort. It's okay, I guess.

134) Casual Farming 3 by Wolfe Locke & Mike Caliban

This is the weakest entry in this series. It has two boring, unrelated plots running simultaneously. The first involves the area being invaded by Juun Bugs, which despite the name are more like locusts. The second plot involves the main character preparing for his wedding which involves inviting his mother who as it turns out is mad at him for not writing for two years especially because his father was crippled in an accident and since he never responded to her letters, which he never received due to the local constable being incompetent, she believes he abandoned the family in their time of need and tries to steal his farm in retaliation. The whole thing is pointlessly convoluted and drawn out. Really, it would have worked better as a pair of short stories instead of a whole novel.

135) These Fists Break Bricks by Grady Hendrix & Chris Poggiali

This is an interesting book on the history of Kung Fu movies in America, focusing their height of popularity in the 70s and 80s. It's not a topic I'm normally interested in, but since I loved Hendrix's Paperbacks From Hell and I had an Audible credit that I needed to use, I thought I'd give it a shot. It was well worth it with my only complaint being that the editing of the narration could have been better.

136) So I'm a Spider, So What? vol. 14 by Okina Baba

This is cranking up towards the end of the series. In this volumet, we finally get all the back story of the events that led to the world working like an RPG, and we get to se the final battle with one of the series' main villains, the evil elf Potimas. Now I just have to wait for the final volume.

Wow, it looks like I've been forgetting to update this yet again.

137) A Late-Start Tamer's Laid-Back Life: Volume 4 by Yuu Tanaka

This is the lastest volume in an incredibly chill LitRPG about a guy playing as a monster tamer in a VRMMO, and by chance he keeps taming ridiculously cute monsters. Lots of fun.

138) Heaven's Laws - Prodigies by Apollos Thorne

This was a pretty generic cultivation fantasy about a couple of young people who are prodigies at cultivation, but in different ways.

139) Implode by Dakota Krout

This is the latest volume of Completionist Chronicles. It's a series that's getting a bit tedious, but I will still continue with it.

140) The Tower Unbroken by Michael Nwanolue

This is one that I picked up because r/Fantasy's book bingo has a "Set in Africa" square this year, and this is a cultivation fantasy that swaps its setting from pseudo-ancient China to pseudo-Africa. It was a fun, fast paced story that was a bit too derivative of Cradle.

141) Shades of Fear ed. by Ashanti Fortson and Allison O'Toole

This is probably the most disappointing book I've gotten off of Kickstarter. It's a horror comics anthology. Unfortunately, most of the stories were more weird and confusing than scary. The ones that weren't confusing were mostly ridiculously cliched. On top of that, I really didn't care for most of the art styles.

142) the Silence of Unworthy Gods by Andrew Rowe

This is the latest book in the Arcane Ascension series. It was pretty good. I thought it dragged a bit in the middle, but that ending was great.

143) Tongue Eater by John Bierce

This is the latest, and penultimate, novel in the Mage Errant series. This one dealt heavily with the multiverse that lays beyond the main world of the story and ends on a cliffhanger. It was good, but a lot of it felt almost like padding.

144) Heartforge by Patrick Laplante

This is volume 16 of the Painting the Mists cultivation fantasy series. This one has our hero taking part in an otherworldly contest to heal his damaged soul. It's good.

145) Savage Webs by Blaise Corvin

This is part of another cultivation fantasy series, Apocalypse Cultivation. It's okay. The main problem is that it is badly in need of copy editing. Even by the fairly low standards of these self published fantasy novels I've been reading this one has a lot of mistakes.

146) Astral Threads by David North

This is the fourth book in the Guardian of Aster Fall series. I thought it wasn't quite as good as the previos books in the series, but it still wasn't bad.

147) Operation Orkney by William Meikle

This is the 15th book in the S-Squad military horror series. It's not often you see silkies (more commonly called selkies I think, but Meikle went with silkies) used as monsters in a horror novel. It made for a nice change.

