I’ve gone over a few times the gradual collapse in my pleasure of reading. I’ve blamed the fact that I spend so much of my time writing and editing that I cannot approach a book without my editing head pointing out continuity errors or simply saying, ‘Well, I wouldn’t have done that’. I’ve blamed the psychological outfall of watching my wife die of bowel cancer. I’ve blamed the internet and easy sugar hit of mental entertainment from the social media.

And I’ve also blamed the rise of woke in fiction whereby political stance seems more important to the writer than actually being entertaining. Yeah mate, you’ve made that character black/gay/Muslim not because that is any part of your experience of life, not because it’s important to the plot and not because it’s interesting, but because you’ve kowtowed to social pressure and felt you should – because you feel the need to signal your virtue to the world through your writing. It’s annoying and distracting, and as much of an off switch as it is in the worlds of TV and film.

Whichever of these had the most effect on me, I don’t know. Every now and again over the past ten years I’ve picked up a book and it’s grabbed hold of me. It has suspended my disbelief and taken me on an entertaining ride. These books have been rare and I was kinda resigned to never recovering the joy of reading I had many decades ago when, frankly, getting life stuff done was of secondary importance to crashing somewhere with a good book. But it now seems that has changed.

Devon Eriksen started it this year with Theft of Fire – my previous blog post is about that. I should also add that this is not a book from a major publisher. It’s also a book utterly lacking in woke and simply packed with story and entertainment. Having read that, I wanted more of the same and was thinking that maybe it is the woke stuff that’s shitting on the writing world. Maybe the whole publishing world is simply pushing down great writers because of their politics. So, with that in mind, I turned to another writer who in his social media posts is aggressively NOT selling racial division, pronouns and the whole alphabet soup of gender politics: Larry Correia.

To be honest I was a little bit worried about this. I like the guy’s ‘take no shit’ attitude and absolute contempt of left wing politics but, maybe that would be as wearing in fiction as the stuff from the other end of the political spectrum. And maybe he would just be a crappy writer. But nothing ventured nothing gained and, anyway, a few quid for a Kindle copy of Monster Hunter International wasn’t a big commitment. The book started with a guy faced with his boss turning into a werewolf, fighting him and tossing him out the window of an office block, and I was in.

I read that book in a couple of days then ordered the next and the next. He’s not proselytising or virtue signalling here. Some of the writer obviously comes through, but these books are fun, entertaining, and full of great characters and great stories. I read my way through nine books of that series. I would do my writing in the day, do my exercise and then come the evening it was sofa time with a good book. Social media became something I would do when not sprawled on the sofa, when I was sitting up and eating, or drinking a cup of coffee – just marking time till I could get back into THE BOOK.

With the Monster Hunter series drawing to a close I started getting a bit anxious, but no problem: I continued with Correia because he simply had not disappointed. Next I picked up his Hard Magic trilogy and it was excellent. These were alternative history books, which is usually not my bag but, as a certain comedian once said, ‘It’s the way you tell ‘em’. After that I stepped into his Sons of the Black Sword and was reminded of those fantasy books I inhaled in my early years. And he still has more books I can dive into because, well, he delivers.

Short stories by other writers in Monster Hunter Files focused my attention on those guys. I really enjoyed one by Jim Butcher (he was channelling Mason’s Rats) and did a little research, realising he’d written The Dresden Files which I’d seen as a Netflix thing and enjoyed. This set me on another reading jag and I read through that series (something like sixteen books). If anything this writer leans in the other direction politically to Correia but it’s about a writer having fun, concentrating on story and being entertaining. And now, having polished off books at a rate of one every two or three days over the last few months, I’m coming to the conclusion that whatever brought about my reading hiatus has ended. Whatever mental block might have been there is gone and it certainly helps that I’ve started to find the good stuff.

Books are back on the menu, boys!