What are you reading in 2025?

[Nellisir]

I actually just finished Children of Memory by Tchaikovsky, and it was my least favorite of the three novels in the series. I agree with @Nellisir that his character work can sometimes let him down, and I felt that pretty acutely in this book.

Where I thought it was possible to read Children of Time and Children of Ruin primarily for the conceptual stuff, and Tchaikovsky does just enough character work to keep the books engaging, this one deëmphasized the conceptual stuff to such a degree that the character work had to carry a lot more. And it ended up that I didn't find Liff, Miranda, or Kern particularly compelling either in motivation or characterization such that they could carry the novel in place of the conceptual stuff, even if their selection was entirely appropriate thematically and narratively. Gothi and Gethli were fun but also a little thinly drawn, such that I wondered if he really had a solid fitting in the ideas he was trying to explore regarding sentience. Ultimately, I can imagine and respect that Tchaikovsky might not have wanted to do another first contact story, but I would've been grateful to spend more time with the Corvids on Rourke.

This. I, for whatever reason, don't sympathize with his characters. Some of the spiders were good, actually, but beyond that.... The concepts are interesting but the books just don't engage me a lot.

 

[cbwjm]

This. I, for whatever reason, don't sympathize with his characters. Some of the spiders were good, actually, but beyond that.... The concepts are interesting but the books just don't engage me a lot.

I read children of time back when it was released, I found it engaging but didn't actually realise it was going to be the first of a series. I actually felt the ending was perfect and didn't need a sequel, just humanity and spiders working together and heading off into the stars.

 

[Autumnal]

David Seddon, who narrates the audiobook version of Robert Rath’s The Fall Of Cadia, is having all kinds of fun with the demon voices. He makes them sound really eerie and downright unwholesome. Also, Rath does a fantastic job juggling a very large cast characters. Not the biggest I’ve ever seen - I read Shogun and histories of World Wars I and II - but right up there. Also also, he does well giving characters’ fates open even though we know the overall story ends with one less Cadia and one more Great Rift in the universe than when it began. A bit past halfway through and having a fine time.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I read children of time back when it was released, I found it engaging but didn't actually realise it was going to be the first of a series. I actually felt the ending was perfect and didn't need a sequel, just humanity and spiders working together and heading off into the stars.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I read Children of Time, and I couldn't put it down. It was so surprising. Though I don't regret reading the others, despite my misgivings about Children of Memory, I think I would've been happy had Tchaikovsky left things off then.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I read children of time back when it was released, I found it engaging but didn't actually realise it was going to be the first of a series. I actually felt the ending was perfect and didn't need a sequel, just humanity and spiders working together and heading off into the stars.

Sometimes books like that I think - his first book sold well enough that they came to him and said "wanna do a sequel and get paid for it? Or maybe you've got a trilogy in you?" And he said yes; but while writing that first book perhaps it wasn't intended to be a trilogy.

 

[jian]

I read children of time back when it was released, I found it engaging but didn't actually realise it was going to be the first of a series. I actually felt the ending was perfect and didn't need a sequel, just humanity and spiders working together and heading off into the stars.

I agree. I was happy with the sequels (especially the octopi) but they weren’t necessary. The first book was superb, though, practically the archetypal Tchaikovsky sci-fi novel - dystopia to utopia in a few millennia.

 

[overgeeked]

The Swords and Sorcery anthology is really throwing up some duds.

I stopped reading Fritz Lieber’s When the Sea King’s Away because he was explaining that a story was happening, with endless asides and bizarre flashbacks, instead of...you know...telling a story. That’s the 3rd or 4th time I’ve been bored into dropping a Lieber story. Maybe he’s just not for me.

Any Lieber fans have any action-adventure, pulse-pounding yarns of his to suggest? Every one of his I’ve tried so far has just been boring. Page after page after page and nothing happens.

Moved on to the next yarn in the collection, The Doom That Came to Sarnath by H. P. Lovecraft. And, despite generally loving his writing, I also dropped it like it was hot. It’s just a really long description of Sarnath with a few bits of story elements thrown in. So I skipped it. I’m sure I’ve read it before and finished it.

Next up was a Jirel of Joiry story by C. L. Moore. A few pages in and all I know is that Jirel is on a horse, on a hill overlooking a castle, and she really hates someone named Guy of Garlot. It’s a really involved horse. And a really involved hill. And she really hates that dude, Guy of Garlot. But nothing’s happening. Maybe I'll take another run at this one in a few days.

 

[Voadam]

Any Lieber fans have any action-adventure, pulse-pounding yarns of his to suggest? Every one of his I’ve tried so far has just been boring. Page after page after page and nothing happens.

Sorry, I was a fan but its been 30 years for me since I read them so the specifics have faded. I do remember really liking the one where Fafhrd accidentally becomes a hungover avatar of Issek of the Jug though.

I remember thinking the much later written ones where he gets a bit more graphic about S&M sex were the ones that lost the sword and sorcery track a bit into adult/mature fantasy.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Any Lieber fans have any action-adventure, pulse-pounding yarns of his to suggest?

I don't really think there is much action (i.e. fighting) in them. The early ones are more wry near-comedy. You can see how Pratchett took inspiration from them.

 

[overgeeked]

As a bit of a palate cleanser I reread George Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language. It’s a great essay on soft language, though I still prefer George Carlin’s take on the same or similar topic.