148) Defiance of the Fall 7 by TheFirstDefier

This one got a bit dark with the main character getting separated from all of his friends and family, possibly for a long long time.

149)Endarkened Spire by Ryan DeBruyn

This is volume 2 of the System Misinterpret cultivation fantasy series. It's generally good, but it's kind of annoying the way the main character randomly alternates between being stupid and intelligent.

150) The Sandcats of Rhyl by Robert E Vardeman

This is a 1970s era sci-fi action novel that bought in ebook format years ago for reasons that I no longer remember. I finally got around to reading it because r/Fantasy's book bingo this year includes a "Weird Ecology" square and this book is set on a desert planet. It's about a pair of space bodyguards who board a wrecked ship to look for salvage and find a deceased archaeologist's journal which mentions finding something big on Rhyl, without going into any detail. The pair swipe the journal and use the go to Rhyl so they can go to Rhyl and loot the archaeological discovery. The archaeologist's daughter hires a pair of even more disreputable mercenaries to chase after our protagonists. It all ends in a very macho confrontation in a lost city inhabited by telepathic cat-like creature. It's the sort of thing that I'd describe as being okay, I guess.

>73 yoyogod: Congratulations on reaching 2 x 75, Nathan!

>74 FAMeulstee: Thanks

151) The World Nexus by Tom Elliot

This is volume 3 of The Grand Game LitRPG series. It's okay. My only gripe with it is that I really wish that if the author was going to make wolves and wolf packs such an important part of the series, I really wish he'd have taken the time to do some basic research on the subject instead of spouting off nonsense about packs being lead by an alpha male, which has been debunked for decades.

152) Wizard's Tower 2 by Gregory Allanther

This is volume 2 of a LitRPG lite series about a half elf wizard who just wants to retire to his tower and work on longevity spell so he doesn't have to watch all his human friends get old and die. Unfortunately for him, the kingdom just went to war, there's a horde of giant monsters getting ready to destroy the world, and the kingdom's leadership is part of an evil conspiracy, so he doesn't get much time to work on longevity.

153) A Dragon's Chains by Robert Vane

This is a fantasy novel that I read because its protagonist is a dragon, and r/fantsy's book bingo has a "non-human protagonist" square this year. It reminds me a bit of the Temeraire series, except that it's high fantasy instead of historical fantasy and the dragons are slaves that are mind controlled through stolen magic. It's told from the POV of a dragon who has just broken free of his mind control. It's all about how he attempts to escape from his human captors and free his fellow dragons. It's pretty good.

154) Conquering New Earth by Han Yang

This on the other hand was most definitely not a good book. I'd more call it a mediocre book that was marred by a distinct lack of an editor. It's another one of the numerous LitRPG books where aliens transform Earth into an RPG for reasons that never really make much sense. The only thing to distinguish it from every other book in the genre is that the main character is a woman who had both of her feet amputated after a childhood accident, and that the author doesn't seem to know the difference between milling/mulling and dawning/donning (among many other misused words and weird sentence choices).

155) Vigil's Justice by James A. Hunter

This is an isekai LitRPG about a marine who buys it after jumping on a grenade to save his squad and is offered the chance to live again in another world by the god Raguel. It's a fun enough action story.

156) The Return of Solar Pons by August Derleth

This is the third book in the Solar Pons series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. It's a fine enough collection with the only oddity being that there is one story in which Fu Manchu is mentioned as being a fictional character and another in which he actually puts in an appearance.

Thank you as always for books, thank you for this group and thanks for you. Have a lovely day, Nathan.

157) Vigil's Valor by James Hunter

This is volume 2 of Vigil Bound. I didn't think it was quite a s good as the first, but it was still okay.

158) The Hedge Wizard 2 by Alex Maher

This too was okay, but not as good as the first volume in the series.

159) Goblinkin by Tracy Gregory

This is volume 5 of Goblin Summoner, a card game based LitRPG. This was fun.

