Sunday, September 15, 2013

So long and thanks for all the fish!


Not the book by Douglas Adams, although I did read it years ago, and I do like the song from the film that came out also years ago now.

I've been thinking about winding the blog up for a while now and the break from it all (I had a European holiday) kind of decided me. The books to be reviewed piled up and I just couldn't bring myself to review them.

I started this whole thing about four years ago largely built on the idea of reading and rereading Dave Sim's epic graphic novel Cerebus the Aardvark (remember him? He appears as my avatar on the right hand side). Partway through that I decided to also have the occasional off topic post and then that turned into reviewing the books I was reading, that eventually made the blog into a review blog.

So why stop it now? There are a few reasons. I don't get much traffic, I never have, hardly anyone reads this and while I never started it to garner followers I do kind of like to feel that there's someone out there who gets something out of this and I don't feel that there is.

It's become a bit of a chore. I find myself reading a book and wondering how I'm going to review it and I'm just tired of that. I want to just read, enjoy the book for what it is and then move onto the next one.

Finally I don't really think I'm very good at it. I can tell you about a book what I liked about it and what I didn't and why, but I don't seem to be able to adequately convey that in about a page worth's of review.

You may see another blog by me in the near future. I write, I think nearly every fantophile has an inner writer, and I have aspirations of one day being published (also the dream of many a fantophile). I wrote a YA fantasy adventure called Realmspace. I'm going to attempt to get that represented and published. I think having a place on the 'net to write about that and how the book came about might be a fun thing to do and read about and it will also promote the work a little bit.

I don't regret this although it's probably not what I ever thought it would be and it never reached any great heights, having neither highs nor lows. It let me finally finish Cerebus right to the bitter end, and the end was rather bitter as it turned out. It gave me the ability to read more critically and I think it's helped with my own writing.

To everyone who followed me or commented on a post, linked to a review or even lurked here I thank you. It was appreciated.

Elfy.