160) So You Want to Live the Slow Life? A Guide to Life in the Beastly Wilds, Volume 2 by Fuurou

I just love this laid back series. As with the previous volume, there's a lot about food preservation and cooking. This volume is mostly about the human lead accidentally proposing to his chipmunk assistant and just deciding to go with it when she accepts. It's so cute.

161) War Core, Book 3: Earth Siege by Dean Henegar

This is a LitRTS series. This one is about the defense of Earth from a race of space dinosaurs.

And somehow I've once again gone two weeks without updating my list.

162) The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: A Field Guide to Japanese Yokai by Matthew Mayer

This is an interesting book on Japanese folkloric monsters.

163) Return of the Living Elves by Brian Asman

This was a funny Christmas Horror novel that was a parody of one of my favorite horror movies of all time, Return of the Living Dead.

164) Empire of Cards by Andrew Karevik
This was an okay book that read like somebody's D&D adventure only where the main character fights by capturing spirits in cards.

165) Primal hunter 4 by Zogarth

This is the 4th Primal Hunter book. Like the reat it's mostly about the main character killing monsters and doing alchemy.

166) Goddess by J. J. Thorn

This was frankly a rather disappointing conclusion to The Weight of It All.

167) Casual Farming 4 by Wolfe & Caliban

This was almost painfully dull. The first three volumes of the series all had a background story about a threat to the local town--via an evil dungeon guild, a corrupt businessman, or a plague of locusts--on top of a story about the main character working on his farm. This one forgoes the exciting background story in favor of focusing on the MC's first year of marriage and how his wife is suffering from chronic depression.

Looks like I have 1 final batch of books to close out the year:

168) Crystal Awakening by Kayleigh Nicol

This is a book written in the world of Andrew Rowe's various fantasy series, which, as seems to be a trend in the LitRPG world, he's slapped his name on as a coauthor even if, as far as I can tell, he didn't actually do any of the writing. This is a bout a group of climbers doing a tower run. It's okay, though the ending was kind of a downer.

169) All the Skills by Honour Rae

This is a quasi-LitRPG set in a world where people can get magic cards that give them powers. It's about a young boy who gets a legendary card that lets him learn skills faster. It's also okay.

170) Chrysalis 3: Antelligent Design by RinoZ

This is the 3rd volume of a series about a guy who gets reincarnated as an ant monster in an RPG-like world. This one was pretty good.

171) The Vampire; Or Detective Brand's Greatest Case by ???

This is an early 20th century dime novel that was published anonymously. It's current reprinting presents it as America's First Vampire Novel, though it's really more of a "vampire" novel as it's one of those books where all of the seemingly supernatural elements get explained away. It has a combination of not being terribly well written and being very culturally dated that makes it not as fun to read as I would have hoped.

172) A Hundred Horrible Sorrows of Ogner Stump by Andrew Goldfarb

This is a collection of really weird indie comics that was sitting on my wish list for years until I saw that it was on sale really cheap. It's pretty much what the title says, and it's kind of trippy. It's pretty good.

173) New Arcadia Revolution by Eric Jason Martin

This is my most recent ER win, and is a sequel to the book New Arcadia: Stage One, which I won last year. This volume picks up right where the previous volume left off with our heroes trying to beat the game, because if they can the Chum corporation will use it to re-socialize humanity and will release a cure for the deadly disease that's kept everyone isolated for years. In this volume, the game rolls out a Dance Dance Revolution style alternative way to play, which our heroes must learn to defeat the evil executive intent on stopping the game project. It's good fun.

174) Clickers Never Die by Stephen Kozeniewski & Wile E. Young

This book is the first in a series that is trying to reboot the horror series Clickers. This is an alternate history of the battle of Guadalcanal in which the Japanese made a deal with the Dark Ones and managed to bioengineer a new variety of kamikaze Clickers. It also has a framing story set in 2020 in which a Jacques Cousteau knockoff buys a Clicker on the black market and goes on a quest to use it to regain scientific credibility so he can persuade Donald Trump (who is still president in the book) to end global warming. I enjoyed this a lot.

174! That’s a pretty good number!